Double Your Pleasure.

It's not a great picture, nor is it a very attractive thing. What is it? Something you rarely see, yet it separates fine bourbon whiskey from mere alcohol.

It is a doubler. Specifically, the doubler at Maker's Mark.

Although not required by law, most bourbon whiskey is double-distilled. The first distillation takes place in a column still. When you visit a distillery in Kentucky and they show you the still, that's what they show you. It looks like a column. They're typically five feet in diameter and two stories high. Every couple of feet there is a porthole-like thing.

That's where the first distillation occurs. When the distillate leaves that still it goes to the one pictured here, the doubler. A doubler is a type of pot still. There are two types of doublers. One is the conventional doubler, the other is the thumper. For a conventional doubler, the distillate is condensed into a liquid before it enters the doubler. For a thumper, it's introduced while still a vapor, and the introduction of hot vapor causes a thumping sound, like when a cold radiator pipe gets hot.

Distillers say the purpose of the doubler is to polish the spirit. It's all about flavor. Certain congeners just can't be gotten at any other way.

As bad as that picture is, most doublers look worse. Most don't have copper on the outside. Most look about the same as any of the other tanks that are everywhere in a distillery.

Back when the American whiskey industry was crashing in the 1970s, many producers joined in a race to the bottom and some stopped doubling to cut costs. Eventually, they all resumed the practice. As the distillers say, you can make alcohol without doubling, no problem, but you can't make fine bourbon whiskey.

We're only talking about the major bourbon and Tennessee Whiskey distilleries here. Micro-distilleries do their own thing and many do not feel double-distillation is necessary.

When I'm in a distillery, and think of it, I usually ask to see the doubler. That's what happened when this picture was taken about two years ago. It's usually in the basement, so there is stair climbing involved. I've never been shown one routinely on a tour.

A few years ago I was at Jack Daniel's and there was a rumor going around that Jack Daniel's doesn't double. I asked the then Master Distiller Jimmy Bedford that question while we were on the tour. He said yes so I asked to see it. I should say 'them.' Jack Daniel's has five column stills, and five doublers.

Class Next Week By Me.

Just a reminder that I'm teaching a Bourbon class on Monday, February 1, at Rocks Bar (1301 West Schubert Ave.). The class will include tasting.

I'm doing this through I Wish Lessons. To attend, or get more information, go to their web site and click on "Drinks Around the World."

Classes Next Week By Me.

Just a reminder that I'm teaching a Cognac class on Monday, January 25, at Stretch Run (544 N. LaSalle St.); and a Single Malt Scotch class on Wednesday, January 27, at the Bar on Buena (910 W. Buena Ave.). Both classes will include tasting.

The classes are through I Wish Lessons. To attend, or get more information, go to their web site and click on "Drinks Around the World."

I Teach For I Wish.

This coming Wednesday, January 13, I'm teaching an introduction to rum class at Las Tablas, 2942 N. Lincoln Ave. in Chicago.

This is the first of several classes I'm doing on distilled spirits and, yes, they will include tasting.

The classes are being offered by I Wish, as in their slogan, "What do you wish you could learn?" Mine are part of their 'Drinks Around The World' tour.

In addition to rum, I'm teaching classes on cognac, single malt scotch and, naturally, bourbon.

They're open to the public but, of course, you have to be at least 21 years old and have to register in advance.

The bourbon classes are on February 1, March 8 and April 5, which are all Mondays. They will be held at Rocks, 1301 West Schubert Ave. The cognac classes are on January 25, February 24, and April 6, at Stretch Run, 544 N. LaSalle St. The SMS class I'm teaching is on January 27, but there are other dates. It will be held at the Bar on Buena, 910 W. Buena Ave.

All of the sessions begin at 7:00 PM and run about an hour to an hour-and-a-quarter, and students are always welcome to remain at the bar to study the subject further on their own.

The I Wish way is to keep it light and informal, with lots of interaction, but with solid content and teachers who know their stuff. The purpose of these drinks classes is mostly to introduce people to I Wish, which offers private lessons, group lessons, and scheduled classes on a wide variety of subjects.

For more information, go to iwishlessons.com.

Want To Learn About Distilling? Apply For A Michael Jackson Internship.

Readers of this blog are one of the few audiences that won't immediately associate the name "Michael Jackson" with the recently-departed King of Pop.

Our Michael, also deceased, was a writer, lecturer, thinker, and champion of beverage alcohol. The English-born Jackson made his reputation educating the world about beer, then became the world's leading authority on whiskey too.

The Michael Jackson Education Fund was initially created by the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Wine & Food (AIWF) in the early 1990s. The Fund is now managed by the AIWF Foundation which has partnered with the American Distilling Institute (ADI) to develop an internship program. Applications are being accepted now.

The Michael Jackson Internship is intended to foster scholarship in all aspects of distilled spirits manufacture. Though based in the United States, international applicants and international hosts are welcome. Applications for the internship are reviewed by a committee of distilled spirits professionals drawn from the spirits production, sales and writing communities. Depending on the availability of funds, there will be at least one internship awarded per year. The internship will be awarded at a special dinner in honor of the Michael Jackson Fund in conjunction with the annual ADI meeting.

For more information, contact:
Daniel Farber
Chair of the Michael Jackson Internship Committee
Osocalis Distillery
5579 Old San Jose Rd.
Soquel, CA, 95073

Enough With The Alcohol Taxes Already.

Kentucky isn’t the only state that wants to balance its budget on the backs of drinkers. Illinois lawmakers are currently looking at sales tax hikes too, maybe on beer and wine, but certainly on distilled spirits.

Alcoholic beverages are always an inviting target They are seen as non-essential and some people favor high taxes to deter consumption. Even the language—-‘sin tax,’ ‘hard liquor’—-is loaded.

Some regard Kentucky as a unique case because it is a major producer, primarily of bourbon whiskey. Fewer people, even here in Illinois, know that our state is one of the top producers of grain neutral spirits, the basis for vodka, gin and many other distilled spirits products.

In addition to threatening those manufacturing jobs, higher taxes on alcohol have a negative impact on every business that sells liquor of any kind. Whether you’re talking about bars, restaurants, hotels, stores, or sports venues, the alcohol they sell is usually more profitable than just about anything else, so if higher prices caused by higher taxes hurt alcohol sales, the bottom line suffers more than it would from just about any other cost increase.

Few people realize how much drinkers already pay in taxes. If you drink, smoke and gamble, you probably should get some kind of citizenship award.

With distilled spirits, taxes cost more than the product! Here is the rundown, courtesy of the Distilled Spirits Council (DISCUS).

The retail price of a typical 750ml bottle of 80 proof distilled spirits is about $12. Of that, about $7—-nearly 60 percent-—is taxes and fees. Out of that $12, the producer, distributor and retailer split $5 among them. That $5 pays the farmer who grows the grain, the distiller who makes the product, the bottle manufacturer and label maker, the wholesaler, the retailer, and all of their employees and suppliers.

Out of the $7, the federal government takes about $2.15. state and local taxes account for another $2.40. Those are the extraordinary taxes that are there just because it’s alcohol. The rest, about $2.45, represents the normal tax burden on the various businesses involved and their employees.

One way to look at it is as a 60/40 split, with the government taking the lion’s share. Another way to look at it is as a 140% mark-up that makes a product which should cost $5 cost $12 instead.

No other consumer product, except perhaps tobacco, carries such a heavy tax burden.

Just as there is no such thing as a free lunch, there are no painless taxes. By fostering the illusion that there are in order to collect as much as possible, politicians try to pit taxpayer groups against one another. I’m a soft touch for taxes on gambling and tobacco, because those aren’t my vices. Alcohol is.

When the United States was just formed, its only taxes were import duties. Imported goods were viewed as luxuries, non-essential. It was even argued that taxes on imports were good because they encouraged domestic production. When they didn’t produce enough revenue, the government turned to taxes on distilled spirits. Distilled spirits consumers have paid more than their fair share ever since.

Arguably, those high taxes on distilled spirits have been a good thing. They have raised a lot of needed tax revenue and people probably would drink more if it cost less. But let’s be realistic. There is such a thing as killing the golden goose and it doesn’t say much for us as a society if we increasingly fund our government by exploiting our own weaknesses.

Now, the New York Spirits Awards.

Yesterday, I told you my opinion about spirits competitions.

Today, I received a press release about a new one, in New York. It will be held in conjunction with The Bar Show at the Javits Center in June. It is called the New York Spirits Awards and appears to be organized similarly to the one in San Francisco that just concluded.

More info is here.

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner.

The 2009 San Francisco World Spirits Competition was last weekend. You can read all about it here.

The SFWSC is the creation of Anthony Dias Blue (who kind of looks like me) and F. Paul Pacult (who doesn't). They're both knock-around guys who essentially do what I do (drink stuff and write about it), so I genuinely admire their entrepreneurship.

But anybody who has read my book knows how I feel about ratings, and competitions have the same problems, although I do participate as a judge in the WHISKY Magazine World Whiskey Awards and other competitions they do, and I judged for Bill Owens at last year's American Distilling Institute (ADI) whiskey competition.

The problem is that it's all so subjective and often, no matter how they try to arrange the categories, you are comparing apples to oranges. Even when the styles are close, you still have the problem that what I like may not be what you like.

To pretend that the subjective opinions of a group of people, even of experts, can be averaged out and thereby made objective is, what? Delusional?

I learned a lot from Jim Murray when we did the ADI judging together. He is very good at identifying off flavors that indicate a flaw in the manufacture, especially useful when judging the efforts of micro-distillers. I felt our process was as good and fair as we could make it -- everything was judged blind, of course -- but there are always unintended consequences and, at the end of the day, it seems like picking a winner at random wouldn't be much less meaningful.

I feel sorry for someone like Rick Wasmund, who is very innovative, but in a rank of more ordinary spirits his stuff tastes odd and not necessarily in a good way. How do you judge something that is unique?

I noticed once during a WHISKY mag judging that when you taste a lot of different whiskeys, something that tastes a little different (though not as different as Wasmund's) will stick out and get extra points, but does that really make it the best?

Yet we live in a world of top ten lists and the centerpiece of most lifestyle journalism is the quest for the best burger or the best pizza, and when such accolades are awarded, the places that receive them get a big spike in business. Many people believe in the myth of "the best," and indulge in the shortcut of letting someone else tell them what it is.

The other night on television, I saw a story about a pizza joint in Brooklyn that frequently tops the "best of" lists. It has a line down the block all day every day. Good for them, but can any pizza be so much better than every other pizza (and just try to imagine how many pizza joints there are in New York City) that you would stand in line for it? To me, the answer is an unequivocal no.

Another of life's many mysteries.

I'm Still the Chicago Spirits Examiner.

I announced this back in July when it began, but now that I've been doing it for about two months, I thought I'd give you an update.

I am the Chicago Spirits Examiner on the Chicago Examiner web site. That means I examine the topic of distilled spirits, frequently from a Chicago perspective. I post short articles several times a week.

The Chicago Spirits Examiner is in the Food and Drink section of Examiner Chicago. There's a national Examiner portal and several local ones, including Chicago Examiner (I never remember which comes first, Chicago or Examiner). To go directly to the Chicago Spirits Examiner page, that is here.

I think the Examiner model is really terrific as a general interest portal, the kind of site people would set as their home page, to open every time they go online. It's a mix of news and comment, and lots of entertainment and lifestyle stuff. It's also a rich mix of syndicated and original content. The original content is what sets it apart.

One of the nice things on all of the pages, including mine, is a list of always changing headlines from feeds I've selected. You can, for example, see what John Hansell is posting on his blog without actually going there. This blog is one of the feeds. All of the feeds are adult beverage oriented (most of the time).

They also like us to do lists. I keep a running list of the last ten drinks I've had (with, I'll confess, a small amount of redaction).

You might like it. It's worth a look, anyway.

Industry Council Reports Rising Spirits Sales.

The Distilled Spirits Council (DISCUS) reported today that distilled spirits grew for the eighth straight year in 2007, with sales up 5.6 percent, to $18.2 billion, and volume up 2.4 percent, to 181.5 million cases. Despite a weakening economy, the Council predicts that growth will continue through 2008. They estimate a 4.6 percent increase in sales, to $19 billion, from 185 million cases (up 1.9 percent).

They attribute this growth to continuing interest in cocktail culture and to the “premiumization” of the entire drinks category. Both wine and spirits gained market share in 2007, at the expense of beer.

Whiskey (American, Canadian, Scotch and Irish) was the largest segment, representing 29 percent of industry sales. Whiskey sales grew 3.8 percent to $5.2 billion. The vodka segment was second, at 24 percent It grew 7.65 percent, to $4.3 billion.

The report did not break-out American-made whiskey’s share of the overall whiskey segment.

However, the Council did report on 2007 exports of spirits by U.S. makers, and most of that is American whiskey. For the first time, spirits exports topped $1 billion, a 15 percent increase over 2006.

American whiskey is now sold in more than 100 different countries. The leading markets are the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia and Japan. Key emerging markets are China, Vietnam, Brazil, Chile, Romania and Bulgaria.