by gillmang » Sat Jan 06, 2007 11:42 am
Well, I can't gainsay what you said about the pre-Schenley era (you have the facts and I don't!), but the 50's are, Mike, 50 years ago! That is a long time in the life of a product. In my lifetime I have always considered I.W. Harper a premium product (taste, image, market). Chuck Cowdery notes in his book it won a gold medal in 1885 and several subsequently, so clearly it was a quality product from the beginning.
I feel that sometime after Repeal, Bourbon lost the high image it had before Prohibition, only to regain it slowly and now with momentum.
We have to recall there was very little Scotch whisky and Irish whisky in America before Prohibition. The figures are cited in the 1933 article in Fortune magazine on the forthcoming end of Prohibition, they were miniscule.
Thus, straight rye and bourbon were where it was at in America. Most people who took whiskey bought it who could afford the best.
As Linn has noted, the large bulk of the middle class never lost the attachment. But my sense is that after Prohibition, those who could buy imported liquor did so. Scotch became THE business drink (if not gin); wine became the society fetish before migrating to the population at large (first the fancy imports, then the superb American produce). Bourbon was in the background.
Why did this happen? For reasons we know well. Those who could pay during the Roaring Twenties acquired a taste for Scotch, or Canadian. Or for cocktails where the liquor taste was diluted. Bathtub hooch and the cocktail craze did not do any good for straight whiskey. Neither did the fact (as pointed out by Sam Cecil) that in the mid-30's the Bourbon and rye on the market was, much of it, too young. In these crucial rebuilding years Bourbon and rye had to play catch-up.
Also, as America became more "sophisticated", its elites I think in general started to disdain the native produce. This happens in all countries. It started (shucks) as early as Thomas Jefferson's infatuation with French wines (a book has just been published on that subject alone). And elites have a certain influence on the population at large...
So, and as much as one can generalise, I think bourbon was relegated to the broad middle classes who (good for them) aren't embarrassed to drink, or eat, something good even though it comes from the good old U.S.A.
However in the tastemaking circles I mentioned earlier, bourbon was, I think, almost forgotten - but it has made a comeback. Partly this is acquiring the confidence to appraise native and local products without prejudice, which is part of the maturation of the nation, partly it is the result of boards like this one, frankly, and also the Kentucky Bourbon Festival. Brand marketing too has gotten more sophisticated and so producers are looking to introduce niche products (single barrel for example) which is really just bringing bourbon back to its roots.
This is not to say different brands didn't have different markets and images, but overall I think the position is as outlined above, at least from my perspective as (for convenience) what might be called a North East urbanite.
Gary