by bourbonv » Sat May 13, 2006 10:14 am
Gary and John,
You both are making some very interesting observations giving people somethings to think about. I was tempted to stand back and simply enjoy the conversation, but instead I thought I would add some historical context on Dickel, just to muddy the water even further.
Prohibition closed Dickel (and JD as well) in 1910. Shwab brought the brand to Louisville and signed a deal with A Ph. Stitzel to use Stitzel's distillery on the days he was not using it to make Cascade whisky. He even installed a charcoal leaching vats at the distillery that are cleary labeled on the Sanborn Insurance maps on 1911. So this would leave you to say that Cascade was being made in Louisville after 1910 and that is true, but the key part of the contract is Shwab simply leased the distillery ON THE DAYS IT WAS NOT USED BY STITZEL! This meant it was only being made part time and quantities were relatively small. Stitzel had a thriving business at the time.
During prohibition Stitzel andW L Weller and Sons (Farnsley and Van Winkle) sold medicinal whiskey and Cascade was one of the brands they represented. Represented, not owned. They sold the whiskey for Shwab collection a small amount on each case - usually about $5.00 and this also covered the cost of bottling the product and shipping. They were not making huge amounts of money, but neither were the Shwabs when you consider the evaporation, storage cost (This is where Stitzel really made his money during prohibition as a consolidation warehouse) and taxes. The Shwab whisky ran out before prohibition ended and by 1933 they were putting various distillations of whiskey in the bottle to keep the brand alive. Cascade of 1933 would taste very little like Cascade of 1915. Stitzel and Weller merged and opened a new distillery in 1935 and they were going to make Cascade one of the brands they would sell, and had sales brochures printed showing the brand in their portfolio, but the Shwabs decided they wanted out of the whiskey business and sold the brand to Schenley in 1937. They sold the brand and not the mash bill. I know this for a fact for several reasons but the most obvious is that when Dickel opened. they had to piece together the mash bill from an old article printed in Mida's Criteria from the turn of the century.
Schenley bottled Cascade after 1937. The whiskey they put into the brand was often the whiskey that came from their latest distillery acquisition. It was like several other of their brands such as Old Stagg that was seen as a profiable cheap whiskey that did not need a consistant flavor profile since it was sold only in regions of the U S that were actually pretty far apart so there was little chance of people noticing the difference. If they want consistant flavor, then spend a few more bucks for Old Charter or I W Harper.
When the Motlows refused to sell Jack Daniel's to Schenley, even though they offered a higher price than Brown-Forman, Schenley decided to revive George Dickel's Tennessee whisky. They built the distillery and went hunting to find out how to best make a Tennessee whisky. I would say personally that they did a pretty damn good job with this research but I would never say it tastes just like the whisky Dickel had made for him in the 1880's.
Now to John's point about marketing. George Dickel and Jack Daniel were just like other whiskey men of the time - they were in the business to make money. They had whiskies that fit their flavor profile and that was what they sold - mostly. They, just like E H Taylor, Jr., James E Pepper, and other Kentucky distillers, never passed up a chance to make some money if they could buy some bulk whiskey cheap and then resale it for a profit under their own name. Of course they would have quality standards but that did not mean it met their personal brand's flavor profile. Since most whiskey was sold by the barrel before the first decade of the 20th century, consumers were used to a very inconsistant flavor in whiskey brands. As long as the flavor was not repulsive, they would accept the changes from barrel to barrel, even pretty drastic changes.
The Bottled-in-Bond Act increased the sale of bottled whiskey and created a more consistant falvor profile, but still not perfectly consistant. Changes would happen from year to year because of different factors (poor or excellent grain crops, extreme cold or warm winters or summers, etc...) and because of the law the distiller's could due nothing to prevent the variation except position in the warehouse of the barrels. The most consistant flavored whiskey was actually the rectified whiskey being sold by high class retifiers.
So, Gary, Dickel of the 1950's had little or no flavor link to the Cascade being sold at the same time. It also had very little link to what was being sold at the end of prohibition. There was an attempt to make it taste like the whiskey from before prohibition, but all I can say is that it came close to what they sampled in the few pre-prohibition bottles that Schenley had acquired, but I can not say that it all tasted like that whisky.
As far as Jack Daniel, barrel sales were even more important to him than that of Dickel. He was the much smaller business at the time and most of his patrons were buying by the barrel for their bar or hotel. His whiskey would be very inconsistant because of that fact. Did Motlow make the whiskey just like Jack had done so when Motlow rebuilt the distillery? I would say yes, as much as possible after 30 years time. Did Brown-Forman get this process when they acquired the distillery? Yes. Did they try to change anything? No, why should they? Has it changed over the years? Of course. When you consider the fact that the distillery has grown to what, maybe 100 times the capacity of Jack's Distillery that was the model for the Motlow distillery, how could it not change some? Stack on top of that other factors and the whiskey being made now would taste similar, but by no means exaxctly alike Jack"s whiskey.
Just some points for you both to consider in your discussion.
Mike Veach
Mike Veach
"Our people live almost exclusively on whiskey" - E H Taylor, Jr. 25 April 1873