Remember when your liquor cabinet (i.e., the cupboard above the fridge) never had more than two bottles in it? Since you've become a fine spirits aficionado, those days are long gone.
But have you also become a whiskey collector, or possibly a whiskey hoarder?
It's bound to come, the show where they find someone buried beneath 500 1.75 L bottles of Old Grand-Dad from the National Distillers distillery in Frankfort, circa 1985. (That's the sort of thing whiskey hoarders hoard.)
For a guide to safe and sane whiskey collecting, check out the new issue of The Bourbon Country Reader, which dropped yesterday.
You really should subscribe. The February, 2012 issue of The Bourbon Country Reader is Volume 14, Number 3. In it, we also tell the story of Wild Turkey bringing its bottling back to Kentucky and how producers are now consolidating U.S. bottling at their whiskey-making facilities in Kentucky, to the great benefit of Kentucky's economy. We also review the new Knob Creek Rye that will be in stores soon.
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Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Tempest In A Tumbler: The Old Fashioned Debate.
It's not much as controversies go, but a kerfuffle erupted earlier this week about the correct way to make an Old Fashioned, a classic cocktail, perhaps the classic whiskey cocktail.
It began when cocktails enthusiast Martin Doudoroff launched an elegant web site called Old Fashioned 101. At the end, he cites in a general way Dale DeGroff, Ted 'Dr. Cocktail' Haigh, Gaz Regan, Robert Hess, and David Wondrich.
Robert Simonson lit the powder keg with a favorable piece in the New York Times, exception to which was taken by Kevin Kosar.
Kosar challenges Doudoroff's claim that his recipe is the original. He points out that DeGroff offers a different recipe, as does Regan. They, with backgrounds as working bartenders, make the version most people expect, where a sugar cube is muddled with bitters and water, and the drink is garnished with an orange slice and maraschino cherry.
In his critique, Kosar correctly observes that 'original' does not automatically mean 'best.' He calls conflating the two "historical culinary sophistry."
The Old Fashioned comes with an appealing mythology, which itself goes back at least 80 years. Supposedly, the drink was invented more than a century ago by a bartender at Louisville's Pendennis Club, which boasted as members all of the local whiskey barons. It was subsequently introduced to the world by one of them, James E. Pepper, at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel's bar in New York.
Doudoroff, however, convincingly argues that 'old-fashioned' was just a way for bar patrons to order a whiskey cocktail made the 'old-fashioned' way, with whiskey, simple syrup (i.e., sugar), bitters, water, and a twist of lemon. It would be ironic indeed if the original meaning of 'old-fashioned' had evolved into something new-fashioned.
Drinking whiskey with a little sugar is a tradition almost as old as granulated sugar itself, which became wildly popular in Europe and the Americas in the 18th century. As barrel aging became common and whiskey became naturally sweetened with wood sugar, adding cane or beet sugar became less common, but the custom could certainly be called old-fashioned.
The commonly accepted recipe Doudoroff eschews does incorporate superfluous showmanship with the ceremonial dissolving of the sugar cube, which becomes in the drink exactly what you get Doudoroff's way.
Then there's the garnish, which is very much out of fashion here in Chicago if used strictly for decorative purposes. Yet, and this is Haigh and Wondrich territory, the cocktail as it evolved from punch was always five ingredients: spirit, water, sugar, spice, and fruit. Doudoroff's lemon twist is in keeping with modern practice since it flavors the drink with lemon oil.
Although Kosar seems a little cranky about it, this is the kind of argument everyone should have with a smile on their face and a drink in their hand.
It began when cocktails enthusiast Martin Doudoroff launched an elegant web site called Old Fashioned 101. At the end, he cites in a general way Dale DeGroff, Ted 'Dr. Cocktail' Haigh, Gaz Regan, Robert Hess, and David Wondrich.
Robert Simonson lit the powder keg with a favorable piece in the New York Times, exception to which was taken by Kevin Kosar.
Kosar challenges Doudoroff's claim that his recipe is the original. He points out that DeGroff offers a different recipe, as does Regan. They, with backgrounds as working bartenders, make the version most people expect, where a sugar cube is muddled with bitters and water, and the drink is garnished with an orange slice and maraschino cherry.
In his critique, Kosar correctly observes that 'original' does not automatically mean 'best.' He calls conflating the two "historical culinary sophistry."
The Old Fashioned comes with an appealing mythology, which itself goes back at least 80 years. Supposedly, the drink was invented more than a century ago by a bartender at Louisville's Pendennis Club, which boasted as members all of the local whiskey barons. It was subsequently introduced to the world by one of them, James E. Pepper, at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel's bar in New York.
Doudoroff, however, convincingly argues that 'old-fashioned' was just a way for bar patrons to order a whiskey cocktail made the 'old-fashioned' way, with whiskey, simple syrup (i.e., sugar), bitters, water, and a twist of lemon. It would be ironic indeed if the original meaning of 'old-fashioned' had evolved into something new-fashioned.
Drinking whiskey with a little sugar is a tradition almost as old as granulated sugar itself, which became wildly popular in Europe and the Americas in the 18th century. As barrel aging became common and whiskey became naturally sweetened with wood sugar, adding cane or beet sugar became less common, but the custom could certainly be called old-fashioned.
The commonly accepted recipe Doudoroff eschews does incorporate superfluous showmanship with the ceremonial dissolving of the sugar cube, which becomes in the drink exactly what you get Doudoroff's way.
Then there's the garnish, which is very much out of fashion here in Chicago if used strictly for decorative purposes. Yet, and this is Haigh and Wondrich territory, the cocktail as it evolved from punch was always five ingredients: spirit, water, sugar, spice, and fruit. Doudoroff's lemon twist is in keeping with modern practice since it flavors the drink with lemon oil.
Although Kosar seems a little cranky about it, this is the kind of argument everyone should have with a smile on their face and a drink in their hand.
Friday, February 24, 2012
Wild Turkey Bottling Returns Home.
They could have saved a lot of money if they had just stayed put.
Wild Turkey owner Gruppo Campari announced yesterday that it will build a massive new bottling plant at the Wild Turkey Distillery in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. The facility will cost more than $40 million, of which Kentucky taxpayers will kick in about $2.35 million in incentives. It will open in late 2013.
With whiskey, bottling is usually done where the aging warehouses are. There are so many practical reasons for this that it never made sense for previous-owner Pernod to close Wild Turkey's bottling operation in 2006, moving that responsibility first to LDI in Lawrenceburg, Indiana (about 100 miles away), then to its Hiram Walker cordials plant in Fort Smith, Arkansas (about 700 miles away).
Jimmy Russell, Wild Turkey Master Distiller and one of the deans of Kentucky whiskey-making, just hated it. He felt that trucking aged whiskey 700 miles in a tanker was not good for it. "I couldn't be more delighted," says Russell about the move.
In announcing the Commonwealth's contribution, Governor Steve Beshear pointed out that distilling directly contributes about $2 billion to Kentucky's economy.
Campari will also bottle its biggest U.S. brand, Skyy Vodka, at Turkey. Skyy has never had its own bottling facility, being contract bottled wherever the company could get a good deal at any given time. Its distinctive blue bottle has been spotted on the line at Brown-Forman's bottling facility at its Louisville headquarters.
How long will it be before Campari USA (formally Skyy Spirits) moves its headquarters from San Francisco to Louisville? Louisville may be 55 miles from the distillery, but moving people from cosmopolitan San Francisco to tiny Lawrenceburg would surely kill many of them.
Now Kentucky needs a major bottle maker, maybe somewhere between Louisville and Lexington, like Waddy Peytona. (Two places, actually, but what a great exit name.) There's probably not enough sand there.
A bottling plant means a finished goods warehouse, from which everything will be distributed. Bottling and finished goods distribution are the most labor-intensive parts of booze-making, so this will mean many new jobs for the Lawrenceburg area.
The only drawback to building a large bottling and finished goods facility on Wild Turkey's 800 acre campus is the road between there and US-127. While the governor is spending taxpayer money, he really should improve that part of Versailles Road before the trucks start to roll. This will significantly increase traffic on a seven-mile stretch of not-very-good two-lane road. For those who don't know, that road (aka Woodford Street) goes right through downtown Lawrenceburg, such as it is. A direct by-pass from the distillery to US-127 would be even better but seems unlikely due to cost.
US-127 is four-lanes and limited access, so it's good, and from there it's a quick shot to either I-64 or the Martha Layne Collins Expressway, which will get you anywhere. Rail isn't an option. Neither is the Kentucky River, on which Turkey Hill borders.
But why not? Imagine it, fork lifts loading pallets stacked with Wild Turkey Bourbon and Skyy Vodka onto riverboats at the distillery's own wharf. They could have an on-board bar and let Wild Turkey enthusiasts ride along. The cargo could either be transferred to rail at Louisville or continue down the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans, making stops at Memphis and other ports along the way.
Why not indeed?
Wild Turkey owner Gruppo Campari announced yesterday that it will build a massive new bottling plant at the Wild Turkey Distillery in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. The facility will cost more than $40 million, of which Kentucky taxpayers will kick in about $2.35 million in incentives. It will open in late 2013.
With whiskey, bottling is usually done where the aging warehouses are. There are so many practical reasons for this that it never made sense for previous-owner Pernod to close Wild Turkey's bottling operation in 2006, moving that responsibility first to LDI in Lawrenceburg, Indiana (about 100 miles away), then to its Hiram Walker cordials plant in Fort Smith, Arkansas (about 700 miles away).
Jimmy Russell, Wild Turkey Master Distiller and one of the deans of Kentucky whiskey-making, just hated it. He felt that trucking aged whiskey 700 miles in a tanker was not good for it. "I couldn't be more delighted," says Russell about the move.
In announcing the Commonwealth's contribution, Governor Steve Beshear pointed out that distilling directly contributes about $2 billion to Kentucky's economy.
Campari will also bottle its biggest U.S. brand, Skyy Vodka, at Turkey. Skyy has never had its own bottling facility, being contract bottled wherever the company could get a good deal at any given time. Its distinctive blue bottle has been spotted on the line at Brown-Forman's bottling facility at its Louisville headquarters.
How long will it be before Campari USA (formally Skyy Spirits) moves its headquarters from San Francisco to Louisville? Louisville may be 55 miles from the distillery, but moving people from cosmopolitan San Francisco to tiny Lawrenceburg would surely kill many of them.
Now Kentucky needs a major bottle maker, maybe somewhere between Louisville and Lexington, like Waddy Peytona. (Two places, actually, but what a great exit name.) There's probably not enough sand there.
A bottling plant means a finished goods warehouse, from which everything will be distributed. Bottling and finished goods distribution are the most labor-intensive parts of booze-making, so this will mean many new jobs for the Lawrenceburg area.
The only drawback to building a large bottling and finished goods facility on Wild Turkey's 800 acre campus is the road between there and US-127. While the governor is spending taxpayer money, he really should improve that part of Versailles Road before the trucks start to roll. This will significantly increase traffic on a seven-mile stretch of not-very-good two-lane road. For those who don't know, that road (aka Woodford Street) goes right through downtown Lawrenceburg, such as it is. A direct by-pass from the distillery to US-127 would be even better but seems unlikely due to cost.
US-127 is four-lanes and limited access, so it's good, and from there it's a quick shot to either I-64 or the Martha Layne Collins Expressway, which will get you anywhere. Rail isn't an option. Neither is the Kentucky River, on which Turkey Hill borders.
But why not? Imagine it, fork lifts loading pallets stacked with Wild Turkey Bourbon and Skyy Vodka onto riverboats at the distillery's own wharf. They could have an on-board bar and let Wild Turkey enthusiasts ride along. The cargo could either be transferred to rail at Louisville or continue down the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans, making stops at Memphis and other ports along the way.
Why not indeed?
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Eagle Rare Presents 2012 Rare Life Award To Founder of Wildlife Center.
Eagle Rare Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey has named Edward E. Clark, Jr. of Waynesboro, Virginia, as grand prize winner of the 2012 Rare Life Award. Eagle Rare will donate $20,000 to the Wildlife Center of Virginia, where Clark is president and co-founder.
The Wildlife Center of Virginia was founded in an empty barn in 1982 to care for local wildlife. It has grown into one of the world’s leading teaching and research hospitals for wildlife and conservation medicine.
Over the years, the Center has cared for more than 60,000 injured or orphaned animals, reached millions of people with its educational programs, and trained students and professionals from veterinary schools in the United States, Canada, and more than 40 other countries.
During the Gulf oil spill, Clark was part of an interdisciplinary damage assessment team assembled by the Humane Society of the United States that was asked to view the area affected by the spill and make recommendations. Additionally, Clark and his team have spent more than seven years developing and deploying a sophisticated online database, called WILD-ONe, which links care centers across North America and helps them collect, compile, and analyze patient records to detect and report wildlife health issues as they emerge.
Sponsored by Eagle Rare Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, the Rare Life Award is an annual recognition program that honors individuals who exhibit courage, leadership, survival, devotion, character and heroism.
Eagle Rare will also donate $2,000 each to the charities chosen by the six runners up. Stories and photos of all the winners can be found at www.eaglerarelife.com.
Eagle Rare Single Barrel Bourbon Whiskey is a product of the Buffalo Trace Distillery, a family-owned company based in Frankfort, Kentucky.
The Wildlife Center of Virginia was founded in an empty barn in 1982 to care for local wildlife. It has grown into one of the world’s leading teaching and research hospitals for wildlife and conservation medicine.
Over the years, the Center has cared for more than 60,000 injured or orphaned animals, reached millions of people with its educational programs, and trained students and professionals from veterinary schools in the United States, Canada, and more than 40 other countries.
During the Gulf oil spill, Clark was part of an interdisciplinary damage assessment team assembled by the Humane Society of the United States that was asked to view the area affected by the spill and make recommendations. Additionally, Clark and his team have spent more than seven years developing and deploying a sophisticated online database, called WILD-ONe, which links care centers across North America and helps them collect, compile, and analyze patient records to detect and report wildlife health issues as they emerge.
Sponsored by Eagle Rare Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, the Rare Life Award is an annual recognition program that honors individuals who exhibit courage, leadership, survival, devotion, character and heroism.
Eagle Rare will also donate $2,000 each to the charities chosen by the six runners up. Stories and photos of all the winners can be found at www.eaglerarelife.com.
Eagle Rare Single Barrel Bourbon Whiskey is a product of the Buffalo Trace Distillery, a family-owned company based in Frankfort, Kentucky.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Enough With The 'Legal Moonshine' Already.
This is not a cause for celebration.
The young micro-distillery movement is exciting for everyone who enjoys quality distilled spirits with an artisan's touch, but for this new, small distillery (and others) it appears to be all about the perpetuation and exploitation of myths, stereotypes, and misrepresentations.
Short Mountain presents a confusion of moonshining, bootlegging, and Tennessee whiskey that does a disservice to everyone in this industry who is trying to produce an honest, quality product and sell it in an honest, sincere and straightforward way.
Just a couple of specific points.
Since moonshine is any distilled spirit produced illegally, and not a distilled spirit type, there can be no such thing as 'legal moonshine.'
Bootleggers are people who sell alcohol illegally, although the alcohol they sell may be either legally or illegally produced, and most actual bootleggers today sell legal alcohol illegally.
In the local news story about them, one of the participating moonshiners talks about hauling "sugar and corn meal" back to the still site. Unless the sugar was for his coffee, that means he wasn't making whiskey.
Most moonshine is made from cane sugar and is not, therefore, whiskey, which must be made from grain. The proper name for it is 'sugarjack.' The official name for it is rum.
Tennessee whiskey is, according to the Federal government, "straight bourbon whiskey produced in Tennessee." Nothing in this project involves Tennessee whiskey so their headline about writing "a new chapter in Tennessee whiskey history" is a misrepresentation on its face.
Short Mountain will probably counter that they are just having some fun for the tourists, but illegal alcohol production and illegal alcohol sales are serious crimes that do a lot of harm, both to people and to the reputations of respectable alcohol makers and sellers.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Beam a "Very Scarce Asset," Says Key Investor.
I've written before about the newly pure-play Beam Inc. as a potential acquisition target. My skepticism came from looking at it from the industry side, and sizing-up the potential buyers such as Pernod and Diageo.
But another way of looking at it is from the perspective of Beam Inc.’s largest shareholder, Pershing Square Capital Management, which is led by activist investor Bill Ackman. Shanken reported today that Pershing Square held 20.8 million shares of Beam Inc., worth about $1.13 billion, at the close of 2011. That's roughly one-eighth of Beam’s current market capitalization.
In his third quarter letter to Pershing investors last November, Ackman wrote, “Beam now has many strategic alternatives available, including a sale of the business, a merger with another spirits company, and the acquisition of other brands. We believe the spirits industry will see significant consolidation over the next several years, and Beam’s leading global positions in Bourbon and Tequila could entice several bidders or merger partners in the future.”
Ackman added that Beam is now “the world’s only pure-play, publicly traded global spirits company that is not family controlled or influenced—in other words, it is a very scarce asset.” Beam has said repeatedly that it intends to be an acquirer and not a seller, which is how I see them going as well but, obviously, Ackman has a lot more skin in the game than I do.
The company’s comparable net sales rose 8% to $2.3 billion in 2011, led by a 7% increase for Jim Beam, as well as double-digit growth for Maker’s Mark, Courvoisier and Teacher’s and an exponential jump for its Skinnygirl cocktail brand.
Though burdened for many years as part of an old-fashioned diversified conglomerate, Beam's biggest growth spurts came by acquisition. In 1987, Beam was essentially a single-brand company (Jim Beam bourbon). That year it acquired struggling National Distillers, primarily to get the DeKuyper liqueurs brand, but it picked up a broad portfolio in the process, including several more whiskeys (e.g., Old Crow, Old Grand-Dad, Old Overholt).
Then, in 2005, Beam teamed up with Pernod to divide up the assets of Allied Domecq. That brought into Beam's stable many of the brands that are now contributing to Beam's success, including Sauza Tequila, Maker's Mark Bourbon, Courvoisier Cognac, and Teacher's Scotch.
Ackman is probably right about more industry consolidation, as the business becomes fully globalized. If, for example, the Beckmann family were to deprive Diageo of Jose Cuervo in the current contract negotiations, Beam would be able to plug two of the biggest holes in Diageo's portfolio, American whiskey and tequila. That might prove irresistible to both Diageo and Mr. Ackman.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Forty-Two Years Ago, It Was Illegal For Women To Tend Bar In Chicago.
In 1951, the City of Chicago enacted what was called the 'barmaid ordinance.' It prohibited women from "pouring, mixing, or drawing intoxicating liquors" unless they owned the tavern or were related as wife, sister, or mother to the owner. Chicago wasn't unique. The article mentions a similar law in Michigan.
Women could waitress. The first Playboy Club opened in Chicago in 1960. But they couldn't make the drinks. A woman couldn't even draw a beer.
Enforcement of the barmaid ordinance didn't begin until 1961. Dozens of women were arrested and hundreds lost their jobs. Early attempts to sue the city on behalf of female bartenders were unsuccessful. It was only in 1968, in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement, that a federal lawsuit began to gain traction.
Many of the affected women were unionized but their unions, dominated by men, supported the ordinance. At trial, a business representative for the Bartender’s Union Local 278 questioned whether a woman could handle the job, "physically and emotionally." Could she tap a keg or "maintain an orderly house," he wondered.
Lawyers representing the city claimed that female bartenders would cause morality problems. "It is the city’s position that there is a danger to the public health, safety and welfare and that morals are in fact going to be endangered." They argued that female bartenders would "hypnotize" and "mesmerize" their male patrons, causing them to drink too much and cause trouble.
How many times has that happened to you?
In March, 1970, Judge James Parsons ruled that "sex is not a bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to the normal operation of the business of tending bar in the City of Chicago." The barmaid ordinance was dead, but it had stood for nearly 20 years.
So, yes, it is ridiculous that women in Saudi Arabia aren't allowed to drive a car, but don't feel too superior. Forty-two years ago, in Chicago, they weren't even allowed to draw a beer.
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