Friday, February 20, 2015
Whiskey Shortage? What Whiskey Shortage?
Readers of this space know I don't have much patience with clickbait "whiskey shortage" claims, but I haven't broken it down like I do in my guest post today on the Whisky Advocate Blog. There you can see how both The Tennessean and The Wall Street Journal managed to get 'shortage' into the headline of a story about something else entirely.
About the nascent Spanish-American War, newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst famously wrote to one of his photographers in 1898, "You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war." Modern journalists have decided they don't need the war, just mention of it in the headline. Since the click is the prize, the story doesn't matter.
Not that fake, bullshit stories about a non-existent whiskey crises really hurt anyone. They're just more fake, bullshit stories in a world full of them. And we're throwing out a little bait ourselves, since next week my good friend Fred Minnick will argue that there is a whiskey shortage.
Whisky Advocate magazine is America’s leading whisky magazine and I'm proud to be in their pages from time to time, as well as guest blogging for them. With bourbon now the fastest growing distilled spirits category worldwide, maybe America's leading whiskey magazine, which is based in America and edited by Americans, should consider spelling 'whiskey' the American way, with an 'e.'
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-29/drink-world-4-companies-control-global-whiskey-production
ReplyDeleteWell, considering that somewhere between 70-80% of the entire worlds whiskey is produced either by a foreign company, or in a foreign country, I am actually surprised there are any "e's" at all.
I'm just waiting for the 12 year old Chinese whisk"e"y to hit our shores from those pesky distilleries that were opened over the past 3-4 years.
Where do you get 70-80%? That graph lists brand names, not sales volume. Jack Daniels is one of the largest whiskeys in the world.
ReplyDeleteAnd Suntory purchasing Jim Beam doesn't make the product foreign. The same people in the U.S. are still making the same product, only their landlord changed.
Love it. Keep repeating nonsense until it's accepted by the masses as a fact.
ReplyDeleteThis is how Edward Barnays was able to tap the subconscious of those who deep down love to be part of something. He got women to smoke by convincing them they had a right to.
It's easy, use the press to plant the idea that the desire for people to spend money in an irrational manner is good for them in so many ways.
I mean, why not use the passing of Mr Single Barrel himself, E.T. Lee, as a kick starter to the perverse campaign? It's a proven formula.
Yes and No.
ReplyDeleteCan I still buy whiskey? YES. my local liquor purveyor is well stocked with American whiskey, despite being in Canada....
Can I still buy good whiskey? YES. Makers mark is readily available, as is JDSB, Woodford Reserve, and recently, 4R 1B. so, I am not hurting myself with rotgut.
Can I get the whiskeys I used to get, or similar? NO. a whole bunch have gone away. Notably to me, no 101 Wild turkey, or evan Williams SB. (or age statement bourbon, generally, but that is the next point.)
Can I get old bourbon, reliably? NO. The only age statement bourbon I can find reliably is Eagle Rare (10 year old). and they have removed the 10 ya, from the front of the bottle. not long for the world, I think.
So the answer is "yes and no". I can get bourbon, in fact, MORE good bourbon than I could before. but a bunch of the older stuff? gone. never to be seen again.
Ricjk