cowdery wrote:...The products you see on store shelves come from two sources, distillers and bottlers. Distillers have distilleries and make the whiskey they sell. Bottlers buy bulk whiskey made by one of the distillers, which they bottle and sell... Among distillers, the smallest company probably is Heaven Hill. Some of the bottlers are smaller but so what, since the whiskey they sell is made by one of the larger companies?
I have only the deepest respect for Chuck and the enlightenment he's given to me and so many others. But I have to take issue with him here. I believe the above idea is just clearly wrong. Of course that isn't just Chuck's view; it's widely held. But it shouldn't be. A statement like that implies there is no distinction between, say, KBD's
Noah's Mill or Tom
Bulleitt's custom-produced bourbon and
Food Giant Special Straight Bourbon Whisky. Are we to believe that Even and Drew Kulsveen are buying "bulk whiskey", rather than carefully selecting and matching their barrels? I don't believe that. How about Julian Van Winkle?
If you've been following these things for awhile, have you noticed the recent trend toward "legitimizing" Julian's
Old Rip Van Winkle brand, now that he has become associated with Buffalo Trace and whiskey is being distilled specifically for that brand? The fact is that the RVW whiskey we're drinking today was selected by Julian or his son Preston long before their current arrangement. And while it was always popular to attribute Julian's success to some sort of "exclusive" access he had to old Stitzel-Weller stock, that myth is simply false, and it ignores the enormous amount of work (and risk) he undertook to produce the wonderful (and award-winning) products released as Old Rip Van Winkle whiskeys in the past couple of decades. At least some of these we know were NOT Stitzel-Weller whiskey, nor even wheated bourbon at all, and it required the vision and foresight of a genius, along with the raw poker-guts to bet his inheritance on a bunch of old barrels from defunct distilleries that would never again produce that spirit. You don't get a chance to learn from your mistakes in such an enterprise; if something bombs, you're finished. And even when you win, you'd better be scrambling to find a replacement source. Much of what Julian bottled on his little Commonwealth line in Lawrenceburg, was done under contract for other customers, whose brands included the original
Black Maple Hill and (new)
Michter's (in fact, he had also bottled the
old Michters for A. H. Hirsh). If we're expected to consider those as "bulk whiskey", we really need to reexamine what we mean by that term. I suggest such a dismissal is ludicrous, and that Chuck really didn't intend that at all. I'm also confident that Buffalo Trace is producing an outstanding (and perhaps even similar) bourbon for Julian, but to imply that Rip Van Winkle is now just another Buffalo Trace brand slights the genius of that fine whiskey's maker.
I say "maker" because there appears to be some confusion about just who it is that makes the whiskey we pay for. Despite what I expect will be vitreous responses (because these roles and definitions are ambiguously defined and personal loyalties are strong), it's my view that DISTILLERS DON'T MAKE "BOURBON" or "RYE". DISTILLERS make "SPIRITS" (yes, I know the legal definitions; I'm speaking broadly here). The distiller's world is one of grain commerce, and yeasts, and fermentation processes, and the operation of distilling the resulting raw spirits from that mash.
And once they've put that white dog into the barrel and it's been rolled away the distiller's job is done. It doesn't matter whether they're being rolled into the warehouse next door, or onto a truck headed for a customer's warehouse. Or not even barreled at all, but just pumped directly into a railroad tank car. That, by the way, would be what
I consider "bulk whiskey". But the customer (I'm thinking here of A. Smith Bowman in Virginia, of course)
also considers this whiskey to be just a raw material which they will further distill and age to become 90-proof
Virginia Gentleman ("the Fox") -- which is certainly no one's idea of "bulk whiskey". The point is that the skill and artistry of whoever is wearing the DISTILLER cap is in the fermentation and distilling processes themselves, and as far as that role is concerned, the final end-product is the spirit as it comes off the still.
The world of warehouses and storage, of aging and vatting, of doing whatever it takes to transform that spirit, which at this point is little more than very high-quality food-grade industrial solvent, into a product that will be so desireable that folks like us will pay money to drink it, is the world of the RECTIFIER [
hear that angry rumbling in the background?]. In many cases, especially in true small-batch and craft distilling operations, the rectifier is just the distiller wearing another of his caps. This image is also popular among the marketers. But the fact is that the whiskey
in the bottle I buy is the end-product of an entirely different set of skills and talents. Rectifiers don't need to be distillers, and in fact many of the best have not been. We all know of highly respectible makers of fine whiskey who we consider "Master Distillers", some of whom we know never distilled anything commercially. That doesn't detract from their importance; what distinguishes greatness in this role is their ability to age and select the barrels from which to produce
Family Reserve, or
Wild Turkey, or
Elmer T. Lee,
Evan Williams Single Barrel,
George T. Stagg,
Woodford Reserve,
Baker's,
Rowan's Creek,
Ridgemont,
Bulleitt,
Maker's Mark, or
Old Overholt. And I hold that none of the barrels that make up a bottle of those fine whiskeys that you would see on the store shelf today was
selected by the same individual who
distilled the basic spirit put into barrels all those many years ago. Elmer Lee "makes" fine bourbon -- no one would deny that; and unless he's finally stopped recently, as far as I know he still personally selects the barrels to be bottled, as well as the barrels to be moved into warehouse H. But it's been decades since Elmer ever distilled any of it. When Craig Beam selects the barrels to use for
Elijah Craig 12-year old, he didn't personally distill that whiskey; in fact it's probably all Heaven Hill-distilled bourbon (although it doesn't technically have to be). But you could hardly say he was using "bulk whiskey".
Some of the very best rectifiers were (and are) the marketers. Julian Van Winkle NEVER distilled any of his whiskey (and neither did his father or his grandfather, Pappy), and yet it's now in its
fourth generation of being the finest of the best. William L. Weller didn't
make whiskey -- he
sold whiskey, which he bought from Phillip Stitzel, among others, until they joint-ventured Stitzel-Weller. Weller was highly selective about the whiskey sold under his name. Would
that be considered bulk whiskey?. George Garvey Brown didn't distill, either; he was a drug salesman who bottled (and marketed) medicinal alcohol as medicine. In fact, the company that would become Brown-Forman didn't own a distillery during its first 32 years of business. Their flagship brand,
Old Forester, was not at all like what we enjoy by that name today; it was a concocted product that could not be legally labeled as straight whiskey. But it was certainly recognized by their medical customers as whiskey of the highest quality, and that quality came from Brown's requirement to his vendor-distillers that it conform to his exacting specifications, especially as concerned packaging. That's hardly my idea of "bulk whiskey"; and I'll bet it isn't Chuck's, either.
Here's a more up-to-date example: Jay Erisman, spirits guru at The Party Source in Bellevue, Kentucky, knows a thing or two about whiskey. Maybe three and four, as well. So, when he had a chance to select a proprietary bottling of
Buffalo Trace, he selected a single barrel -- not unlike enthusiasts on this very website have done! But his wasn't for his private consumption; this was for the store. Now, liquor stores have been getting "special bottlings" for years (LeNell could probably confirm that), but they usually consist of a sticker saying "bottled especially for [
insert store name]" which they can apply to the bottles of regular product. Same as how you can order "made for" labels yourself. The idea of inviting customers to select a specific barrel to be bottled for them is a fairly new one, and it's not all that common yet. Jay made his selection from among a range of barrels that each had the general characteristics found in the normal Buffalo Trace bourbon, which is the result of dumping a number of barrels together. The individual barrels, however, were far from identical and Jay chose one that he felt to be on one end of the spectrum. One thing that I thought was interesting is that, other than the small sticker saying "bottled for Party Source", he has chosen not to distinguish it in any way. They don't have a special shelf "talker", and the price was actually marked down a dollar from the usual retail. I think the idea is to ensure that the best possible examples of BT are on the shelf, without fanfare, and get people to try it just because it's on sale. Hopefully they'll like it, so that when the price goes back up (but only by a dollar) they'll be happy to continue buying it. And the unit cost of the regular Buffalo Trace will be less.
So technically, the bottles from the single barrel of Buffalo Trace that Jay Erisman hand-picked and the bottles of Rite-Aid Brand Bourbon (if there is such a thing anymore) purchased from whichever distillery got the bid this year are one and the same. That is, they're both house brands. But can they really be lumped together as "bulk" whiskey? I don't think so.
cowdery wrote:...If you want to buy whiskey made by a genuinely small company (and, in both cases, it depends on your definition of 'small') your choices are limited to Old Potrero and Forty Creek. However, that could change soon, as several micro-distiller whiskeys are on the horizon.
Well,
'soon' may not be the appropriate word here. And it also depends on your definition of 'whiskey'. For some examples of
already functioning whiskey micro-distilleries who are
currently selling their output commercially through both private and state-run liquor stores, see
http://www.ellenjaye.com/wh_index.htm
And for
much more information (along with some fascinating images) check out this site...
http://www.distilling.com/backissues2002.html