What's New In The Bourbon Country Reader.

The new issue of The Bourbon Country Reader, Volume 12 Number 4, went into the mail just before Christmas. No doubt its arrival warmed hearts much like a holiday toddy.

Sometimes people ask if the articles in the newsletter also appear here, on the blog. Usually, no, and in this particular case, 100 percent no.

Here's the line-up.

The headline for the lead story probably speaks for itself; "Decoding The Bottom Shelf; The Quest For Good, Cheap Bourbon."

We also mine a document filed in the Wild Turkey acquisition last spring for tidbits about the brand's future under new owner Campari.

Is the rye renaissance real? We have data.

And we review two of the 2009 Buffalo Trace Antiques, the Weller and the Handy.

You may wonder why we still publish a paper newsletter sent through the U.S. mail. The real reason is because it's still hard to sell information on the web for what it's worth. The romantic reason is that we're writing about an industry that values tradition, so we do too. Take your pick.

You may also wonder why I'm affecting the imperial "we." We don't know, it just sounds right.

Click here to subscribe, with a credit card or PayPal. We publish every other month, or thereabouts, and you get six issues for $20.

History Of Yellowstone, Part Two Of Two.

The Gethsemane Station distillery was rebuilt after Prohibition, but not as Yellowstone and not by Dant. It closed for good in about 1961. The Taylor & Williams name lived on, as both a distillery name and brand name.

After prohibition, J. B. Dant and his sons built a new distillery in the Louisville suburb of Shively to make the revived Yellowstone bourbon. Various Beams and Dants were involved in that operation too. Another Louisville-based whiskey maker, Glenmore, bought Yellowstone, brand and distillery, in 1944.

Yellowstone was a significant brand in its heyday, but as a mass or popular price brand, it suffered brutal share losses during bourbon’s sharp decline in the 1970s.

Production started to slow in the 1980s, as bourbon sales declined, and Yellowstone closed for good in 1991. What little bourbon Glenmore was making was being made at Medley in Owensboro. A portion of the Shively plant was later used to make blending spirits from fruit, but it never made whiskey again.

The Yellowstone brand was sold to Luxco, a bottler and rectifier in St. Louis. Luxco is a non-distiller producer which acquires whiskey where it can, much like the way Yellowstone began 137 years ago. Unfortunately, these days it is not very good.

History Of Yellowstone, Part One Of Two.

This is a short history of the Yellowstone bourbon brand and the distilleries that have borne that name. Part two tomorrow.

The Yellowstone whiskey brand was created by the wholesale firm of Taylor & Williams shortly after the national park was established in 1872. Taylor was D. H. Taylor, who started the firm in Louisville about 1865. J. T. Williams joined the company in 1877. They were wholesalers and bought whiskey from various distilleries.

Sometime in the 1880s they contracted with J. B. Dant to make Yellowstone bourbon for them. Dant had a (then) new distillery in Nelson County, Kentucky, at Gethsemane Station. It was called Cold Springs Distillery. In about 1903, Taylor & Williams merged with the Cold Springs Distillery. Dant became president and the distillery was renamed Yellowstone, as that brand had become very successful.

Taylor and Williams themselves were out of the picture by then, but their names lived on.

In 1910, Dant acquired an adjacent distillery owned by M. C. Beam, which was itself a combination of two older distilleries, the oldest dating to 1872. Thereafter the whole complex operated as Yellowstone, and was run by members of the Dant and Beam families, until Prohibition.

Holiday Bourbon Trail Schedule.

Still looking for that unique gift? Or perhaps a holiday adventure with friends and family? Why not celebrate the yuletide season on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail?

"Several of our historic distilleries and their gift shops are open this week for the Bourbon lovers on your Christmas list," said Eric Gregory, president of the Kentucky Distillers’ Association. "We wish everyone a safe and happy holiday, and ask that you enjoy Bourbon responsibly."

All of the distilleries will be closed Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, but open most other days. Here's the schedule. (All times are Eastern Standard Time). For complete directions and more information, please visit www.kybourbontrail.com.

Buffalo Trace, Frankfort
Thursday, Dec. 24, 9 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Saturday, Dec. 26, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Sunday, Dec. 27, closed
Monday, Dec. 28 – Thursday, Dec. 31, 9 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Saturday, Jan. 2, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Four Roses, Lawrenceburg
Thursday, Dec. 24, closed
Saturday, Dec. 26, 9 a.m. – 3:p.m.
Sunday, Dec. 27, closed
Monday, Dec. 28 – Wednesday, Dec. 30, 9 a.m. – 3 p.m.
Thursday, Dec. 31, closed
Saturday, Jan. 2, 9 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Heaven Hill, Bardstown
Thursday, Dec. 24, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Saturday, Dec. 26, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Sunday, Dec. 27, noon – 4 p.m.
Monday, Dec. 28 Wednesday, Dec. 30, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Thursday, Dec. 31, closed
Saturday, Jan. 2, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Jim Beam, Clermont
Thursday, Dec. 24, closed
Saturday, Dec. 26, 9 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Sunday, Dec. 27, 1 p.m. – 4 p.m.
Monday, Dec. 28 – Thursday, Dec. 31, 9 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Saturday, Jan. 2, 9 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.

Maker’s Mark, Loretto
Thursday, Dec. 24, closed
Saturday, Dec. 26, 10:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.
Sunday, Dec. 27, 1:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.
Monday, Dec. 28 – Thursday, Dec. 31, 10:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.
Saturday, Jan. 2, 10:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.
Beginning Jan. 3, closed on Sundays until March 7.

Tom Moore, Bardstown
Thursday, Dec. 24, closed
Saturday, Dec. 26, closed
Sunday, Dec. 27, closed
Monday, Dec. 28 – Wednesday, Dec. 30, tours at 9:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.
Thursday, Dec. 31, closed
Saturday, Jan. 2, closed

Wild Turkey, Lawrenceburg
Monday, Dec. 21-Thursday, Dec. 24 – 9 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Saturday, Dec. 26, 9 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.
Sunday, Dec. 27, closed
Monday, Dec. 28, 9 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Tuesday, Dec. 29, 9 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Wednesday, Dec. 30, 9 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.
Thursday, Dec. 31, 9 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.
Saturday, Jan. 2, 9 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.

Woodford Reserve, Versailles
Thursday, Dec. 24, closed
Saturday, Dec. 26, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Sunday, Dec. 27, 12:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Monday, Dec. 28 – Wednesday, Dec. 30, 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.
Thursday, Dec. 31, closed
Saturday, Jan. 2, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Beginning Jan. 3, closed on Sundays until March.7.

Send A Bourbon Lover To School.

Dates for the 2010 Woodford Reserve Bourbon Academy will be March 6th, April 3rd, and June 12th. The sessions run from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

This is a unique opportunity for any bourbon lover to become an expert on bourbon and American whiskey. Students spend an interactive day at the beautiful Woodford Reserve Distillery near Versailles, Kentucky, with Woodford Reserve Master Distiller Chris Morris. They enjoy a delicious bourbon-inspired lunch, and participate in hands-on demonstrations, a behind-the-scenes production tour, and a series of tastings.

Cost is $150 per person, plus tax, and includes lunch. Reservations are required and can be made by contacting Kandi Sackett at (859) 879-1934, or kandi_sackett@b-f.com

Bourbon Is Good For Kentucky In So Many Ways.

I don't know Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear, but he has been smart to support the state's whiskey producers like he did yesterday. Obviously, distlleries provide jobs and are good for the commonwealth's economy, but the full scope of those benefits isn't always obvious.

Straight whiskey is just one of the types of distilled spirits you can find in a liquor store. There are many others. To be labeled 'Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey,' the whiskey has to be distilled and aged in Kentucky, which in addition to distillery and warehouse jobs, means they buy corn locally too.

You can't make Kentucky bourbon anyplace except Kentucky. You can make bourbon anywhere in the United States, but Kentucky bourbon is what people look for and want.

You know, like California raisins or Wisconsin cheese.

Kentucky bourbon does not have to be bottled in Kentucky. When the industry was struggling, a lot of it was not. When the industry is strong and the Kentucky business environment is positive for beverage companies, there is an incentive to bottle the bourbon close to the distilleries. Bottling is the most labor-intensive part of the process, so that means lots of jobs.

It makes sense for the big, international companies that control the worldwide beverage industry to consolidate their bottling as much as possible. If there are good reasons to bottle your bourbon in Kentucky, you might as well bottle other things there too. Typically the bottled and cased goods go into an adjacent finished goods warehouse, then are shipped from there to distributors. That means even more jobs, as well as business for local trucking companies.

Brown-Forman and Heaven Hill Distilleries have their headquarters in Kentucky and their bottling is there too, even for products not made in Kentucky or even the United States, such as Canadian Mist Canadian Whisky, which is bottled in Louisville.

Like bourbon, brandy is usually aged, but it is usually aged in used barrels, and since bourbon makers only use new barrels, they always have a lot of used barrels to sell. Heaven Hill brings its Christian Brothers Brandy in tanker trucks from the distillery in California to be aged in Kentucky, rather than shipping empty barrels out there. When it's ready to be bottled, that happens in Kentucky too. Constellation, which used to own the Tom Moore Distillery in Bardstown, does the same thing with its Paul Masson Brandy.

Sazerac Inc. is technically headquartered in New Orleans and the company has major operations there, but Mark Brown, Sazerac's President, lives and works in Kentucky. Earlier this year, Sazerac bought a large bottling house in Owensboro, Kentucky, along with several bourbon aging warehouses there. The company has three bottling houses in Kentucky. The others are in Frankfort and Bardstown.

When Beam Global acquired National Distillers in 1987, two of the assets it got were a distillery and bottling house in Frankfort and a rectification and bottling plant in Cincinnati. Cincinnati primarily made the company's DeKuyper Liqueurs line. Making liqueurs is relatively simple. You're mixing together ethanol (i.e., vodka), sweetener, and flavoring concentrates, then bottling the result.

Beam closed the distillery in Frankfort back in '87, but the site had a modern bottling house and good access to the interstate highway system. Beam still uses the aging warehouses there and has steadily expanded the bottling capacity.

It was recently announced that Beam will close the Cincinnati plant and those operations will move to Kentucky. Beam Global has three bottling plants in Kentucky. Cincinnati is its only bottling facility outside of Kentucky. 

The change, which is expected to be completed sometime in 2011, will add 21,600 square feet to Frankfort. It is expected to create about 120 new jobs in Kentucky. Beam Global is headquartered in the Chicago suburb of Deerfield but its roots are in Kentucky and its biggest product is still Jim Beam Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey. So, sorry Ohio.

Kentucky is a socially conservative state and about half of its counties prohibit the sale of alcoholic beverages. You'll probably never persuade someone who believes alcohol comes from the devil that it is nonetheless good for business, and therefore good for the state, but that has always been the uphill struggle Kentucky's whiskey-makers face. In recent years it has gotten better. Let's hope it continues.

Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame Inducts U.S. President William Howard Taft.

Kentucky’s signature Bourbon industry last night marked the 100th anniversary of a landmark decision by President William Howard Taft at a ceremony to induct the former leader into the prestigious Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame.

In December 1909, President Taft released an official decision that defined whiskey standards in the United States. Before that time, imitators trying to capitalize on the growing success of Kentucky Bourbon often made counterfeit whiskey using artificial colors and flavors.

But Taft’s decision set the standard for how whiskey is labeled – straight, blended or imitation – and protected the time-honored process of Kentucky Bourbon. “By such an order as this decision indicates,” Taft wrote, “the public will be made to know exactly the kind of whisky they buy and drink…

“It injures no man’s lawful business, because it only insists upon the statement of the truth in the label.”

In recognition of the anniversary of his historic act, the Kentucky Distillers’ Association Board of Directors unanimously voted to induct Taft into the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame. The ceremony took place last night at the Governor’s Mansion in Frankfort, hosted by Gov. and Mrs. Steven L. Beshear.

Taft, born in 1857 in Cincinnati, Ohio, was President from 1909-1913 and later the 10th Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. He died in 1930.