The Bourbon de Luxe Brand Is Back in the Hands of the Wathen Family

 

Bourbon de Luxe Batch 2024-01, by Rolling Fork Spirits.

I became aware of Bourbon de Luxe in the early 1990s. I was helping Jim Beam Brands absorb the National Distillers portfolio it acquired a few years earlier. Before National, Beam was essentially a one-brand company. National brought a massive portfolio with a surfeit of “cats and dogs,” the industry term for small, regional brands. 

National’s portfolio had products in most distilled spirits categories including about 60 American whiskeys; bourbons, ryes, and blends. The plan was to keep a few (Old Grand-Dad, Old Crow, Old Overholt), sell what they could, and discontinue the rest. Bourbon de Luxe was part of a small group Beam kept but didn’t support. It eventually died of natural causes.

I recall Bourbon de Luxe because the name and label design caught my eye. It was a “value” brand (i.e., cheap), so the “deluxe” part made me snicker, along with the affected, frenchified spelling and vaguely Spanish design, which makes sense now that I know the brand had roots in Texas.

I learned that because Bourbon de Luxe has been revived, as an 8-year-old super premium bourbon ($65). The liquid is sourced from an unnamed Kentucky distillery. It’s only available on Seelbach’s right now, but that could change.

Bourbon de Luxe found its way into National’s portfolio via the American Medicinal Spirits Company (AMS), the largest Prohibition-era consolidation warehouse and medicinal whiskey seller. National was a roll-up of many pre-Prohibition distilleries and brands, but its two biggest pieces were AMS and what was left of the notorious Whiskey Trust. Richard “Dick” Wathen was president of AMS and became a senior executive at National. He was the last “Whiskey Wathen” until Turner Wathen teamed with Jordan Morris to revive Bourbon de Luxe.

The Wathens were among the Catholic families who migrated to Kentucky from Maryland beginning in the late 18th century, populating what became known as the Kentucky Holy Lands, specifically the counties of Nelson, Marion, and Washington. 

The Wathen family patriarch was Henry. He came west in 1787 at age 21. A successful farmer in Marion County, he gained a reputation as a good distiller too. 

Henry’s grandson, John Bernard (J. B.) Wathen, turned the family’s distillery into a major commercial enterprise beginning in 1863. He closed the distillery in Lebanon, in Marion County, and moved his family and business to Louisville. His children attended America’s finest Catholic universities, Georgetown and Notre Dame. His younger brothers Richard Nicholas (Nick) and Martin Athanasius (Nace, Turner's great-great-grandfather) joined him in the business. 

Their principal distillery was at 26th Street and Broadway on the west side of Louisville. That plant was sold to the Whiskey Trust, but the family had other bourbon interests, including the Old Grand-Dad Distillery in Nelson County. Nace ran that. Although we can’t be sure, it’s likely the Texas whiskey merchant who created Bourbon de Luxe in about 1911 bought his whiskey from a Wathen family distillery.

J. B. had three sons. One, the aforementioned Dick Wathen, took over for Uncle Nace at Grand-Dad, then formed and ran AMS with his brothers. During Prohibition, AMS and similar consolidators absorbed many of the brands they had made for customers before 1920, hence Bourbon de Luxe probably was part of the AMS portfolio from the beginning.

Many brands have been revived in the 21st century, often by contemporary members of the founding family. Dixon Dedman did it with Kentucky Owl. The modern-day Pogue brothers made it a family project to relaunch their brand and start a small distillery in Maysville, their hometown. McBrayer descendants have revived the McBrayer and Ceder Brook brands and hope to restore the Cedar Brook Distillery. Though never discontinued, the Yellowstone brand was returned to Steve and Paul Beam, descendants of the Beams and Dants who founded it. The Medley family, connected to the Wathens by marriage, revived the Wathen and Medley Bros. brands.

The liquid in those brands today has no connection to their earlier iterations, which is probably just as well. Bourbon in the old days rarely was aged more than four years. Most of the revived brands were ordinary, “popular price” offerings back in the day, perfectly good whiskey but nothing special. The revived versions? That’s up to you and what you like, but most are in the super-premium price class.

It’s fun to see these old brands on the shelf again, in many cases as a tribute to their founding families, but the whiskey must be judged on its own merits. 

PBS Show About a Civil War Tragedy Has a Whiskey Connection

 

The E. J. Curley Distillery, later known as Kentucky River, was on the site of Camp Nelson, a Civil War Union Army base.

Last night, PBS broadcast an episode of its “Secrets of the Dead” series entitled “The Civil War’s Lost Massacre.” Although the documentary doesn't explore it, the story takes place in Kentucky so, naturally, there is a whiskey connection. We’ll get to that in a moment.

Here is the show synopsis from PBS: 

Originally a supply depot for Union forces in Kentucky, Camp Nelson became the site where 10,000 Black soldiers trained in the Civil War. But in the war’s last months, these soldiers were attacked by bitter Southerners. Their remains have never been found, and a team is dedicated to finding them to memorialize their service and heroism. "Secrets of the Dead: The Civil War’s Lost Massacre" is a production of Wide Awake Films for The WNET Group and Kentucky Educational Television.

Now for the whiskey part.

In addition to being a recruitment and training center for Black troops, Camp Nelson was a massive, 4,000-acre, fortified supply depot and troop encampment. The Union Army used it to stage an invasion of eastern Tennessee. It is on the Kentucky River, upstream from Frankfort, in Jessamine County near Nicholasville, about 15 miles south of Lexington.

This part of the river is flanked by steep limestone bluffs that make crossing difficult. The site for Camp Nelson was selected in part because of a natural ford there, at the mouth of Hickman Creek. That's where Edmund (E. J.) Curley built his distillery.

Curley was an Irish immigrant from Massachusetts. He may have spent time at Camp Nelson during the war as a civilian contractor. One of his partners in the distillery venture, Dwight Aiken, had been a captain in the Commissary Department.

Curley named his distillery after Boone’s Knoll, a well-known local landmark. Boone's Knoll is typical of the round-topped hills known as knolls or knobs. The early 20th century Kentucky watercolorist, Paul Sawyier, painted many landscapes there, including at least one showing the famous hill from the mouth of Hickman Creek. 

Because of the ford, Curley and Aiken were able to build parts of the distillery on both sides of the river. It was quite a place. Unlike most Kentucky distilleries, which were ramshackle affairs, Boone’s Knoll was beautifully constructed with limestone walls and hardwood timber beams. 

Curley’s main brands were Boone’s Knoll and Blue Grass. They made bourbon, rye, and other spirits. Successful at first, by the late 1880s the company was struggling. In January of 1888, the bookkeeper shot and killed the plant’s resident U.S. Treasury agent. A year later, the company’s assets were seized for non-payment of taxes and other debts. Curley was done. He sold everything to the Kentucky Distilleries and Warehouse Co., the Kentucky arm of the notorious Whiskey Trust.

The Trust’s purpose was to limit production throughout the industry to keep prices and profits high. It bought many distilleries only to close them, but not Boone’s Knoll. It continued to operate under the E. J. Curley name. It only closed at Prohibition. 

Because of the fine buildings and spectacular views of the Kentucky River palisades, the distillery was converted into a resort hotel during Prohibition, where whiskey might be obtained if you knew how to ask.

After Prohibition it became a distillery again, owned by members of the Hawkins family and others. They called it Kentucky River. The Hawkins were involved in several distilleries in nearby Anderson County on both sides of Prohibition, including the distillery now known as Four Roses. They eventually lost financial control of Kentucky River but stayed on as employees.

Founding families yielding control, with some family members remaining as employees, is a recurring pattern in the story of American whiskey. 

Following Prohibition and the shortages of World War II, most distilleries thrived during the post-war boom. Kentucky River did okay. It did well enough to build six new, modern maturation warehouses on high ground about a mile north of the distillery. In 1959, Kentucky River changed hands again, this time acquired by a huge conglomerate known as Norton Simon Incorporated, which gave it a famous if incongruous name: Canada Dry.

Somerset Importers, which in the structure of Norton Simon was Canada Dry’s parent, was started by Joseph Kennedy, father of President John F. Kennedy, to import scotch and gin from the United Kingdom immediately after Prohibition’s end. In the late 1950s, in anticipation of his son’s presidential run, Kennedy sold anything that might be considered disreputable, including Somerset and the Hialeah racetrack.

In the mid-1960s, the post-war boom began to slow. Many businesses didn’t adjust fast enough and overproduced, an especially critical error for whiskey makers because of the long aging cycle. Canada Dry overproduced. As if that weren’t bad enough, its brands were not especially popular, and its whiskey was not very good.

By the end of the decade, Norton Simon knew it had a problem. They weren’t alone. Another distillery with a problem was Louisville's Stitzel-Weller, unsettled following the death of its owner, Pappy Van Winkle. Norton Simon decided to buy Stitzel and blow out the excess Canada Dry inventory in Stitzel’s popular Cabin Still brand. In 1972, the combined company became Old Fitzgerald Kentucky River.

The Camp Nelson distillery never made whiskey again. There was a fire and as the warehouses emptied out, the six new ones on high ground by the highway were leased to Seagram’s. Everything else was abandoned. Those warehouses are now owned and used by Wild Turkey. Together they hold about 120,000 barrels. As you drive south on US-27, the Wild Turkey warehouses are on the right and the national cemetery is on the left.

The E. J. Curley brand was revived in 2021, and its owners hope to restore the Camp Nelson facility.

The area around Camp Nelson is scenic. The Kentucky River palisades are beautiful. Nearby attractions include the Camp Nelson National Monument and National Cemetery, the Curley distillery ruins, a state park, and the Jim Beam Nature Preserve. The preserve is a Nature Conservancy property created in 1995 to celebrate Beam’s bicentennial. Suntory continues to donate funds for maintenance and general care of the 115-acre preserve, which is open to the public.

Did a Bourbon Family Murder Inspire the Song “Careless Love”?

 

Bessie Smith had the first hit with "Careless Love" in 1925.

The tremendous success of Old Crow, the first modern bourbon, produced several fortunes in the decades before Prohibition. Few profited more than the Berry family. Hiram Berry joined the firm after the deaths of founders James Crow and Oscar Pepper. He was succeeded by his eldest son, George. 

Both men were prominent members of Kentucky’s bourbon aristocracy. George Berry may have been the wealthiest person in the state. He was married to Mary Bush, from a prominent Louisville family. As such, Mary’s younger sister, Cornelia, was George Berry’s sister-in-law. Her sensational murder in Louisville in 1895 is believed to have inspired the classic blues song, “Careless Love,” according to W. C. Handy, to whom it is attributed. 

For the rest of the story, a real "true crime" tale, you need to subscribe to The Bourbon Country Reader.

Proudly anachronistic, The Bourbon Country Reader remains paper-only, delivered as First-Class Mail by the United States Postal Service, which is not allowed to deliver bourbon but can handle this.

A six-issue, approximately one-year subscription is just: 

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Formerly Great Company Yields to Blackmail by White Supremacist

 

In the new issue of The Bourbon Country Reader, I try to put a positive spin on the ghastly decision by Brown-Forman to discontinue its programs to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) at the company.

Brown-Forman owns Jack Daniel’s and several other leading spirits brands. It is one of the Big Four, who make about 70 percent of America’s whiskey.

The decision is ghastly because Brown-Forman caved to right-wing extremists, specifically one Robby Newsom, who goes by the name Robby Starbuck. He threatened to call for a boycott of Jack Daniel’s like the one that devastated Bud Light.

So, what’s the positive spin?

It’s not so much positive as it is a clarification of who this decision harms. One problem with opponents of diversity initiatives is their misrepresentation of what DEI is and does. DEI as practiced is not what they say it is. They claim it harms more qualified white male candidates by giving jobs to less qualified ‘diverse’ candidates, i.e., women and people of color. That isn’t true, but Newsom and his supporters don’t care. Opposition to DEI is a proxy for their white supremacy agenda.

In this issue of The Reader, I describe my personal experience working on DEI for a major American retailer, not in the beverage alcohol business, and I explain why Brown-Forman's decision will primarily harm Brown-Forman. I don't usually use the first-person voice, but I do here because I'm writing about my personal experience, including with Brown-Forman, which spans 40 years.

Also in this issue, we ask the question "Did a Bourbon Family Murder Inspire the Song 'Careless Love'?" I'll tease this one a bit more in a few days. If you enjoy "true crime," it's quite a tale, and it will take more than one issue to spin it all out.

Proudly anachronistic, The Bourbon Country Reader remains paper-only, delivered as First-Class Mail by the United States Postal Service, which is not allowed to deliver bourbon but can handle this.

A six-issue, approximately one-year subscription is just: 

$25 for mailing addresses in the USA. 

$32 for everybody else. (That is, addresses on earth but not in the USA. Interplanetary service is not yet available.)

The links above take you directly to PayPal, where you can subscribe using PayPal, Venmo, or any major credit card.

If you are unfamiliar with The Bourbon Country Reader, click here for a sample issue. 

If you prefer to pay by check, make it payable to Made and Bottled in Kentucky, and mail it to Made and Bottled in Kentucky, 3712 N. Broadway, PMB 298, Chicago, IL 60613-4198. Checks drawn on U.S. banks only, please.

This $12 Bourbon Is Pretty Good, and It Comes with a Story

 

Clark & Sheffield bourbon, $11.99/750 ml, 45% ABV.

The name "Clark & Sheffield" may mean something to you if you are a fan of the Chicago Cubs baseball team. Clark Street borders Wrigley Field to the west and Sheffield Avenue borders it on the east. 

So, what does that have to do with a $12 bourbon I picked up yesterday? Are the Cubs making bourbon now? 

I'll explain all that in a minute, but first, the whiskey.

Clark & Sheffield is the house brand for Binny's, the principal booze retailer in the Chicago region. On my visit yesterday, I also picked up a Clark & Sheffield Pinot Noir and a Clark & Sheffield Tawny Port. I've had good luck with the Clark & Sheffield brand. Good quality, good value.

This is my first time with the bourbon. It's good, a nice 90° proof and the lack of age statement means it is at least 4 years old. It's nothing special but is a perfectly good, standard bourbon. I was surprised, quite frankly. Not a thing wrong with it. For $12, it's a lot better than it needs to be. I could drink this all day.

Everybody these days seems to be chasing unicorns, bottles that sell for thousands on a shadowy secondary market. Or they want the latest "limited release," usually priced at $80 and up, if you can even find them at retail at the "suggested" retail price. Fine, if that's what you're into, but the Binny's I shopped yesterday (Portage Park, 4901 West Irving Park Road) had dozens of perfectly good bourbons and ryes for under $30, a few under $20, and at least one other tempter in the $12 range. The store was particularly well-stocked with Benchmark Bourbon, including the handle at $22.99. 

Why pay more? If all you want to do is drink good bourbon, it's still an inexpensive pastime. 

Binny's, of course, didn't make this whiskey. Who did? The label says "Distilled, aged, and bottled by the Founders Company, Louisville, KY." A quick trip to the web site of the Kentucky Secretary of State tells me the Founders Company is an assumed business name for Sazerac, whose two Kentucky distilleries are Buffalo Trace in Frankfort and Barton 1792 in Bardstown.

So, what's the story?

The founder of Binny's was Harold Binstein. He opened his first store in 1948, under the name Gold Standard Liquors, and the store's address was Clark & Sheffield. How is that possible? The ballpark, after all, has been there since 1914. 

It's possible because Clark Street is a diagonal. Wrigley is bordered on the east and west by Clark & Sheffield, with Addison Street its southern border. Binstein's Gold Standard was at the intersection of Clark & Sheffield, one block south of the ballpark. The original store burned down in the late 1960s, but was rebuilt and was there until recently, still operating as Gold Standard. It was relocated to make way for public transit construction.

Turns out, the shadow of Wrigley Field was a good place for a liquor store. From that single location in 1948, Binstein grew a chain, still called Gold Standard. They were mostly small stores, in neighborhoods like Wrigleyville. About 30 years ago they opened a "superstore," wanted to give it a different name, and used Harold Binstein's nickname, "Binny." At about the same time, they acquired two local, independent "superstores," Sam's and Zimmerman's. Today, Binny's is run by Harold's son, Michael. The family still owns it. Binny's now has 46 locations. Their slogan is, "If you can’t find it at Binny’s, it’s probably not worth drinking."

They're not wrong.

Although the Chicago Cubs and their owners, the Ricketts family, have nothing to do with the booze business, there is another Chicago sports connection that does. The Wirtz family, which owns the Chicago Blackhawks hockey team, also owns a big chunk of Breakthru Beverage, a leading North American beverage wholesaler.

Has the Next Great Whiskey Glut Begun?

 

Whiskey maturing in Kentucky.

Ever since the “bourbon boom” began, about 20 years ago, people have speculated about a future whiskey glut. Now, we have data.

Bernstein is a research firm that helps institutional investors manage their portfolios. Research firms like Bernstein release partial findings to the public when they have something newsworthy to report. 

In their most recent American whiskey analysis, as reported in Wine & Spirits Daily, Bernstein notes that current inventory levels in the wholesale and retail channels are higher than usual. The amount of whiskey aging in barrels is at historic highs, too. The 2022 inventory of 12.6 million barrels represents about 8.5 years of demand, a 150 percent increase over the previous decade. 

Berstein believes a significant excess supply of U.S. whiskey is likely over the next five years. If demand does not increase but remains where it is, supply will outstrip demand by 1.29 million barrels by 2028. 

Like Bernstein, The Bourbon Country Reader only gives you part of the story for free. The rest is in the current issue (Volume 22, Number 4). You have to subscribe, but it's a lot less than Bernstein.

Proudly anachronistic, The Bourbon Country Reader remains paper-only, delivered as First-Class Mail by the United States Postal Service, which is not allowed to deliver bourbon but can handle this.

A six-issue, approximately one-year subscription is just: 

$25 for mailing addresses in the USA. 

$32 for everybody else. (That is, addresses on earth but not in the USA. Interplanetary service is not yet available.)

The links above take you directly to PayPal, where you can subscribe using PayPal, Venmo, or any major credit card.

If you are unfamiliar with The Bourbon Country Reader, click here for a sample issue. 

If you prefer to pay by check, make it payable to Made and Bottled in Kentucky, and mail it to Made and Bottled in Kentucky, 3712 N. Broadway, PMB 298, Chicago, IL 60613-4198. Checks drawn on U.S. banks only, please.

The House that Old Crow Built

 

Seaview Terrace, also known as the Carey Mansion, in Newport, Rhode Island.

If you recognize the mansion pictured above, it probably has nothing to do with Old Crow Bourbon. The house is famous in its own right, as the fifth-largest of Newport's famous summer houses. (The Breaker's is number one.) It has appeared in movies and TV shows, most famously as Collinwood, the palatial home of the fictional Collins family in the 60s gothic soap opera, "Dark Shadows." (Lots of bad stuff happened in that tower in the middle.)

Unlike Collinwood, Seaview Terrace was not built in the 18th century. It was completed in 1925 by Edson Bradley, president since 1882 of W. A. Gaines & Co., makers of the most successful bourbon of the Gilded Age, Old Crow.

The Old Crow enterprise was begun in Versailles, Kentucky by James Crow, a distiller; Oscar Pepper, a farmer/distiller; and a local banker, E. H. Taylor. The business was reorganized several times, usually after a death, such as Crow's in 1856, and Pepper's in 1865. Taylor found two new investors, one of whom was William Gaines. The new firm was called W. A. Gaines & Co., and he became its president. His death shuffled the deck again, although his name would remain on company letterhead to the end and appears on the Old Crow label to this day.

Old Crow was very successful, but a growing whiskey company constantly needs more capital. Taylor found it at a New York investment firm. In 1870, Taylor exited the company, selling his interest to the president of that firm, George Allen. After Gaines died, the president of Allen's New York investment firm also became president of W. A. Gaines & Co. Bradley took the reins in 1882 and held the job until Prohibition put them out of business in 1920.

But Bradley was, by then, already crazy-rich. A New Yorker, he had moved to Washington, D. C. to be closer to the government that was increasingly sticking its nose into his whiskey business. In 1907, he built a French-Gothic mansion on the south side of Dupont Circle. It covered more than half a city block, and included a Gothic chapel with seating for 150, a large ballroom, an art gallery, and a 500-seat theatre.

The onset of National Prohibition disgusted Bradley so he decided to quit Washington for Newport, Rhode Island, but he liked his house, so he took it with him. Disassembly began in 1923. He added it to an existing mansion, known as Sea View, completing the combined house in 1925. He died in 1935, age 83. His descendants kept the house until the 1940s. It has had many owners since but is still privately owned. 

Old Crow money built at least one other grand house, in Frankfort, Kentucky. That story is here. 

Nothing now is the way it was back then, but people still chase whiskey fortunes.

I. W. Harper Deserves Better

 

I. W. Harper Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, 41% alc/vol

In 2015, Diageo relaunched I. W. Harper bourbon, a 19th century brand created by the Bernheim Brothers. 

The relaunch did not set the world on fire. 

Some old brands have been successfully reintroduced or rebooted. Brown-Forman revived its flagship, Old Forester, even gave it its own distillery. Sazerac acquired Old Taylor from Suntory and has gone great guns with it. Beam even had mild success with its pre-Pro Old Tub bourbon. The Limestone Branch Beams have revived Yellowstone.

But I. W. Harper not so much. It made some noise in 2015, when they put money behind it. It is still, ostensibly, available. The website has a 2024 copyright. But Binny's in Chicago doesn't carry it, and as they're fond of saying, "If you can't find it at Binny's it's probably not worth drinking."

Historically, I. W. Harper is an important brand. It was launched in 1879 by the Bernheim Brothers, Issac and Bernard. Issac was company president and "I. W." were his first two initials (Issac Wolfe), but he hesitated about using his own last name and went with the safely Anglo-Saxon "Harper" instead.

During WWI, many families with German-sounding names changed them, the most famous example being the British royals. One of Bernheim's sons changed the spelling to "Burnham." His son, Issac Wolfe Burham, founded in 1931 the investment firm that became Drexel Burnham Lambert (using some money from grandpa).

The brothers had two distilleries in Louisville, the first one in Shively, the second in west Louisville where Heaven Hill's Bernheim Production Facility is today. The brothers sold the company when they retired. After Prohibition it became part of Schenley, which became part of the Guinness roll-up that created what we know as Diageo today. They tore down the old distillery and built a new one in 1992, then sold it to Heaven Hill in 1999.

In retirement, Issac Bernheim became a major philanthropist. Probably his greatest gift was the vast nature preserve in Bullitt County known as Bernheim Forest. He and his wife, and one of his sons, are buried there. Although open to the public it is privately owned by the Bernheim Foundation. It just happens to be right across the street from the Jim Beam Distillery, just off I-65 at exit 112 (KY-245 toward Bardstown / Clermont).

In about 1990, I. W. Harper Bourbon was withdrawn from the U.S. market. By then it was a forgotten, cheap, bottom shelf brand in the U.S., but had, remarkably, become the best-selling bourbon in Japan, where bourbon sales were booming, and where it sold for a premium price. So great was the price differential that clever entrepreneurs began gray market exporting it, buying it at U.S. prices and shipping it to Japan outside of sanctioned distribution channels. The only way to stop them was to kill the brand in the U.S., which they did.

It returned briefly a few years later in the Bourbon Heritage Collection, as a super-premium called I. W. Harper Gold Medal, a 15-year-old. When Diageo bailed out of bourbon in 1999, that product was one of the first casualties. 

In 2012, I. W. Bernheim was inducted into the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame. Several of his descendants were at the induction ceremony. He was the only 2012 inductee.

One clue to the brand's future may be in the address shown on the website, which says it is a product of the I.W. Harper Distilling Company, Tullahoma, TN. 

Prohibition Is an Awful Flop. We Love It!

 

The repeal of Prohibition in 1933 was widely celebrated.

National Prohibition in the United States (1920-1933) was always divisive, and many otherwise law-abiding Americans never accepted its legitimacy. Several years in, the “noble experiment” was losing public support but remained a political hot potato.

The Association Against the Prohibition Amendment (AAPA), buoyed by a burst of fundraising success, launched a nationwide publicity campaign in 1928. They printed and distributed millions of pamphlets arguing for repeal. Also in 1928, the American Bar Association, the largest national association of lawyers, came out in favor of repeal. The ball was rolling.

When it came, repeal was widely celebrated. Only now, 90 years later, are we beginning to grapple with the shackles that remain on the beverage alcohol business.

In part 2 of 2, we finish the story begun in the previous issue of The Bourbon Country Reader. Also, in this issue (which is Volume 22, Number 3), you can read an exclusive excerpt of Dr. Jerry O. Dalton's new book, The Way of Bourbon. Dr. Dalton is the former master distiller at Jim Beam and, before that, at Barton. As you'll see, he's a bit of a philosopher.

Finally, there's a short piece entitled "Don't Cheat Yourself with Mystery Whiskey." Forewarned is forearmed, or something like that.

Proudly anachronistic, The Bourbon Country Reader remains paper-only, delivered as First-Class Mail by the United States Postal Service, which is not allowed to deliver bourbon but can handle this.

A six-issue, approximately one-year subscription is just: 

$25 for mailing addresses in the USA 

$32 for everybody else. (That is, on earth but not in the USA. Interplanetary service is not yet available.)

(The links above take you directly to PayPal, where you can subscribe using PayPal or any major credit card.) 

If you are unfamiliar with The Bourbon Country Reader, click here for a sample issue. 

If you prefer to pay by check, make it payable to Made and Bottled in Kentucky, and mail it to Made and Bottled in Kentucky, 3712 N. Broadway, PMB 298, Chicago, IL 60613-4198. Checks drawn on U.S. banks only, please.

Since its inception (1994), I have made back issues of The Reader available. I still do, but henceforth that service will be limited to what's currently in inventory. No new ones will be printed and bound. Some of the more recent issues (last several years) are available in loose form. I'm still thinking about it. If you're interested in back issues, check out "The Bourbon Country Reader Issue Contents in Chronological Order." (It's like an index.) Then get in touch with me. I hate to put my email address out in the open here, but I'm pretty easy to find. If you can't, send me a note as a comment. I'll read it and get back to you, but I won't post it.

What’s in a Name? (Beam’s Version)

 

Fred, Freddie, and Booker Noe, at the Jim
Beam Distillery, Bullitt County, Kentucky.

What's in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet;

So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,

Retain that dear perfection which he owes

Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,

And for that name which is no part of thee

Take all myself.

That’s my message to members of the Beam family who were saddened by the May first corporate name change, from Beam Suntory to Suntory Global Spirits. As Juliet says, that name is no part of thee. The Beam name and all it represents can never be erased.

When Jacob Beam came to Kentucky from Maryland at the end of the 18th century, he had already undergone a name change himself, from Johannes Jacobus Boehm to Jacob Beam. 

He had at least one son, David, who joined and followed him in the whiskey business. The third generation produced three successful whiskey makers. By the fourth generation, Beam family members were everywhere in bourbon country. 

That takes us to the end of the 19th century, when brothers Jim and Park Beam, along with their brother-in-law, Albert Hart, took over the operation begun by their great-grandfather. The distillery was called Beam & Hart. Their uncles and cousins were making whiskey too, at other companies.

The Beam & Hart Distillery was on Nazareth Road (now Old Nazareth Road), about three miles north of Bardstown, near the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth religious community. Beam & Hart’s main bourbon was called Old Tub. They operated at Nazareth until Prohibition (1920).

During Prohibition, the brothers bought the property where the Jim Beam Clermont distillery is now, about 20 miles northwest of the Nazareth place in Bullitt County. It had been a distillery, but the property also included a gravel quarry, a going business at the time. 

After Prohibition, with their sons, the Beam brothers rebuilt and reopened the distillery at Clermont. There were some problems with ownership of the Old Tub brand name, so Jim Beam became the name of the brand and company. 

In the 1940s, the family sold the company to a trio of Chicago investors. The new owners kept the name, and the family. Jim’s son, Jere (pronounced “Jerry,” short for Jerimiah), continued to run the business side while Park’s sons, Earl and “Shucks,” made the whiskey. Now called Jim Beam Brands, the company was based in Chicago. 

Jim Beam Bourbon’s popularity soared in the 1960s. Harry Blum, by then sole owner, sold the company to American Tobacco. Today, Blum’s grandson runs a cannabis company.

At the distillery in Kentucky, on the whiskey-making side of the business, Park Beam’s grandsons, Baker and David, were joined by their cousin, Booker Noe, son of Jim Beam’s daughter, Margaret. The company bought a second distillery, in Nelson County, and had Booker run it. It now bears his name. There were other family members here and there in the company.

Meanwhile, the new owner, American Tobacco, morphed into a diversified conglomerate called Fortune, which used its Jim Beam Brands subsidiary to acquire additional assets in the beverage alcohol space. They successfully converted Jim Beam Brands from a bourbon company into a diversified beverage alcohol company with a broad portfolio. In 2006, following a major acquisition that brought Maker’s Mark into the fold, Fortune changed the subsidiary’s name to Beam Global Spirits and Wine.

By that time, diversified conglomerates like Fortune Brands were out of favor with investors. Fortune began to sell off pieces of itself. In December 2010, it was split into three chunks, representing its three remaining businesses: distilled spirits, home and security, and golf products. 

Earlier in 2010, Pershing Square Capital Management, Bill Ackman’s hedge fund, became Fortune’s majority shareholder. Ackman pushed hard and publicly for a break-up. In 2011, Fortune became a "pure play" beverage alcohol company and changed its corporate name to Beam, Inc.

Company management hoped that would be good enough, but Ackman wasn’t finished. He kept pushing for more divestment. Almost exactly 10 years ago, Ackman got his way. Beam Inc. was sold to Suntory Holdings Limited, a privately held company based in Japan. Its distilled spirits division became Beam Suntory. In 2022, Beam Suntory moved its headquarters to Suntory’s offices in New York. Earlier this month, “Beam” was deleted from the name. That division is now called Suntory Global Spirits.

Meanwhile, and apropos Juliet’s admonition, nothing has changed in Kentucky, where all the company’s bourbon and rye whiskeys are made. Beam descendants still have a large say in how those whiskeys are made. The revived American whiskey business is full of Beams, whether they have the surname or not. For all of them, it is better to not share their name with a huge, international company they do not control and have not controlled for 80 years. Beam for the Beams.

Romeo, after all, has the final word on the subject: “Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized.”

Have I Learned Anything About Life? Maybe

Grant Wood "American Gothic" (detail)

In 2003, two of my friends were getting married. They'd both been around the block a few times and requested, in lieu of gifts, that we offer them our advice "on conflict resolution and the making of a successful partnership." It seems weird to me now, but that's how I remember it. 

Anyway, this is what I wrote. I think I printed it on a scroll or something. It's not bad advice, really.

And, yes, they're still married. 

________________

Considering my track record, my first thought was to suggest that you study my recommendations and then do exactly the opposite.

But maybe I have learned a few things.

Trust. There is nothing more important. If I am certain of anything it is that. To be with a person you can trust completely, that is the only reason to even be in a relationship. To have such people in your life in any capacity is a treasure.

Figuring out if you can trust another person is not nearly as important as being trustworthy yourself.

The best way to resolve conflicts is also the easiest: give in. State your position, explain why you feel the way you do, then let it go. Compromise quickly and generously, or simply fold altogether, then forget about it.

That doesn't mean be wishy-washy. You can have an opinion. You can even argue, just don't care about winning. Yes, someone is keeping score, but not the way you think.

No matter how hard you try, it is impossible to be too nice. Kindness does not come naturally or easily to anyone. It is counter-intuitive, you have to work at it. There is no chance that you will overdo it.

Gentleness, patience; also good.

Understanding, on the other hand, is overrated. Acceptance is more satisfying and conducive to happiness than understanding.

Shut up and listen. Of course you have to talk at some point, but the risk that you will listen too much or talk too little is very small.

Other very small risks: that you will laugh too much, smile too much, hug too much, have too much fun, see too much beauty or hear too much music. You can, however, eat too much cake.

Events you do not control will always turn out to be more interesting than events you do control. Also more entertaining, educational and, yes, more frightening, but still better.

Despite all indications to the contrary, your partner will not be improved if he or she becomes more like you. Do not try to understand why this is so. Instead, relax and enjoy the ride.

In fact, that’s probably the single best advice I can give: relax and enjoy the ride. That doesn't mean be passive. You should be engaged and involved, but also utterly open to life’s surprises. Another very small risk: that you will be too open to new experiences.

What about love? That’s the prerequisite. You won’t get very far with any of this other stuff without love. Love is the presence of all things good and the absence of all things bad. Trust, kindness, acceptance, listening – those are behaviors that require your attention. Love takes care of itself.

Thank you (names deleted for privacy) for prompting me to think about these matters. I don’t mean to suggest that I successfully follow all of my own advice all of the time, but right or wrong these are the lessons life has taught me so far.

Be nice. Have fun. Prepare to be surprised.

Prohibition: How It Happened, How It Ended, Why It Still Sucks

 

An anti-prohibition parade in Newark, New Jersey in 1932.

Apologists for the Prohibition disaster dubbed it the "noble experiment." There was nothing noble about it. A century ago, the American people were sold a bill of goods. They were promised an end to crime, poverty, depravity, abuse, neglect, and just about any other evil you can think of. All they had to do was ban beverage alcohol.

They fell for it. 

No one, apparently, realized that meant they themselves would have to stop drinking. Most Americans either opposed Prohibition or assumed it applied to someone else, not them. 

Nothing noble about it.

Like a hangover blooming on the morning after, American voters regretted Prohibition almost immediately. But they had changed the damn Constitution! This fuck-up wouldn't be easy to fix.

The previous edition of The Bourbon Country Reader went out in January, so a new one is a bit overdue. Sorry about that. I hope it's worth the wait. Prohibition is our subject this time. Sure, you know about Prohibition, you watched that interminable Ken Burns thing on PBS. But this is the story as you've never seen it, about the peculiar way it ended, and the burdens we still carry because of it.

It's a two-parter but, happily, you won't have to wait too long for part two. Part one should be out in the next few days and part two will follow a few weeks after that.

Also, in what I am calling the April issue, you'll read about A. Overholt Straight Rye Whiskey. Finally, 37 years after it acquired the brand, Suntory Global Spirits is doing something interesting with it, returning it to its roots as a 19th century "Pure Rye."

Liquor companies are forbidden to make purity claims, so Overholt won't use the term, but The Reader can and will.

Who is Suntory Global Spirits? That's the new name of the company that was called Beam Suntory until, well, today.

Proudly anachronistic, The Bourbon Country Reader remains paper-only, delivered First Class by the United States Postal Service, which is not allowed to deliver bourbon but can handle this.

A six-issue, approximately one-year subscription is just $25 for mailing addresses in the USA, $32 for everybody else. Those links take you directly to PayPal. 

If you are unfamiliar with The Bourbon Country Reader, click here for a sample issue. 

If you prefer to pay by check, make it payable to Made and Bottled in Kentucky, and mail it to Made and Bottled in Kentucky, 3712 N. Broadway, PMB 298, Chicago, IL 60613-4198. Checks drawn on U.S. banks only, please.

Since its inception, I have made back issues of The Reader available. I still do, but henceforth that service will be limited to what's currently in inventory. No new ones will be printed and bound. Some may be available in loose form. If you're interested in back issues, check out "The Bourbon Country Reader Issue Contents in Chronological Order." (It's like an index.) Place an order and I'll let you know what's available.

A Train Ride to a Distillery? Yes, Please!

 

For special events, you can park at the Kentucky Railroad Museum
in New Haven and ride the train to Log Still Distillery.

Okay, I'm a sucker for a train ride.

Log Still Distillery’s premier event venue, The Legacy, kicks off its Southern Supper Series on Friday, May 10th. Lee Brice performs that night at The Amp, Log Still's concert venue. You can drive to Log Still and park at the venue if you want, but for a $20 up-charge you can park at the Kentucky Railroad Museum in New Haven and ride a vintage train to Log Still. At the end of the evening, the train takes you back to New Haven. The ride is about seven miles and offers "a scenic view of Kentucky’s landscape." Ticket information is here.

Wait! You can take a train there? How is that possible?

As you may know, Log Still is an entertainment complex that happens to include a whiskey distillery. It is about 50 miles south of Louisville and about 140 miles north of Nashville. 

Log Still is the work of Wally Dant and other members of the Dant family. They chose the site for many reasons. Their ancestors made whiskey there before Prohibition and many living family members grew up nearby. But the people who built the first distilleries there, which included members of the Beam, Head, and Pottinger families as well as Dants, chose the site in part because it was located on a new branch of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, the Lebanon Branch, which opened in 1857.

Although regular service on that line ended in about 1987, the tracks are still there. The section going northwest out of New Haven, toward Boston (Kentucky, not Massachusetts) is maintained by the Kentucky Railroad Museum, which uses it for excursions. (The museum was originally located in Boston.) Log Still is in the other direction, at what the railroad called Gethsemane Station, a reference to the nearby Abbey which, apparently unbeknownst to the railroad, spells it Gethsemani. Distilleries all along the Lebanon Branch were the railroad's biggest customers.

Back in the day, of course, you could get the train in Louisville, Frankfort, or Lexington and ride to Gethsemane, Lebanon, New Haven, Athertonville, and many other places. The main line connected Louisville and Nashville. Athertonville had its own, short branch that connected it to New Haven. North of the Lebanon Branch there was another branch for distilleries called the Springfield Branch. That's the line the Kentucky Dinner Train uses, starting in Bardstown.

Some of Kentucky's distilleries still have rail access for shipping grain, new barrels, and empty bottles in, and full bottles out. Only Log Still, and only for special events, has passenger service. (Which, by the way, includes cocktail service.)

The Kentucky Dinner Train goes as far as Chapeze Station before heading back to Bardstown. The  Chapeze Distillery used to be there (it played Czechoslovakia in the movie "Stripes"). What's left is now part of Beam's Clermont complex, which is where all their visitor attractions are located. The train doesn't stop there but it could. Beam's bigger distillery, named for Booker Noe, doesn't welcome visitors but it's on the Lebanon Branch, close to where the Kentucky Railroad Museum excursions turn back to New Haven. 

Many other distilleries have train tracks near their sites, even though in some cases they haven't been maintained. How cool would it be if you could do the whole Kentucky Bourbon Trail by train?

Step In, Step Up

 

What to try next?

Today, most of what you see and read about bourbon and rye is focused on limited editions, finishes, and other mostly premium expressions. That's fine if that's what you're into, but it's a nightmare for newcomers trying to get to know the category. Too often, things you are told to try, when you try to try them, are hard or impossible to find, or too damn expensive.

On top of that, producers these days are expanding the envelope with different tastes and experiences that may be fine for what they are, but they are such outliers they just confuse someone still trying to understand the category.

What's a newbie to do?

It's easy to make the rounds of the major brands and their main expressions, a little Jack, a little Jim, some Evan or Elijah. There is nothing wrong with that. What I call "Step In, Step Up" is a slightly different approach. The idea is to introduce yourself to a distillery or brand family by selecting an expression that has some or all of the following characteristics.

1. It is a step-up from the entry level expression.
2. It is usually available.
3. It is a decent value.

A perfect example of this paradigm is Jim Beam Black Label. It is significantly better than white label, a little higher proof, usually available in any decent-sized store, and the upcharge is modest. It goes for about $25 a bottle. In most stores, it will be right next to White Label.

In the Heaven Hill family, you can start with the standard Evan Williams Black Label, but the 1783 expression is a little better, a little higher proof, and in that same $25 range. 

These step-up expressions used to have age statements in the six- to eight-year range, but 'better' still usually means more age, which is evident in side-by-side taste comparisons.

If you want to get away from mega-producers, consider The Representative, a straight bourbon from Proof and Wood, a smallish independent bottler. It won a big award from Whisky Magazine. Yes, the liquid is from MGP, but it's bottled in 20-barrel batches at 115° proof, aged at least 4 years, and widely available at about $50. 

I'd like to include more small producers on a list like this but it's difficult because they tend to have limited distribution. There is also the price. No small producer, whether they're a distiller or not, can compete with Beam Suntory, Heaven Hill, or Brown-Forman on price. I used to tell people the challenge was to find something better than Evan Williams Black Label for the same or a lower price. I no longer say that because it can't be done! If you ever want to drink anything other than Evan Williams Black Label, then you'll have to get used to paying more for whiskey that isn't necessarily that much better.

So, back to the mega-producers. Like Jim Beam Black Label, Beam Suntory has other entry-level step ups hiding in plain sight. Basil Hayden is Beam Suntory's version of a high-rye bourbon, but it's the same distillate as Old Grand-Dad. Like Basil, the standard Old Grand-Dad expression is 80° proof, but right there on the shelf next to it is the much better, and only slightly more expensive, Old Grand-Dad Bonded. If you're really lucky, next to that will be the even better Old Grand-Dad 114.

Another old reliable is Brown-Forman's Old Forester. It is the product that launched the company in 1870. It is the same recipe as Woodford Reserve. They make a lot of noise about their limited editions, but standard Old Forester is a solid, full-bodied bourbon, at 86° proof, for about $25, with the step-up to 100° proof for just a few dollars more.

Which brings us to the two Gems of Lawrenceburg that never disappoint, Four Roses and Wild Turkey. Four Roses Single Barrel is about $50, but that's the one you want. Wild Turkey 101, bourbon or rye is hard to beat at about $25. 

This advice, I should repeat, is for people just discovering American whiskey as something to drink. It won't enhance your credibility on Instagram.

But if you have some suggestions for bourbons or ryes that meet the "Step In, Step Up" criteria, feel free to include them in a comment below.

Online Sleuths Solve Bourbon Movie Mystery

 

Warren William and Alice White in "Employee's Entrance" (1933).

"Pre-code" refers to movies made between 1927 and 1934, before strict enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code (also known as the Hays Code). Pre-code movies featured more sexual innuendo, profanity, promiscuity, and other controversial themes than later films. Such licentiousness would not return to celluloid until the 1960s.

I love pre-code movies.

This one, "Employee's Entrance," is the story of a big city department store struggling to survive in the early years of the Great Depression. It has an "Upstairs/Downstairs" quality, depicting owners and management but also front-line employees. 

When "Employee's Entrance" was released in 1933, National Prohibition was still in effect, yet when ruthless department store president Kurt Anderson shares a drink with Polly, a store employee, he pulls from his desk a pint of Old Taylor Bourbon.

Later in the film, the store throws a big party for employees. Champagne flows freely. No one comments on Prohibition one way or the other. During the party, many of the characters become happily, or not-so-happily, drunk. 

After Roosevelt and the Democrats swept the 1932 elections, it was assumed Prohibition was finished, but it was still in effect when "Employee's Entrance" was released.

During Prohibition, Old Taylor was sold, legally, "for medicinal purposes only." The bottles looked like this.

A Prohibition medicinal pint of Old Taylor Bourbon, in its original box.

It is a different label from the one in the movie. Now, producers change labels all the time, and it's possible that the movie label was a different release. It's also possible the bottle in the movie was a prop, a mockup created by the film's art department, but it seems unlikely they would make a fake label for a real brand.

After I watched "Employee's Entrance" a few weeks ago (and I recommend it if you get the chance. It's a hoot), I captured the above picture and posted it on Facebook. All I wrote was, "From 'Employee's Entrance' (1933). Look what they're drinking." That began a conversation about the bottle's provenance, initially assuming it was a legal Prohibition pint, then noticing the difference between the bottle in the picture and the known Prohibition pint above.

Then someone provided the answer.

A pint bottle of Old Taylor bourbon, made in Canada,
and likely smuggled into the U.S. for illegal sale.

Only so much detail can be gleaned from the movie screen capture, but this looks like the same bottle. What is it? Look closely. It was made by Consolidated Distilleries Limited in Canada. Talk about verisimilitude? Of course, ruthless department store president Kurt Anderson would have access to bootleg liquor, smuggled from Canada.

I've written here before about how Mary Dowling hired Joe Beam to make Waterfill and Frazier bourbon in Mexico. Joe Beam's nephew, Guy Beam, did something similar in Cananda. This Canadian Old Taylor is attributed to a gentleman from Covington, Kentucky, whose name is partially obscured. The idea behind these cross-border distilleries was that the manufacturing was entirely legal. The product could be made and sold legally in the state or province where it was produced. That took the producer entirely out of the equation. The person who bought the whiskey, legally, and exported it into the United States, illegally, committed the crime.

Nevertheless, despite its legal manufacture, you can't necessarily trust everything on the label. Was it bourbon? The law making bourbon whiskey a distinctive product of the United States was still several decades in the future, so that's not an issue. In Canada, as part of their normal whisky production process, distilleries make a corn distillate very similar to bourbon, which they then redistill to near neutrality before aging in used barrels. 

Was this that bourbon-like intermediate distillate? Maybe, it's impossible to know. The only bottle we know about is empty.

From Big Cups to Big Names, American Whiskey's Next Act

 

Celebrate Spring with a friendly putting competition at Welter’s Folly!

Golf Season begins at Welter’s Folly on Sunday, April 14th, with the Big Cup Putting Tournament.

Welter's Folly is a 30,000 square foot, 18-hole, mounded putting green behind the Journeyman Distillery in Three Oaks, Michigan. It was named for Bill Welter, the distillery's founder. 

Scheduled to coincide with the 80th Annual Masters, the Big Cup Putting Competition will be held at Welter's Folly on Sunday, April 14th, beginning at 11:30 AM. Cost is $40 per two-player team. Bring your putter or use theirs for the 9-inch cup challenge.

Five dollars from each entry goes toward a skins game, with another $5 going toward a closest-to-the-pin competition. Cash prizes will be awarded for the top 3 scores, plus a little something for last place.

After Big Cup, Welter's Folly will be open for putting daily, Monday-Saturday at 11:30 AM, Sunday at 10:00 AM. The green closes daily 20 minutes prior to official sunset. The $9 fee includes a souvenir Journeyman golf ball. No charge for children 12 and under. Cocktails are permitted on the greens for putters 21 & over.

In Three Oaks, in addition to the putting green and distillery tour, Journeyman has a nice bar and restaurant. At their sister distillery in Valparaiso, Indiana, the American Factory, they have multiple restaurants, a brewery, rooftop bar, candy shop, karaoke, and great facilities for weddings and other private events.

As much as I'm happy to give Bill publicity, my purpose here is to highlight this latest trend in American distilled spirits, the whiskey resort. 

The epitome of this new trend is Kentucky's Log Still Distillery, out in the country about 15 miles south of Bardstown. The site has a lot of great bourbon history tied to the Dant family. It is the creation of Wally Dant, the many-times great grandson of J. W. Dant, assisted by other family members. The fact that Heaven Hill owns the J. W. Dant bourbon brand has limited their ability to exploit their lineage, but not their ambition. In addition to a distillery, tasting room, restaurant, and walking trails, Log Still has several B&Bs, a wedding venue with a 350-seat chapel, and a 2,300-seat outdoor event venue that hosts nationally-known artists such as Little Big Town, Martina McBride, Elle King, Lady A, Dwight Yoakam, and Joan Jett.

Whiskey distilleries have always attracted visitors in a way few other manufacturers can imagine. Jack Daniel's in Tennessee gets about 250,000 guests per year, an annual average that hasn't changed much in 40 years. Most distilleries in Kentucky and Tennessee now give tours. They have gift shops and tasting rooms, and some have restaurants or other amenities, but mostly they distill and age whiskey. 

Even Journeyman started, more than a decade ago, as a distillery first, adding the putting green and other amenities along the way. Many craft distilleries have parties with live music and other activities, mostly for community goodwill. This has been going on since the beginning.

Log Still is different. It started with the amenities. The distillery part was the last thing they built. They sell whiskey (sourced) and gin, but it's far down on the list of their income streams.

I tend to be someone who mostly cares about whiskey, but I also like history, and what we're experiencing now will become the history of tomorrow, for better or worse. There is another side to it, of course, as there always is. Dirtying up American whiskey's rosy picture is something that looks like dirt. 

In New York's Adirondack Park, WhistlePig Whiskey is being accused of polluting the area with whiskey fungus (Baudoinia compniacensis). Last weekend, the Adirondack Explorer reported that "New tests suggest wider spread of whiskey fungus in small Adirondack town. State requires action by WhistlePig Whiskey in Moriah; environmental impact of whiskey production under scrutiny." 

Award-winning environmental journalist Gwendolyn Craig did the Adirondacks proud with a thorough 2,100-word account, though it covered little new ground. Whiskey needs to age, and a harmless but unsightly fungus comes as part of the deal. In a 10-page report, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation said it found the fungus as far away as 1,379 yards from WhistlePig's facility. It has ordered WhistlePig to submit plans for mitigating “the effects of its operations on neighboring properties” by April 20. The Adirondack Park Agency, which oversees public and private development in the 6-million-acre Adirondack Park, has issued multiple permits for the warehouse complex.

This keeps happening and while I'm sure producers would like to head these problems off, no one seems to have cracked the code. Even in Kentucky, where Baudoinia is well known, and several cases were thoroughly litigated more than a decade ago, and producers are acquiring large tracts of land for their new maturation complexes to keep the fungus as far away from neighboring properties as possible, complaints persist. 

Airports are noisy, factories often are smelly, water is wet, and whiskey maturation facilities grow Baudoinia. Otherwise, everything is great.

Can Whiskey 'Go Bad'?

Image created with GPT-4

Does whiskey ever 'go bad'? 

It is a commonly asked question and people usually don't get a satisfactory answer.

First, whiskey in the bottle is very sturdy stuff. It will remain unchanged indefinitely. It has only a few enemies.

'Go bad' usually means 'spoiling,' as in unpleasant bacterial activity changing some component of the product into something else. Wine becomes vinegar. Milk becomes sour. Meat becomes rancid. Fruit becomes mush. That doesn't happen with high proof spirits like whiskey because nothing can live in that much alcohol.

So no, whiskey can't 'go bad' in that sense. What whiskey can do is absorb too much oxygen, which makes it taste like somebody added way too much vanilla. This happens most often when someone leaves a small amount in the bottle for a long period of time and can be aggravated if the cork or cap isn't well seated.

The best solution is to finish the bottle. Don't leave that last quaff for a special occasion. Just drink it.

If you must save it, transfer it to a bottle appropriately sized.

Under some rare conditions you can get unbalanced evaporation, where some or all of the alcohol goes away leaving a very unpleasant-tasting brown water. An inadequate seal is always the culprit here, aggravated by high temperature. This is why you don't want long exposure to direct sunlight. Alcohol is volatile. We think of that as meaning prone to catching fire, but it actually means prone to becoming a vapor and just going away.

Some people think the solution is to store bottles on their side to keep the cork moist, like you do with wine. This is a TERRIBLE idea with whiskey. High proof alcohol is hard on corks and dissolved cork is hard on the flavor of the beverage so do not store bottles on their side, or upside down, under any circumstances.

Some people will suggest that you wrap the bottle tops with paraffin tape. Some will recommend replacing whiskey when you pour it with marbles, or clean pebbles, something to keep the fill level high. This is a bit too fussy for most people and really isn't necessary. Just drink the whiskey in due course.

After all, that's what it's there for.

NOTE: A version of this post was published in August, 2015, hence the comments below from that period. Read them. Most of them are pretty good.

The Genealogy Of Yeast

 

Joseph Lloyd Beam, Master Distiller, Bardstown, Kentucky.
(date unknown, probably late 1920s)

Yeast, and the different characteristics a particular strain can impart during fermentation, is a fundamental part of bourbon-making. 

Today, most yeast is created in a lab and manufactured in a factory, but before Prohibition making yeast was a crucial part of a whiskey maker's skill set. Back then, "making" yeast meant mixing up a special mash and using it to catch and propagate a suitable strain from a wild source. Yeast is a living organism, a type of fungus. It thrives in a watery environment, eats sugar in liquid form, and metabolizes it into ethanol and carbon dioxide. All of the alcohol you can drink is made by yeast. Like all living organisms, yeast can mutate and change. When mutations render it unfit, it has to be replaced.

At most legacy distilleries, those that started before the modern "bourbon boom," the yeast they use has connections to that earlier era. Therefore, the genealogy of yeast is essentially that of yeast makers. At distilleries such as Jim Beam, Heaven Hill, Four Roses, Yellowstone, Maker's Mark, Barton, Stitzel-Weller, Early Times, and many others, that meant one or more members of the Beam family.

Yeast mutates and humans adapt. Although the Beams all started from the same place, with the same yeast mash recipe, and were all taught the same organoleptic standards, each distiller in each generation made their own subtle adaptations after years of practice and would have passed their way of doing things on to the next generation. 

Joseph L. "Joe" Beam was considered the dean of American whiskey makers on both sides of Prohibition. He was the son of Joseph B. Beam, whose grandfather was Jacob Beam, the ancestor from whom all whiskey-making Beams are descended. When Four Roses was revived after Prohibition, at a new distillery in Shively, they hired Joe Beam and bragged that he was bringing "the famous Beam yeast."

Joe Beam had seven distiller sons. Jim and Park Beam were his first cousins. His older brother, Minor, also a distiller, had several sons in the business. It's hard to find a distillery of that era that was not touched by a Beam. 

We know from Booker Noe, Jim Beam's grandson, that the Jim Beam yeast was caught by Jim on his back porch in Bardstown as Prohibition was ending and he prepared to build a new distillery. That version of the Beam yeast is known for a "foxy" characteristic most noticeable in the brand's standard white label expression.

Jim and Joe Beam's uncle was Jack Beam, who started Early Times, and although his only son followed him into the business, there was no third generation. That line died out. It's unknown if the yeast strain they used was preserved and passed on to the people who revived Early Times after Prohibition. It is known that the yeast Brown-Forman used for Early Times was not the Old Forester yeast. 

When Park Beam's son, Earl, left the Jim Beam Distillery in 1946, he took that Beam yeast with him to Heaven Hill, replacing the yeast Joe's son Harry had been using. Earl tweaked it, as did his son and successor, Parker Beam. They did not, apparently, like that "foxy" characteristic, which is not evident in any Heaven Hill products.

According to family lore, Joe Beam received most of his training from his much older brother, Minor, who also trained Will McGill, a friend of Joe's who became Pappy Van Winkle's distiller at Stitzel-Weller. As journeymen, Joe and Will worked at Minor's distillery at Gethsemane, today's Log Still Distillery. They also worked together at Tom Moore's distillery, today's Barton 1792.

The Stitzel-Weller yeast that made its way to Maker's Mark would have originated with Joseph B. Beam and probably went through Minor to get to Will McGill, and from him into the hands of Elmo Beam, Joe's firstborn, who would already have been familiar with his father's version. That Pappy Van Winkle gave the yeast to Bill Samuels Sr. is known, but what Elmo actually used is not. No doubt he had his own ideas about such things.

His brother, Charlie, was distiller at the Pennsylvania distillery that became Michter's. Charlie trained Dick Stoll, who made the bourbon that became A. H. Hirsch Reserve.

After Joe Beam restarted Four Roses it was sold to Seagram's. His grandson, another Charlie, spent most of his career with Seagram's, where he developed the Eagle Rare Bourbon brand before finishing his career at Four Roses in Lawrenceburg. No company did more for whiskey yeast than Seagram's, which archived more than 300 different strains.

Minor's son, Guy, worked at several different distilleries, including Heaven Hill, Fairfield, and Cummins-Collins. During Prohibition he was a distiller in Canada. Guy had two distiller sons, Burch and Jack. A third son, Walter, who was better known as Toddy, operated a liquor store in downtown Bardstown that still bears his name. Jack worked for Barton. Steve and Paul Beam, who run Lebanon's Limestone Branch Distillery, are descended from Guy.

I once asked Craig Beam, Parker's son and successor, if he thought anyone in the family could make yeast the old-fashioned way, capturing it from a wild source. He knew he couldn't, he said. His grandfather, Earl, taught him how to propagate Heaven Hill's yeast, to make enough for the fermenters, but not how to make it from scratch. When Heaven Hill moved to Bernheim, they switched to dry yeast rather than add a yeast room, which the rebuilt distillery did not have. 

Craig said he thought if anyone could make it from scratch, it would be Baker, but when I asked Baker, he just laughed.

How Mushrooms Improve Whiskey

 

Sautéed mushrooms, quickly cooked in butter and extra virgin olive oil,
then finished with a flambé of bourbon.

Mushrooms are tasty on pizza, battered and deep fried, or stuffed with crabmeat. Maybe you like grilled portabellas with polenta, or shiitakes in a stir fry. Or perhaps you'd enjoy a tasty side-dish like the one pictured above. Bourbon-flavored mushrooms? Sure. Mushroom-flavored bourbon? Maybe not. 

But when white oak intended for whiskey barrels is seasoned naturally, mushrooms of a microscopic sort, usually referred to as fungi, play a vital role. Scientists call it fungal colonization. It is an early part of the wood’s natural decomposition process.

During seasoning, a succession of different fungal species send out roots (hyphae) that penetrate the wood structure and release hydrogen peroxide, a natural bleaching and oxidizing agent that helps break the wood down chemically, softening tannins and caramelizing hemicellulose among other salutary effects.

A fresh-cut oak is about 60 percent water by weight and needs to get below 18 percent for the coopers to do their thing. First in the pool is Aureobasidium pullulans, one of the species of common mildew, the same black stuff you clean off your shower tiles. As the wood dries it becomes inhospitable to pullulans which pulls out (okay, dies) and is replaced by another type that thrives in the slightly drier environment. One after another a succession of different fungal species (eumycota) and sub-species each have a go at it, including the one from which the medicine penicillin is made.

By studying fungal colonization in American white oak (Quercus alba), scientists proved the superiority of a traditional cooperage practice–air drying–that was widely abandoned in the United States after World War II in favor of kilns. Kilns remove moisture effectively, but they stop the biological processes, fungal and bacterial, that make many of the wood’s flavor components available for absorption by maturing spirit.

In the first stage of natural seasoning, if humidity and other weather variables are favorable, fresh-cut logs are simply left in the field for days or weeks. From there they go to a stave mill, close to the forest, where they are roughly broken down into staves and head pieces. From there they are shipped to the cooperage, where they are neatly stacked in the yard, fully exposed to the elements. There they will remain for anywhere from three months to two years, and in some cases even longer. Often wood that is given only a short time outside is finished via kiln.

As you can probably guess, it’s a cost issue. You pay a premium for long natural seasoning. A good question to ask when someone tries to sell you an expensive whiskey is, "How long were your barrel staves air seasoned?”

Don't be surprised if they have no idea what you’re talking about.