Upcoming Whiskey Classes In Chicago.

I teach whiskey classes here in Chicago through I Wish Lessons. They are introductory classes, last about a hour, and are very informal. We are, after all, drinking. I encourage student participation and typically hang around afterwards to answer questions and talk whiskey with anyone who wants to stay.

The next one is an Introduction to Single Malt Scotch class this Thursday, April 5, 7 PM, at Fion in Lincoln Park (426 W. Diversey). Fion is an intimate bar right next to the much larger Duffy's. We'll do it there again on Wednesday, May 23, also at 7 PM.

Next Tuesday, April 10, it's Whiskey 101, also at Fion at 7 PM. This is an unusual class because we taste different types of whiskey, in this case Irish, Scotch, Bourbon, and Rye. We'll do it there again on Monday, April 23, Monday, May 14, and Thursday, May 31.

Next Wednesday, April 11, it's back to Fion at 7 PM for an Introduction to Bourbon class. We'll do it there again on Monday, May 21, also at 7 PM.

If they're not sold out, I Wish will sell tickets pretty much right up to the last minute, so contact them if you're interested. (They are much better about answering email quickly than they are about answering the phone.)

The whiskey classes are always held in bars and we always taste four products. You can order food and other beverages, and stay after class for 'extra credit.' It's a fun night out with friends, with a little learning on the side. I Wish also has many other classes. Their most popular one is sushi rolling.

Everything is subject to change.

I Wish also does private events, so if you have a group that would like to have a whiskey or other distilled spirits tasting with me as your coach, you can arrange that through I Wish too. Or you can contact me directly. (Email is on my profile.)

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.

Kimberley Bennett Named Director, Jim Beam Heritage Center.

Jim Beam has named Kimberley Bennett as Director of the Jim Beam Heritage Center, the new visitors' experience at Beam's Clermont, Kentucky, distillery that is slated to open this fall.

Bennett will be responsible for the ramp-up plans, training, and ultimate day-to-day operation of the new facility, a multi-million dollar, state-of-the-art visitors’ experience. The Center will offer a complete bourbon experience, from the illustrious seven-generation history of the Beam family, to the art of bourbon-making.

Bennett has spent her career leading hospitality programs for well-known organizations, including the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown and as Director of Hospitality Programs for The World Equestrian Games.

“The new Jim Beam Heritage Center will showcase our past, present and future,” said Jeff Conder, Vice President, North American Operations, Beam Inc. “With her unique skill set in consumer experiences, hospitality and events, Kim will be the perfect leader for our new Center as she ensures that everyone who visits Jim Beam comes as friends, but leaves as family.”

According to Conder, the new Jim Beam Heritage Center is part of a significant tourism project that will allow the distillery to host more than 200,000 guests a year – more than double the previous number of guests it has been able to accommodate – and be a key stop on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail.

In addition to naming Bennett to the Director post, Beam also named long-time employees Linda Hayes, as the Center’s Trade and Hospitality Manager, and Debbie Faust as Still House and Outpost Manager. Hayes, a Beam veteran with more than 30 years at the company, will oversee the overall visitor experiences for special guests. Faust, who started as the Beam Outpost Manager in 2006, will oversee the Center’s retail operation.

”Linda and Debbie are vital members of the distillery experience,” said Conder. “Together with Kim Bennett, they will make a wonderful team.”

Silver Trail Distillery Joins KDA.

On Wednesday, Silver Trail Distillery announced that it has joined the legendary ranks of the Kentucky Distillers’ Association, the Commonwealth’s leading voice on spirits issues for more than 130 years.

“It’s taken years and a lot of hard work to realize his dream, but Spencer Balentine has persevered and brought distilling back to the Land Between the Lakes region for the first time in a century,” said Jeff Conder, Chairman of the KDA Board of Directors and Vice President of Americas Operations for Beam, Inc. “We are proud to welcome him to the KDA and congratulate him on his efforts.”

Silver Trail, located in dry Marshall County in far Western Kentucky, opened in 2011. Balentine, a former champion motorcyclist and aspiring screenwriter, toured Maker’s Mark Distillery several years ago and decided to get into the spirits business based on his family’s colorful moonshine past. His distillery’s still is a recreation of one originally designed by his great uncle in 1947. His first product is 100-proof “LBL Most Wanted Moonshine,” packaged in ring-handled jugs. He has plans for an apple pie moonshine to be called “Apple Cin.”

“It’s a distinct honor for Silver Trail to be accepted into such a historic organization that represents the finest distilleries in the world,” Balentine said. “This has only added to my determination to showcase our proud Between the Rivers heritage.”

Silver Trail becomes KDA’s 12th member and the sixth Kentucky craft distillery to join. The KDA is a non-profit trade association founded in 1880. Members include Beam Inc. (Jim Beam and Maker’s Mark), Brown-Forman, Diageo North America, Four Roses, Heaven Hill Distilleries, Inc., and Wild Turkey. Craft distillery members include Alltech, Barrel House Distilling Co., MB Roland Distillery, Limestone Branch Distillery and Corsair Artisan Distillery.

The KDA’s craft membership is available to licensed Kentucky distillers that maintain an inventory of less than 25,000 barrels of distilled beverage spirits, according to KDA President Eric Gregory.

“Our craft members are an important part of our organization,” Gregory said. “As small businesses, they often bring a different perspective on issues that affect our industry. We now have operating distilleries of all sizes in almost every corner of the state.”

GMO Grain And Bourbon.

WFPL is one of Louisville's public radio stations. Last week it did a story about corn and, being in Kentucky, that means it was also about bourbon whiskey.

The story starts with the observation that nearly 90 percent of the corn produced in the United States is genetically modified, "GMO" in the parlance. Yet there are still many people who worry about the safety of GMO corn and other foods. Even though fermentation and distillation are processes that transform grain starch into alcohol, so thoroughly that none of the original plant material remains, many people still wonder about the use of GMO grain in distilled spirits.

WFPL visited the Four Roses Distillery in Lawrenceburg and talked to Master Distiller Jim Rutledge. Four Roses uses only non-GMO corn. Rutledge said Four Roses is only able to keep getting it because the company is willing to pay a premium price—and the farm group they’ve been using for 52 years is still GMO-free.

He says that because GMO is now so common, and non-GMO fields can be contaminated with GMO material, it may become impossible for the distillery to remain GMO-free. Other distilleries are having the same issue.

No major American distiller has ever expressed the opinion that GMO grain is dangerous. If they prefer non-GMO it is only because some of their customers, particularly in Europe, insist on it, or require that products containing GMO ingredients must disclose that fact on their label. 

The Kentucky Bourbon Festival Sampler Is April 28. Here Is Why You Shouldn't Go.

The Kentucky Bourbon Festival in Bardstown, which happens in September, is preceded each year by the Kentucky Bourbon Festival Sampler, a one-night event, this year to be held on Saturday, April 28.

If this year's Sampler is anything like last year, and there is every reason to believe it will be exactly like last year, it is a waste of your time and money. That's a nice weekend to go to Bardstown and there will be many bourbon enthusiasts in town, but the smart ones won't be at the official event, which has always had problems but last year was an abomination

Imagine a Kiwanis Club Monte Carlo Night in a high school gym, if they started to plan it that morning. It was a big, sorry mess. Many of the producers privately expressed their disgust with it as well. Not one master distiller was in attendance and only a handful of top distillery people of any kind came. Everything about it had an air of desperation.

The Guthrie Opportunity Center, the venue, is a big, open, fluorescent-lit, concrete-floored, concrete block room with high ceilings and zero charm. It looks exactly like the empty industrial space it, in fact, is.

Each distillery has a folding table from which it dispenses samples, seemingly as fast as possible, to the ravenous hoard. There is no place to sit. Last year it was uncomfortably warm.

The reason for the mad dash is that in most, but not all cases, the samples come in nice logo glassware and the main activity engaged in by most attendees is a frantic progression from table to table, to accumulate as many free glasses as possible, as quickly as possible. In many cases they don't even drink the whiskey, they throw it out.

Some of the distilleries, unhappy with this particular turn of events, now use plastic glasses. Sometimes you can't tell they're plastic until you have invested the time in line to get one. This disappoints the mob and makes it surly. 

It's all very 'Day of the Locust.'

There is food, dumped inelegantly around the room like slop in a trough. The fluorescent glare, bright industrial paint job, too-loud bad DJ, and zero seating all say, "we have your money, suckers. Now drink up and go." Attendees aren't treated like valued guests, they're treated like cattle entering the abattoir. 

Speaking of which, as bad as the event is, you have to stand in line for an hour to get inside. Tickets are all pre-purchased, it's not that. It's just poorly organized and no one seems to care.

One of these years, it's going to rain.

The mad dash for free glasses is even more ridiculous when you consider that for the $40 individual ticket price, a couple could buy a nice set of glasses, a nice bottle of bourbon, two Carne Asadas to-go from one of Bardstown's excellent Tex-Mex restaurants, and spend a nice Spring evening on their deck.

In addition to being a miserable experience for anyone who attends, the Sampler is an embarrassment to the industry. American whiskey is an important international product and its premier events are being presented by people who would be over-matched organizing a high school prom.

Wild Turkey Is Introducing A New Rye.

There hasn't been any kind of official announcement, but Wild Turkey is in the process of rolling out a new, 81° proof (40.5% ABV) version of Wild Turkey Rye, leading to some confusion about the status of the 101° proof (50.5% ABV) original.

Rye whiskey enthusiasts got wind of the 81 from Control State product listings, which are public information. Many states post them on their web sites. It showed up as a replacement for 101. This led to something resembling panic, as fans of the 101 began to plan their hoarding strategies. (Tip: start by establishing a budget.)

But as veteran spirits enthusiasts know, changes to Control States lists don't always mean what you think.

There are 18 Control States in the United States. Each is a little different but, essentially, when you buy liquor in a control state you are buying it directly from the state government. One typical characteristic of Control States is that they limit how many different products a producer can sell and make adding new products, or changing products, very difficult and expensive. If it's easier to make a change than an addition, you may swap an old (typically minor) product for the new one, to get the new one into the market faster.

Not only do Control States typically publish their lists, they often require long lead times, so information about new products or product changes often shows up first on Control State lists.

After several states swapped the 101 rye for the new 81, questions were asked. Initial information coming back from industry sources was conflicting. That has been sorted out. Here's what is happening, according to official sources at Wild Turkey and its parent, Campari America.

Yes, an 81° proof version of Wild Turkey Rye is being introduced as a companion to the 81° proof version of Wild Turkey Bourbon that was introduced last year. However, the 101° proof version of Wild Turkey Rye is not being discontinued. It will, however, be in short supply for probably the rest of 2012 due to the recent surge in rye whiskey popularity, but it is not being discontinued and it will be back. Due to its temporary unavailability, it was expedient for the company to list 81 by replacing 101 in some states.

Unsaid but obvious is the fact that, when stocks are limited, how ever much whiskey you have will go further if you dilute it to 40.5% ABV rather than 50.5% ABV.

This does not necessarily mean there are or even will be shortages of the 101 at retail. It just means the producer has shipped all of the 101 it will likely ship for this year. That doesn't tell you anything about how much there is in distributor warehouses or on retailer shelves.

The introduction of an 81 shows how mainstream rye whiskey is becoming. The 81° proof bourbon replaced an 80° proof bourbon that had a deservedly poor reputation. The 81 is a significant improvement. Wild Turkey has long been an anomaly with its high standard proof, which recalls the old days when most premium brands were bottled-in-bond and, hence, 100° proof. Wild Turkey never met the other requirements for bottled-in-bond but wanted to play in that space, so they created a point-of-difference with an extra proof point.

In time, most of the industry abandoned the high proof to cut costs and meet public demand for a lighter product, going to the legal minimum of 80° proof. (Any whiskey that's less than 80° proof has to be labeled 'diluted.') Wild Turkey alone kept its flagship bourbon at 101 but acknowledged the trend many years ago with the recently-departed 80. There was never enough interest in rye to justify creating an 80° proof version of it

Use of 81 in both cases with the new products shows that Wild Turkey parent Campari America gets that aspect of the brand's personality.

As the Wild Turkey folks pointed out to me, the original 101° proof Wild Turkey Rye has been growing by about 20 percent year here recently, which is both why they ran out and why they'd be crazy to drop it. Some people will adopt the 81, but the 101 will still be there for those who want it.

The straight rye whiskey produced at Wild Turkey is also sold as Russell's Reserve Rye.