No Sympathy For Polanski Here.

In today's Chicago Tribune, columnist John Kass takes on the case of director Roman Polanski, who is currently in a Swiss jail awaiting extradition to the U.S., to be punished for his 1977 statutory rape conviction. Kass's kicker is that the sactimonious Hollywood types pleading for Polanski's release are showing how little they think of us, their audience.

I wrote a piece about Polanski the last time this kicked up, in 2003, when he won the Oscar for his movie The Pianist. It contains many details of the case that are omitted in most accounts.

In 2003, Polanski’s defenders noted that his film contained elements of his own traumatic childhood as a Jew in Nazi-occupied Poland. Polanski was imprisoned at Auschwitz and his mother died there. Stories about Polanski invariably also mention that in 1969 his pregnant wife, actress Sharon Tate, was brutally murdered by the Charles Manson cult.

Yes, very bad things have happened to Roman Polanski in his life. Apparently, he has always viewed the rape incident more as something bad that happened to him than as something bad he did. In defending himself against the charges, Polanski often claimed that his 13-year-old victim was a "Lolita" who "knew all about sex and drugs." After he fled he told a BBC reporter, "I've been tortured by this for a year and that's enough."

Like Kass, I have no sympathy for Polanski and feel nothing but contempt for those who defend him.

New Maxwell Street T-Shirt And Poster Available Online.

I have, for a long time, been active in the movement to preserve the heritage of the Maxwell Street neighborhood, the home of the world-famous Maxwell Street Market, and the birthplace of the Chicago Blues. To that end, I have been involved with the Maxwell Street Foundation, a small, grassroots group dedicated to that mission.

To find out more about Maxwell Street, and order our cool, new t-shirt and poster, click here. Proceeds from sales help support our preservation and education mission.

Kentucky Should Protect Its Signature Industries.

Congressman Ben Chandler (Kentucky's 6th District) had an excellent guest commentary in yesterday's Lexington Herald-Leader about protecting Kentucky's signature bourbon and horse industries.

If the name sounds familiar, Ben is the grandson of Happy Chandler, who was Governor of Kentucky, a U.S. Senator, and the Commissioner of Baseball (1945-1951).

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.

"Double Wood" Experimentals in Stores Soon.

Back in August I told you about the latest experimental bourbons from Buffalo Trace, the two "double woods." Today, Buffalo Trace announced that they will be released at the end of this month and retail for approximately $46.35 each. These bottlings are very rare and limited. They are packaged in 375ml bottles and each label includes all of the pertinent information unique to that barrel of whiskey.

Buffalo Trace says they have more than 1,500 experimental barrels of whiskey aging in their warehouses. Each of the barrels has unique characteristics that make it different from all others. Some examples of these experiments include unique mash bills, types of wood and barrel toasts. In order to further increase the scope, flexibility and range of the experimental program, an entire micro distillery, complete with cookers, fermenting tanks and a state-of-the-art micro still has been constructed within the Buffalo Trace Distillery.

For more information on the Experimental Collection or the other products of Buffalo Trace Distillery, you can contact Kris Comstock at kcomstock@buffalotrace.com.

Tourism Groups Unite To Promote Kentucky Bourbon Experience.

Team Bourbon, an unprecedented coalition of eleven tourism groups, was unveiled today at events in Lexington and Clermont. Their mission is to showcase Kentucky’s signature bourbon industry and the communities that celebrate its spirit.

At today's events, the new group also announced its new campaign to market the bourbon lifestyle and its unique place in the Commonwealth’s history and hospitality, said Eric Gregory, President of the Kentucky Distillers’ Association. Its theme: "Kentucky Bourbon – where the spirit leads you."

"Pour some Kentucky bourbon and you’ll taste more than the world’s finest whiskey. You’ll sample the flavors of Kentucky," he said. “There’s an experience and an adventure for everyone, from history to horses, arts and fine cuisine, nightlife, wildlife, sports and much more.”

The announcement was timed to coincide with this weekend’s inaugural Bourbon Chase overnight relay race. More than 2,000 runners will compete along the legendary Kentucky Bourbon Trail from Friday morning through Saturday night.

Gregory pointed to the relay race, which sold out months in advance, as an example of the skyrocketing bourbon tourism industry that’s drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world.

“That’s why Team Bourbon was created,” he said. “Kentucky is the only place on earth where you can enjoy the true bourbon experience. Once you get here, there are so many exciting places to visit and things to do. So we all decided to join forces and share our spirit.”

Team Bourbon is made up of the tourism commissions of Anderson County, Bardstown-Nelson County, Frankfort, Lebanon, Lexington, Louisville, Shepherdsville-Bullitt County, and Woodford County, as well as the Kentucky Department of Travel, Kentucky Bourbon Festival, and Kentucky Distillers’ Association.

The group’s web site – kybourbonspirit.com – contains information and links on places to visit in each community along the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. A lot of it is still a work-in-progress, but there is a nifty, Bourbon Trail-specific driving distances chart. There is also a terrific, one-minute video that perfectly communicates what they mean by "the bourbon lifestyle."

The Maker's Mark Dilemma.

On a recent webcast he hosted, Malt Advocate Publisher and Editor John Hansell tasted three different Laphroaig whiskeys and Maker's Mark, the one and only. "I kept thinking this past week how nice it would be to have more than one Maker’s Mark expression to choose from–especially given that there are so few wheated bourbons on the market," he wrote today on his blog.

Kevin Smith, Maker's Master Distiller, was also on the webcast. Smith demurred that "they are having enough trouble just making enough of the standard Maker’s to put out anything else." (Laphroaig and Maker's are Beam Global products and the webcast was the latest in a long series of bourbon-versus-scotch events staged to promote Beam products.)

The more nuanced position Maker's has expressed in the past is that offering different expressions would suggest that Maker's Mark is not already the best bourbon they can make, since if the additional expressions are not better than the standard, why bother to make them? Yet no one can deny that Maker's gets less coverage because of its lack of news. That's the Maker's Mark Dilemma.

Both sides have a point. To whiskey enthusiasts, it's not about 'best,' it's all about 'different.' I have had the experience of roaming through a whiskey warehouse, tasting the 'same' whiskey from different barrels. Inevitably, some tasted better than others, but the pleasure was in the multiple, different sensory experiences. In the real world, you do that by sampling different products of the same type which are, ideally, all as good as their makers can make them.

But that's whiskey enthusiasts. Not all whiskey drinkers are true enthusiasts. Many whiskey drinkers settle on a product they prefer and, in many cases, believe is 'the best.' Every producer tries to reinforce that choice. The Maker's brand personality, carefully cultivated since the brand was created in the 1950s, supports a belief that it is not just a very good bourbon but is, in fact, the ideal bourbon. As such, Maker's appeals to a consumer who seeks 'the best' in everything. Maker's has been very successful with that positioning and is loath to disturb it.

With Laphroaig and other single malts, the main variation is aging. According to the Laphroaig web site, they sell it at 10, 15, 18, 25, 27, 30 and 40 years-old. Is the 40-year-old the best? If price is any indication, yes.

Some American whiskey makers offer their product at different ages, but Maker's does not. When Maker's lets people taste its whiskey at an advanced age, say 10-years-old, as they have at whiskey festivals, their purpose is to show how bad it is, how you wouldn't want that, and why Maker's would never sell it.

A solution that would satisfy both camps might be single-barrel bottlings. Keep all of the offerings within the Maker's standard profile, but look for individual barrels that are both outstanding and clearly different from each other. Everybody understands barrel variation and even though Maker's tries to diminish it in the standard version, letting consumers taste what Maker's makers inevitably get to taste in the course of achieving the ideal would be consistent with the brand's personality and promise.

Production planning isn't the only crystal ball gazing whiskey makers have to do. They also have to predict future differences in consumer tastes and attitudes. Maker's Mark is a fine bourbon and most whiskey enthusiasts give it due respect, even though the brand doesn't give them the variety of experience they seek. Single-barrel bottlings might be a way for Maker's to have it both ways.