by EllenJ » Sat Mar 17, 2007 8:03 pm
Really well put, Mike. The whole thing, with all its layers of ideas and thought.
Especially your core point, which I feel is that making whiskey is a science, or maybe even no more than a basic farm skill, but making FINE whiskey is an art. And the only way to do that is by experimenting, juggling the components until the complex interactions come out the way you like, and then passing that information on by the very human sense of feel, rather than by formula.
An extreme example might be Parker and Craig Beam's rejection of the computerized system they inherited with the Diageo (UD) Bernheim distillery. I understand that Parker has said he couldn't make bourbon with that plant, and they've spent a fortune (not to mention the lost-production time) trying to make a real bourbon distillery out of it.
But that's just one distiller's challenge. As far as the industry itself is concerned, the difference between the fine whiskey of yesterday and what we have today has a lot to do with...
(1) First and foremost, the fact that failure is no longer an option. Once upon a time there were really awful whiskeys. Like, for example, most of them. There were also some really good ones. Today, the worst bourbon whiskey in the world is, well, okay. No matter how much we like to go "Eeeeeooooo, that's awful!", the truth is that we rarely find ourselves checking into the emergency clinic because we drank a bad whiskey and now we're blind, or we can't feel our toes anymore. That wasn't always the case. And the laws that prevent poison from being passed off as fine whiskey also limit the way a truly great whiskey can be made. In my humble opinion, that's a net gain for us consumers.
..... a note here for those who participate in our occasional little tastings (yes, Marvin, I'm thinking of you)... some of those pre-prohibition whiskeys might even be dangerous. It's a risk some of us are willing to take. Please remember that, if you wish to share some with us sometime.
(2) Beginning with the Bottled-in-Bond Act of 1897, and extending through the Pure Food & Drug Act of 1906, the re-construction of the Code of Federal Regulations of 1934, and the FDA regulations of the 1970s and '80s, the methods of creating beverage alcohol have been progressively defined and narrowed (and universalized - is that a word? Well, it is now) until every detail that cannot be reduced to a standard number is eliminated. The result is universal acceptability, but in the process it tend to thwarts any chance of greatness.
Right now, we're seeing the transition from one important stage in that progression to another. The cutting edge producers of the finest whiskeys have, for the past few years, been creating excellent products from whiskey made fifteen to twenty years before. That stage began back in the '90s, with whiskey from the pre-Regan-deregulation '70s. That's all gone, now. And the FDA's NAFTRA & European Union-compliant "Good Manufacturing Practices" campaign of the '80s and '90s have added ever more restrictive regulations which will make it impossible to ever create that kind of bourbon again.
But... not so negative! Innovators such as Buffalo Trace, Woodford Reserve, and Heaven Hill (and I've no doubt the others will soon follow) are adding totally new products that DO conform, while offering interesting differences and specialties.
But then, I never felt the disgust that some of my contemporaries do about Disneyland/world. I find the food prepared in chain restaurants such as Cracker Barrel or Outback to be just fine, thankyouverymuch. And I fully expect to enjoy whatever new products that fine distilleries such as... well, any of the Kentucky distilleries, introduce.
Even if as I wax nostalgic over the way their current offerings USED to taste.