October Interview With John Lunn Reconsidered

Back in October, when Diageo announced the introduction of George Dickel Rye, I had occasion to talk briefly with John Lunn. He didn't have much to say that wasn't already in the press materials, but we had never met so I took the opportunity to chat him up when it was offered by the PR folks. We had a brief but pleasant conversation.

Earlier last year, I had learned that, in addition to being Master Distiller at the George Dickel Distillery in Tennessee, Lunn had been given responsibility for operations at the company's Stitzel-Weller Distillery in Kentucky. With the revelation this past Sunday that Diageo will resume distilling at Stitzel-Weller, revisiting that interview seemed like a good idea.

There were a few interesting tidbits. I learned that the property in Tennessee is 600 acres, so there's plenty of room for expansion, though nothing is currently planned. I probed for any inkling of future plans, but nothing leaked. "We're always looking at innovation, what we can do and what the people want," was all he would say.

We talked a little bit about Ralph Dupps, who oversaw the building of George Dickel in the late 1950s. Lunn got to meet Dupps before his death in 2008 at the age of 90. "His only advice was, 'Don’t change a damn thing,'" Lunn told me. That's when I learned that everything at Dickel is done the old fashioned way. There are no computers. "It's all sight and sound, touch and feel. Some of the employees here have 30 or more years of experience."

Although nothing was said about distilling resuming at Stitzel-Weller, we did discuss his responsibilities there. Operations there include maturation--which involves entering barrels, periodically checking them, and removing them when the whiskey is ready to sell--as well as blending. He declined to name which brands are matured or blended there, or where the whiskey aging there was distilled.

Visitors granted admission to The Bulleit Experience at Stitzel-Weller are not allowed to get close enough to the warehouses to look in the windows and see what the barrel heads say.

There is no bottling facility at either George Dickel or Stitzel-Weller. The whiskey goes from there to Plainfield, Illinois for bottling. Several requests to tour that facility have been denied.

Diageo has not publically confirmed anything about its plans for Stitzel-Weller.

So we don't know what Diageo plans to do at Sttzel-Weller, or if John Lunn will have anything to do with it, but it's easy to paint a pleasing picture of Mr. Lunn, after doing things 'the old fashioned way' at Dickel, doing the same thing with the mothballed equipment at Stitzel-Weller. Wouldn't that be something?

After More Than 20 Years, Stitzel-Weller to Resume Production

Earlier today, John Hansell reported on the Whisky Advocate Blog that Diageo sources have told him Stitzel-Weller will resume production soon. No further details are available. Hansell received the news in confidence several months ago, and decided to confirm it today after the news began to leak over the weekend. According to one report, on Friday night a Diageo rep spoke about it freely at Bourbon's Bistro in Louisville.

Stitzel-Weller is the Louisville distillery established by the Van Winkle family after the repeal of Prohibition in 1933. It was known for producing wheated bourbon, which it sold as Old Fitzgerald, W. L. Weller and several other brands. The Van Winkle family sold the distillery, its whiskey stocks and brands in 1972. After that, ownership changed several times until it landed with a predecessor company to Diageo, which closed it in 1992. Since then, the warehouses have been used but not the distillery. There have been multiple reports that the need for asbestos abatement makes it cost prohibitive to return the existing distillery to production. How that will be resolved remains unknown.

In 1999, Diageo sold Old Fitzgerald and the other Stitzel-Weller brands.

When the Van Winkle family sold Stitzel-Weller, they retained rights to Van Winkle as a brand name and went into business as a non-distiller producer, using whiskey bought from their family's former plant. This is the basis of the now famous Pappy Van Winkle line, although today only the 23-year-old is entirely Stitzel-Weller bourbon. In other forms too, whiskey produced at Stitzel-Weller has long been highly prized but, after more than 20 years, it is very scarce.

Diageo's only active whiskey distillery in the United States is the George Dickel Distillery in Tullahoma, Tennessee. In 2012, Dickel Master Distiller John Lunn was put in charge of operations at Stitzel-Weller, where whiskey for Diageo brands is matured and blended.

We await an official announcement from Diageo as well as meaningful details. Whatever the plan, it will be several years before new Stitzel-Weller whiskey will be ready to sell.

In recent years, Diageo has prepared Stitzel-Weller to serve as a homeplace for Diageo's Bulleit brand, which is made elsewhere at non-Diageo facilities. Although The Bulleit Bourbon Experience has been ready for nearly two years, it hasn't been opened to the public. Presumably that too is imminent, but again there is no official word.

Excessive Exuberance: The Van Winkle Phenomenon

Vanessa DiMauro, CEO of Leader Networks, writes that "Excessive exuberance is the Achilles Heel of social media." It's the Achilles Heel of many things touted on social media too, including the sudden hipness of all things whiskey. Nothing exemplifies this better than the Van Winkle phenomenon.

Because it's end-of-the-year and holiday time, when editorial budgets run out, and your better-paid writers and editors are on their way to a beach somewhere, you're going to see lots of lists: gift ideas, year's best, party tips, and so on. The name of Van Winkle will be on many such lists.

Let's acknowledge right off that the people who most need to read this probably won't, because then they would be informed and most Van Winkle fanatics aren't.

Let's also acknowledge that there are people who have long enjoyed the whiskeys selected and bottled (but not made) by the Van Winkle family. Most of them aren't interested in all the commotion about Van Winkle, and with only a slight twinge of regret are happy to drink something else. That's because they know their way around bourbon and know that the Van Winkle whiskeys, while very good, are not sine qua non.

Here's the history. Julian P. "Pappy" Van Winkle used to own Louisville's Stitzel-Weller Distillery, makers of Old Fitzgerald and other bourbons. After his death, his heirs couldn't agree on the company's direction, which forced a sale. Pappy's son, JPVW Junior, started a new company using the only brand the family retained in the sale, Old Rip Van Winkle. His son, Julian (JPVW III), continues that business to this day. Assisted by his son and in partnership with the Buffalo Trace Distillery, he sells bourbons at 10, 12, 15, 20, and 23-years-old, and a 13-year-old rye, under various iterations of the Van Winkle brand.

Van Winkle primarily sells bourbon made with wheat instead of rye. That's a minority approach, but not unique. Most of the Van Winkle whiskey is made at the Buffalo Trace Distillery in Frankfort, which also makes the W. L. Weller line of wheated bourbons, a former Stitzel-Weller brand.

Van Winkle has always been a very small brand. It was pricey and its extra-aged products were not to everyone's liking. Still, it always had a good reputation among enthusiasts. Then, a few years ago, a few celebrities mentioned they liked it and it started to show up on "best of" lists. Whiskey was suddenly hip and the laziest question a person can ask about whiskey is, "what's the best?" Van Winkle became the default answer and began to be very hard to get. Some retailers and scores of eBay sellers asked absurd prices for it and, in at least a few cases, got them.

Van Winkle is a problem for retailers because there’s so much more demand than supply that people who fancy themselves ‘good customers’ get testy when a store can’t fulfill their Van Winkle desires.

The phenomenon is driven largely by lazy journalists who simply copy what other people write, so everybody who writes about bourbon and desirable high-end bottles winds up writing about Van Winkles. Most of the pieces are written by people who know little or nothing about whiskey. They are ‘life style’ journalists. Their bread and butter is ‘ten best’ lists, which they simply compile from a couple of already published ‘ten best’ lists, so the thing feeds on itself.

Generally, the people clamoring for a Van Winkle are the same as the people behind the lists. They know almost nothing about bourbon. For them, it’s the lazy shortcut route to connoisseurship. They read somewhere that Van Winkle is the best, and since they only buy the best of everything, and they (apparently) have more money than they know what to do with, Van Winkle it must be.

If you actually just want a very good bottle of that type of bourbon (wheated and well-aged), the Weller line is right there for you. The Weller 12-year-old is comparable to all but the 20-23 year-old Van Winkles, and costs about $30 a bottle. It’s in short supply too, though not as crazy as Van Winkle. For that matter, purely in terms of the whiskey, most would be happy with a bottle of Maker's Mark (also a wheated bourbon and about $20 a bottle). If you want something exclusive and high end, the 2010 edition of Parker's Heritage Collection, a 10-year-old barrel proof wheated bourbon, is the peer of any Van Winkle.

If you're a real bourbon enthusiast, you already know this. If you're a typical Van Winkle fanatic, you never will.

Julian Van Winkle (JPVW III) explains the scarcity strategy well. Because there is so much more demand than supply, his cost of selling is about zero. He simply announces how many bottles he has to sell, customers tell him how many they want, he tells them how many they can have, and pretty soon it’s all gone. It's a nice business.

Most stores never put it on the shelf, and they have people on long waiting lists for it. It’s great for Julian but it’s kind of a nuisance for the stores. Yes, they sell every bottle instantly, at a healthy markup, but they have to deal with dozens if not hundreds of unhappy customers.

There are plenty of knowledgeable bourbon enthusiasts who like Van Winkle too (it is genuinely good stuff, just not ambrosia) and wish they could find and afford it, but they’re competing with all the dopes who have to have it because they read something about it in Maxim. It's not worth the trouble.

And now there is one more year-end Van Winkle story.

The Genealogy Of Beam Yeast

The post earlier this month, in which Sam Cecil briefly outlines the careers of the many Beam family distillers, raised a question about the yeast all of those Beams were using, not just at Jim Beam but at Heaven Hill, Four Roses, Yellowstone, Maker's Mark, Barton, Stitzel-Weller, Early Times, and many others.

The specific question: Jim Beam's yeast has a reputation for imparting a 'foxy' taste, a characteristic not associated with any other producer, despite having Beams in their lineage. How come?

Historically, 'yeast making' meant propagating a strain from a wild source. 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 would have made his own subtle adaptations after years of practice, and would have passed his way of doing things on to his son.

I say 'son,' knowing that some Beam family distillers were trained by their grandfathers more than their fathers.

Either way, the genealogy of the yeasts is essentially that of the yeast makers.

David Beam (1802-1852) had three sons who became distillers. If you're a fan of Underworld, think of them as the three sons of Alexander Corvinus.

The youngest, Jack Beam, 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 that strain was preserved and passed on to the people who revived Early Times after Prohibition, but it seems unlikely.

The other two were Joseph B. Beam and David M. Beam. Those two traditions split more than 150 years ago, and there have been many other subdivisions since.

Each of them had two distiller sons. Joseph B. had Joseph L. (Joe) and Minor Case, and David M had the famous Jim Beam and his brother, Park.

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.

When Park's son, Earl, left the Jim Beam Distillery in 1946, he took the Jim Beam yeast with him to Heaven Hill, replacing the Joe Beam yeast Joe's son Harry was then using. Under Earl Beam, Heaven Hill's bourbon had a reputation for being oily, but not 'foxy' like Beam.

I should note that, to me, the 'foxy' yeast characteristic is only noticeable in the white label Jim Beam expression.

It's hard to say what changed at Heaven Hill. It may have been the water. Yeast can change for very subtle reasons -- different water, different atmospheric conditions, different airborne microorganisms, different mash temperature, a different amount of back set, etc. The loss of the 'foxy' characteristic may have been deliberate, or an accidental by-product of different practices in a different place.

In addition to training his sons Joe and Minor Case, Joseph B. Beam may also have trained Will McGill. Will was a friend of son Joe, who married Will's sister, Katherine McGill.  Will must have been a good student because he became Pappy Van Winkle's master distiller at Stitzel-Weller after Prohibition.

It is likely Joe and Will also learned from Joe's older brother, Minor Case, who was 11 years Joe's senior. Minor had his own distillery at Gethsemane, which made the brand Old Trump, and which eventually merged with the nearby Yellowstone distillery. Joe and Will worked together at many different distilleries during their early careers, including at the Tom Moore distillery, today's Barton.

So the Stitzel-Weller yeast that made its way to Maker's Mark would have originated with Joseph B. Beam and probably went through Minor Case 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 gave the yeast to Bill Samuels Sr. is known, but what Elmo actually used is not, at least not by me. Sam Cecil probably knew, since he followed Elmo at Maker's Mark.

Among his many feats, Joe Beam restarted Four Roses (then in Shively) after Prohibition, and employed some of his seven distiller sons there, as well as some of their sons. Seagram's bought Four Roses during WWII and Roy's son, 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.

Minor's son, Guy, was a distiller or master distiller 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. The two brothers who recently started the micro distillery Limestone Springs in Lebanon are descended from Guy.

Nobody is catching wild yeast these days and if distillers want to tweak their yeast, they do it in the lab, not on a back porch as Jim Beam did.

The Bulleit Experience At Stitzel-Weller Distillery.

Several years ago at WhiskyFest Chicago, I was chatting with Chris Musumeci, then brand manager for Diageo's Bulleit Bourbon.

We talked about the growth and popularity of the brand. "At some point," he said, "Bulleit will need some kind of home place."

The distillery where it is made would be the natural home place but, as we both knew, Bulleit's products are contract distilled by non-Diageo distilleries. 

My comment was, "Well, there's always Stitzel-Weller." Stitzel-Weller is the old Van Winkle family distillery. Built in 1933, it operated until 1992. It was the home of Old Fitzgerald, W. L. Weller, Rebel Yell, Cabin Still, and Old Rip Van Winkle wheated bourbons. The company now known as Diageo has owned it since 1987.

Last summer, it seemed as though they had taken my suggestion. "The Bulleit Experience at Stitzel-Weller Distillery" was announced with moderate fanfare. Industry people, including myself, were invited for previews. A few preview events were held. Mine was cancelled.

Another visit was scheduled and cancelled earlier this year. Two weeks ago, I finally got to peak behind the curtain.

The first pleasant surprise. There is a guard on the front gate again. In recent years, only the back gate has been used.

I was met by Tom Bulleit (left, in the photo) and Bobby Burke, who was introduced as the first tour guide. The focus of "The Bulleit Experience at Stitzel-Weller" is the old office building, whose design was based on Thomas Jefferson's home, Monticello. The effect of Southern gentility is enhanced by the large magnolia tree in front.

To the right, there is a small gazebo. To the left is the first row of black-painted, steel clad aging warehouses. On the long side of each warehouse there is a raised concrete walkway covered by a low roof, giving it the look of a covered porch. Upright whiskey barrels and rocking chairs complete the effect.

It is possible, therefore, to walk along the long side of each warehouse, protected from the elements, though still outside, and look into the open first floor windows, yet that's not part of the tour because of "insurance concerns."

Instead, details of the office building's architecture are pointed out. Don't get me wrong, I love that sort of thing. Inside there is a vestibule with some benches. The next door leads to a large room with exhibits that tell the history of the distillery, of the Bulleit brand, and of Kentucky whiskey-making in general. There are a couple of barrels marking production milestones and other artifacts drawn from the distillery's vast archives.

This central room has several doors. One leads to Tom Bulleit's office, which occupies a small portion of what was originally Pappy Van Winkle's vast office. It's a very handsome room.

Another door leads to another now-subdivided part of Pappy's old office, that is decorated like a library. This is where the tastings will take place. This space has a large window that provides a nice look at the grounds. Then there's the gift shop.

That's it.

I had a very nice time with Tom and Bobby. I was just meeting Bobby but I've known Tom for years and always enjoy his company. As I told them, I think people will be disappointed if they can’t see a little more of the distillery, in particular the inside of a warehouse and at least an outside look at the old still house. If going inside isn't possible, then at least include a walk of the grounds pointing these things out.

That's all there is anyway. No distilling or bottling is done there.

I also don't know where people are going to park. They have maybe ten spaces in front of the office building and no place for buses. You wouldn't want to sully the grounds by laying more asphalt. These may be some of the reasons why the place isn't open to the public. Tom and Bobby say they don't know when it will open. It's not up to them.

They did mention that recent road improvements make it easier to get there from Interstate 65, and the improved road takes the visitor past Papa John Stadium and Churchill Downs, where they might be going anyway.

For now, they're just using it to host journalists and trade customers.

They'd love to be on the official Kentucky Bourbon Trail and it would love to have them.

As they also point out, Stitzel-Weller is an active maturation facility. As such, it is overseen by John Lunn, who is best known as Master Distiller at George Dickel. He was recently promoted to Southern Hub Director for Diageo. The Southern Hub is comprised of the Dickel and Stitzel-Weller sites. As Director, Lunn oversees daily operations and is responsible for production, quality and safety.

What To Buy Now.

For everyone who wishes they had bunkered more Stitzel-Weller wheated bourbon before it was all gone, here are a few ideas about what to buy now.

If you like Canadian Whisky, Crown Royal XR will soon be gone, Diageo has announced. Crown XR was created from the last remaining batches of whiskey distilled at Ontario’s Waterloo distillery. It burned down in 1993 and XR contains the whiskey that was saved from the fire.

If you miss out, don't panic. Crown promises it has products in the pipeline that will include other rare whiskeys. They're calling it the Crown Royal Extra Rare Whisky Series.

If your whiskey monger still has any 101° proof Wild Turkey Rye left, buy it. Campari America promises it will come back next year but what they don't say is that it will probably have a new label and a new, higher price when it does. In the meantime, try the new 81° proof Wild Turkey Rye, conveniently priced the same as 101° in most places.

For the last year or so, all Wild Turkey and Russell's Reserve products have been made in a brand spanking new distillery. Whiskey made in the old distillery will be around for several more years, but they aren't making any more of it, so stock up now.

If you are in or anywhere near Virginia, get yourself a bottle of Abraham Bowman Virginia Limited Edition Whiskey. The one you want is the 18-year-old bourbon. It's a limited edition, so you know it won't be around for long, and it is marrrrvelous.

By the way, the A. Smith Bowman Distillery in Fredericksburg, Virginia, is officially reopening on Thursday, April 19. It never actually closed, but hasn't been open to the public for several years. Tours are now offered Monday through Friday at 10 AM and 2 PM, or by appointment. Groups larger than ten should call first. The gift shop is open weekdays from 9 AM to 3:30 PM. They do sell whiskey there.

When producers drop age statements from their labels, they always swear the product is still as old as it used to be but that inevitably changes. So if you see a bottle of Weller Special Reserve that says '7 years in wood,' buy it, because the new ones don't say that.

The current vintage of Evan Williams Single Barrel is the 2002, so if you see anything older than that, buy it. The 2002 is perfectly good too, but you'll be able to get all you want of that for at least the rest of this year.

Coming Soon: The Bulleit Experience At Stitzel-Weller Distillery.

Several years ago, at WhiskeyFest here in Chicago, I was chatting with a Diageo executive who opined that they would eventually have to do something about creating a "home place for Bulleit." What's a "home place"? Think of it as a distillery substitute. You can't visit the Bulleit Distillery because there isn't one.

What does Bulleit have to do with Stitzel-Weller? Nothing, except Diageo owns both of them. Stitzel-Weller is the old Van Winkle family distillery. Diageo has owned it for more than 20 years. The distillery itself has been dark since 1992, but they use the warehouses to age bourbon distilled for them by others, and may be using other parts of the facility too.

Although Diageo has never confirmed this, I'm pretty sure Bulleit is aged at Stitzel-Weller.

The Stitzel-Weller Distillery is located just south of Louisville in the suburb of Shively, where there were once dozens of distilleries. It was built just after Prohibition ended and operated for 60 years. Until Maker's Mark it was the only distillery making wheated bourbon. Its brands were Old Fitzgerald, W. L. Weller, Old Rip Van Winkle, Cabin Still, and Rebel Yell, none of which Diageo still owns.

According to the announcement, Tom Bulleit and his team are very excited about this  opportunity to share more about Bulleit while giving folks a close look at one of the most legendary distilleries of its time. Stitzel-Weller will also serve as Tom’s place of business when he is in Kentucky.

I haven't been inside the fence since 1996, so I'm excited too.

Pappy Van Winkle built Stitzel-Weller to be a showplace as well as a working distillery. It is great that this important landmark will be preserved and people will be able to experience it.

They haven't announced when it will be open to the public. I'll keep you posted as I learn more.

More Maker's Anyone?

Here is another angle to the issue of Maker's Mark not making any enthusiast expressions. If that was "The Maker's Mark Dilemma," call this "The Torch of Stitzel-Weller."

Arguably, the Maker's Mark Distillery is the natural successor to the legendary Stitzel-Weller Distillery, which distilled its final batch in 1992. Why? For several reasons.

First is the "Pappy gave Bill Sr. the Stitzel-Weller recipe" story, which came to me many years ago from a guy who worked for Stitzel-Weller when Pappy was still alive and the Van Winkle family still owned the distillery. It apparently was common knowledge among insiders at the time. I've talked to Bill Jr. about it and he more-or-less confirms it, saying his father sought and received input from many of his friends in the industry. He mentioned, for example, that Pappy told Bill Sr. that you can't cook a wheated mash under pressure.

The second reason is the Maker's Mark stills. They were made by Vendome, which also made the Stitzel-Weller still, and the specifications are the same, according to former Maker's Mark Master Distiller Dave Pickerell. The stills have some unique characteristics in common which Dave can explain much better than I can.

Third, Joe Beam and his sons worked at Stitzel-Weller at various times and Will McGill, the longtime Master Distiller at Stitzel-Weller, was Joe Beam's brother-in-law. One of the sons, Elmo Beam, who had worked for his Uncle Will at Stitzel-Weller, was the first Master Distiller at Maker's Mark.

Fourth, some percentage of Maker's Mark whiskey is aged in the warehouses at Stitzel-Weller, where Maker's Mark has been renting space from Diageo for a decade or more.

So the premise is that since Maker's Mark is the natural successor to Stitzel-Weller, it should take the torch and try to reach some of the exalted heights of excellence that Stitzel-Weller did with some of its higher proof and longer aged expressions, such as Very Very Old Fitzgerald (12-years-old, 100 proof), which some consider to be the best bourbon of all time.

It is probably impossible to exactly duplicate the whiskey made at one place someplace else. There are just too many variables. Is the Jim Beam White Label made at Booker Noe exactly the same as the Jim Beam White Label made at Clermont?

Still, if Maker's has the best possibility of duplicating what Stitzel-Weller did, shouldn't they try? On the contrary, Maker's Mark follows practices that would inevitably make their whiskey less like Stitzel-Weller rather than more, because they are aiming for a consistent product in the 5- to 6-year old age range to be sold at 90 proof.

According to press releases issued at the time, Julian Van Winkle has since joining Buffalo Trace provided guidance to help BT's wheated juice more closely resemble Stitzel-Weller whiskey, but of course the distillery itself is very different.

Has he succeeded? The proof, I think, is in the excellence of the Van Winkle bottlings, where I no longer care if, in fact, there is any Stitzel-Weller whiskey in there or not, or where the whiskey was made (Bernheim? Buffalo Trace?) because the quality is there (e.g., Lot B).

But the question persists about Stitzel-Weller because real Stitzel-Weller whiskey is becoming so scarce.

The actual successor to Stitzel-Weller, arguably, is Heaven Hill's Bernheim Production Facility, which was designed by the owner of both plants to be the successor, and which was set-up by Ed Foote, the last Master Distiller at Stitzel-Weller.

Although Buffalo Trace produced a little bit of wheated bourbon prior to acquiring the W.L. Weller brand in 1999, it didn't produce enough to fully support the brand and even today a lot of the Weller on shelves is Bernheim whiskey. So is some of the Van Winkle. Of course, all of the Old Fitzgerald on shelves today, except for the odd Stitzel-Weller dusty, is from Bernheim, which Heaven Hill acquired along with the Old Fitzgerald brand.

Dave Pickerell was also deeply involved in the design of Bernheim and probably no one alive knows more about all three facilities.

Finally, I tasted some of the Jefferson's Presidential Select yesterday at Binny's and I agree with what some others have said. It's definitely Stitzel-Weller whiskey and is very good, although it's not the best Stitzel-Weller whiskey I've had by a long shot. It reminds me of that Everett's bottling of Weller 12-year-old from a few years ago, that contained 16- and 14-year-old Stitzel-Weller whiskey. But that was $20 a bottle. This is $90.

For the money, I prefer two bottles of Van Winkle Family Reserve Lot B.