Canadian Whisky Production Techniques

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Canadian Whisky Production Techniques

Unread postby gillmang » Tue Feb 06, 2007 11:37 am

I was thinking of something that has been mentioned here on occasion, that some whiskey in the 1800's was made to be blended with lighter spirit and not to be sold on its own.

Whether or not the industry viewed it that way at the time, I was thinking about this in connection with some very interesting information reported by John Hansell in current Malt Advocate on how Crown Royal is produced.

25 whiskies are blended from 5 main types. (They differ otherwise by age and barrel type).

The 5 are all-column still produced but some are classified by the distillery as light and others heavy. The heavy ones present a broader congener range than the lightest types used. Probably they are distilled-out at a lower proof than those lightest whiskies.

One of the heavy whiskies is 96% rye. I would think this, or one of its variants, might taste something like Lot 40 (albeit Lot 40 was made by Hiram Walker) because Lot 40 is, but for any barley malt to assist in starch conversion, 100% rye-based (both malted and non-malted, apparently) and is either made in a pot still or at low proof to obtain a character similar to a pot still whisky.

Now, Lot 40 is a whiskey with a marked, perfumed, rye-oriented taste. At one time, maybe this kind of whisky had a good market here or in the U.S. (say early 1800's). It would have been quite young or even not aged so would have been even more pungent in taste than it is now.

Yet, the mashbills of U.S. rye whiskey ended up being (as we know) mostly "legal", where rye is not more than 51% of the mash except perhaps for Old Overholt and maybe one or two others. But the point being, corn is a part of the mashbills. Why? Because it lightens the taste. In fact in the form of bourbon, the mildness added by corn is taken further.

One of the Seagram's basic 5 types used to blend CR is a bourbon-type whisky with a high rye content (over 30% in fact). So Seagram uses some bourbon-type whiskey to blend, and may in the past anyway have actually added bourbon (U.S. bourbon) to its blends. Flavouring whiskies in Canadian usage either are made in-house for the purpose, or in some cases, straight rye or bourbon can (I understand) be imported and added to the whisky.

My sense is that by using a virtually 100% rye whisky which undoubtedly has great character (if not the kind of taste that might recommend itself to many people tasting it uncut - of course we are not given that option in Canada), Seagram may be solving more an engineering or throughput problem than anything else. In other words, maybe someone calculated (probably a long time ago) that if you add a very concentrated straight or straight-type whisky to a blend largely composed of light albeit aged whiskies, it is less costly to make a well-flavoured whisky than to distill at 160 proof or less from a mixed mash and age it many years.

Maybe the impetus in the mid-1800's, in other words, was not so much to change the taste of the mixed mash straight whiskies of the day, but to make the same kind of whisky in a less costly way. Maybe the first Seagram (and Hiram Walker, etc.) whiskies had some significant resemblance to the young straight ryes or bourbons of the day, in other words. Now, with the passing time, perhaps these more industrial types of whisky got lighter and lighter and ended up a different style from U.S. straight or straight-type (low proof, congeneric, relatively long aged) whiskey. But originally, maybe the development of the all-rye heavy whiskies and their use in conjunction with aged light whiskies (essentially aged GNS, probably, for the bulk of them) was a commercial expedient designed to maximise production at the lowest cost but not really intended to result in a different product from what people regarded as daily, potable whisky.

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Unread postby gillmang » Tue Feb 06, 2007 3:31 pm

Putting it a different way, maybe the development and blending of these very highly flavoured rye, barley malt and unmalted barley straight whiskies was an early analogue to the modern high gravity brewing, which entails brewing a very strong beer and diluting it with water to 5% to approximate a standard 5% abv beer. All large breweries engage in this today.

The diluent of the mid-1800's was highly rectified whisky.

The analogy breaks down in terms of proof, but is perhaps valid in another sense, that the intensity of flavor, say, a 6 year old bourbon gets, can be duplicated by adding concentrated low-proof aged straight bourbons and ryes to a much larger amount of minimally aged neutral spirit. To this day, a lot of Canadian whisky is aged only the legal minimum of 3 years. Look at it like making a cola from the fountain: and why sell the syrup undiluted? No one chokes down instant coffee granules... It must have been hoped instant coffee would taste like the real thing, it doesn't any more than Canadian whisky tastes like straight whiskey.

But the original Canadian blended whisky might have approached more what 2-3 year old straight whiskey was like then. Time has expanded the polarities, thus obscuring the possible intention originally to duplicate straight whiskeys by adding a super-concentrate of them to a bland base. That whisky taste goes a lot farther when you can make it in concentrated form, why spend energy, time and money making it "the old-fashioned way"?

If my idea is right, the first Canadian whiskies might as I say have resembled early straight whiskies. Or maybe they didn't, but people took to the new style (and their price) anyway, just as they did to instant coffee. But I am speaking more to what I think the intention was of the designers of the early Canadian plants.

I don't think, therefore, the situation in Canada can be likened 100% to what happened with blending in Scotland. There you had so many single whiskies in the market and grocers and other middlemen with reasons galore to spearhead the move to vat them (penury of supply, consistency of product) and ultimately the self whiskies with grain whisky. There is some analogy of course with Scots practice, but I'd say it is limited.

In fact (as for many things) Canadian whisky seems an amalgam of Scots and U.S. ideas but also reflects indigenous Canadian insight.

[Insight is one of the current buzz words, so I've got to get it in here. :) Recently I asked a relation with aged parents to check if they had in the house any rye whisky from 30 years ago or more, I said I'd take any and replace it with current examples. She said to me, "my family wouldn't have any insight into rye whiskey". :)].

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Unread postby EllenJ » Wed Feb 07, 2007 12:00 am

Gary,
Thank you again for some insights (I know; there's that word again) we simply don't get from the folks here who are happy enough to compare one distillery's marketing hype to another's. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, there is no way to cover all the points you can cram into a single (or double, in this case) message without being able to spend an evening (or more) sipping whisk(e)y and talking with you face-to-face (can't wait for another opportunity!). However, here's a go at a couple of 'em...
...One of the heavy whiskies is 96% rye. I would think this, or one of its variants, might taste something like Lot 40 (albeit Lot 40 was made by Hiram Walker)...

I thought it was Corby. Actually, I KNOW it was Corby, but was Corby really Hiram Walker then?
...corn is a part of the mashbills. Why? Because it lightens the taste...

Okay, here I go pi$$ing off the "believers" again...
It's not because it lightens the taste. It's because corn is CHEAP. Or at least it was up until I invested in Pacific Ethanol stock. Most so-called "bourbon-lovers" (and just wait until we "hear" them scream) HATE the taste of corn whiskey. Oh, they'll drink it as a novelty, but they'd never pour a glass for enjoyment. The reason over-aged bourbon is so popular is that most "afficianados" prefer the "young grain flavor" to be hammered down by the tannin in the wood. One way that I consider myself and a few of my friends (nearly all of whom are on this forum) unique, is that we can appreciate both "corny" young bourbon and old, "barrelly" bourbon. I'm afraid neither you nor I have converted them to young rye... yet. But give us a chance and we will. Of course, that won't happen until one of the recognized authorities suggests it, at which point everyone will think of it as something they knew all along, but that's okay.
Real Monongahela, which Lot No.40 most closely resembles, is a different animal from the Maryland-style rye that most of the Kentucky ryes emulate. My guess is that, when Jacob Boehm lived in Frederick, Maryland, the whiskey he made probably tasted like Isaiah Morgan. And what he sent back across the mountains to Baltimore after he moved to Washington County, Kentucky was possibly quite similar to Lot No.40, for the same reason that western Pennsylvania whiskey was. When his son David moved to Nelson County and encountered the corn distillers there, I believe he may have introduced them to the idea of adding rye to get rid of that sweet "corn wisky" flavor, and (yes, I'm using the example figuratively) bourbon was born. Maybe THAT's why the Beam family has been so important in the history of ALL Kentucky whiskey!
...you add a very concentrated straight or straight-type whisky to a blend largely composed of light albeit aged whiskies, it is less costly to make a well-flavoured whisky than to distill at 160 proof or less from a mixed mash and age it many years....

It's even LESS costly to simply dump some caramel color and up to 9.09% "whisky" flavor into it, which is perfectly legal for Canadian whisky. Not that that automatically makes the result an awful imitation, as some would have us believe. There are, of course, some fabulous Canadian whiskies (Forty Creek comes immediately to mind) that probably don't do that, but there are also some great ones like CR that do. So did most of the pre-1906 Maryland ryes, many of which I'm sure you'll agree were often excellent pours, better than most "straight" whiskey we find today.
...In fact (as for many things) Canadian whisky seems a kind of amalgam of Scots and U.S. ideas with some insight of its own. ...

My guess (and I'm a LONG way from having done the needed research into this) is that Canadian whisky, OUTSIDE of Ontario, was probably EXACTLY like whiskey made in the colonies that revolted until that revolt occurred. Shortly afterward, families who didn't support warfare in principle, and especially a revolution against the nation that had given them shelter and prosperity, no longer felt safe in the newly "liberated" commonwealths of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Virginia, fled their homelands. Some headed out to the edge of Indian territory (and beyond), in western Pennsylvania and in western Virginia (now Kentucky). Others fled to the colonies that still remained loyal the King, especially Ontario. And they brought their distilling tactics with them. Tactics that allowed them to produce whisk(e)y (which only other farmers would drink) that could be sold in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore as rum (which everyone drank) and even Cognac (which rich, important, and culturally influential people drank -- and so did you, if you wanted that young lady's father to believe you were one).

I'm thinking it was probably not until the United States went into serious prohibition tremors that Canadian whisky became the "workingman's" Scotch blend.

Okay, Gary. Let's see how many folks we can irritate with THIS!
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Unread postby gillmang » Wed Feb 07, 2007 9:16 am

Good thoughts, John, many thanks. And I look forward to that next drink with you when we can do it.

I agree that initially, cost was the only factor, or the main factor, determining which fermentable grain would be used to make whiskey.

This is clear from the 1809 distilling manual by Samuel M'Harry. However, as time went on, it seems clear that preferences for, i) corn whiskey aged or not, and ii) both Monongahela whiskey aged or not and Maryland rye, declined. The former still exists as a drink in parts of the south but has a small sale. The latter died out. What replaced them was Bourbon, Kentucky "legal" straight rye (also much declined) and blended American and Canadian whiskey.

The reason in my view comes down to palate. When you blend corn and rye in the range traditional for Bourbon, you get a palate that will please the greatest number of people (only lightly spicy and sweetish from wood aging and the corn). When you blend whiskeys, you also get a "good" palate (broadly) in this sense. This is how thing were shaping up later into the 1800's.

Even M'Harry noted that a certain combination of rye and corn (I think 50/50) made the "best" whiskey, he was referring to taste here.

It is like a lot of things where a blend - I am using the term broadly - offers (for the multitude) a better taste than the components alone.

So I think one can argue that Canadian distillers were trying to make a cheaper version of, say, a 1-2-3 year old mixed mash straight whiskey in circa-1850. "How do we do that?". Make a base from any grain (doesn't matter which since the result is nearly neutral) and add a special industrial straight whiskey which will dilute through the base to come up with the desired palate.

So even if Lot 40 is a true Monongahela-type rye (and I think it is, you are right, and right in how you explain where it came from), its main use will be, as turned out, for blending. Why after all did these products, or something like them, leave the market? By the early 1950's, straight rye was gone from the retail portfolios of the Canadian distillers. It is because the market wasn't there. There was no BE or SB or other lobby to protest. It was not long after the war, people wanted to get on with their lives and were happy to stick to the modern-seeming blends.

Corby was (I am fairly sure) a public company 51% or more owned by Hiram Walker before the sale of HW to Fortune Brands. Walkerville made all the Corby whiskies. I am not sure what happened to the Corby trade marks after the sale, I think maybe Pernod Ricard has them (or Diageo?) but I am sure the whiskies themselves, e.g., Royal Reserve, are still made at Walkerville. Possibly Lot 40 was always separate from the CC line in the sense that CC has always been blended from birth, and I think Corby whiskies may be made like Seagram's in that blending occurs after aging. Anyway the analogy is there I think with Seagram's practice.

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Unread postby EllenJ » Wed Feb 07, 2007 8:53 pm

re: Monongahela whiskey
gillmang wrote:...The former still exists as a drink in parts of the south but has a small sale. The latter died out. What replaced them was Bourbon, Kentucky "legal" straight rye (also much declined) and blended American and Canadian whiskey

(This is mostly for other readers who don't already know this) the "Kentucky legal straight rye" bears little resemblance to either Monongahela or Maryland-style rye, as they existed prior to ~1906. The official U.S. Code re-defined Rye spirit as a sub-type of American whiskey, and basically reduced it to just another flavor variation of Bourbon. This EXTREMELY political ruling was necessary in order to include rye at all in the Federal definitions of whiskey, and that only because there were Kentucky distillers who were making it. I'm not sure what Kentucky gave up for such massively preferencial treatment, but whatever it was, it was probably well worth it, and the Kentuckians who worked the federal congress are to be congratulated for their skill. Perhaps it was the Association of Kentucky Coopers. Anyway, they pretty much ensured that all American whiskey would forever be defined by their relationship to the Carlisle/Taylor/Crow model of bourbon.

Including rye, which once had its own standards, despite the fact that there is no longer any trace of what those standards actually were. My guess is that Monongahela and Maryland rye, along with several other types of distilled-grain spirits, bore little or no resemblance to the product bearing those names today.

So even if Lot 40 is a true Monongahela-type rye (and I think it is, you are right, and right in how you explain where it came from), its main use will be, as turned out, for blending. Why after all did these products, or something like them, leave the market? By the early 1950's, straight rye was gone from the retail portfolios of the Canadian distillers. It is because the market wasn't there. There was no BE or SB or other lobby to protest. It was not long after the war, people wanted to get on with their lives and were happy to stick to the modern-seeming blends.

So many many subjects in just one paragraph; how do you do it?
The "market" STILL isn't here. We just don't know how important we reallly are. Mark Brown does. Max Shapira does. Chris Morris does. Julian Van Winkle and Drew Kulsveen CERTAINLY do. The people who follow BE or SB (or eGullet, or other such forums) are pretty much the only customers there ARE for the brands we talk about. Nobody else gives a rat's a$$ about whiskey that isn't Jack Daniel's, Jim Beam White Label, or Maker's Mark. And maybe, still, Even Williams. But only the one that looks like JD.
We ARE the market for strange, exotic... but not EXPENSIVE bourbon and rye whiskey (after all, we're 'Mur'cans, even the Canucks among us, not high-dollar rollers in Asia and Europe -- that's what Four Roses is for). And the sooner we begin to understand the symbiotic relationship we (who crave -- and appreciate, and will pay for -- experimental whiskeys, produced in very limited quantities) share with the people who LOVE producing whiskey that is unique and wonderful (and that would certainly include all of the aforementioned gentlemen), the better off everyone will be.
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Unread postby gillmang » Wed Feb 07, 2007 9:01 pm

John, the legal rye thing does have a precedent in Pennsylvania. Michter's Original Sour Mash is not that far off from a legal rye. Its 38% vs. 51% rye content is essentially similar.

Also, the palate for straight whiskey goes beyond the merits of particular brands. To say JB White people are not our crowd, or the JD people, is true in one sense, but not in the sense that we both like the same category of drink. We both favor straight whiskey, that is.

We think we like better examples of it. :) People who drink Grey Goose and those who favor very inexpensive vodka both have the taste for vodka though, right?

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Unread postby cowdery » Wed Feb 07, 2007 9:26 pm

I think it's interesting that Canada, which maintained tighter bonds with Mother England, pretty much took the blended scotch model and adapted it to their own production, though unlike the Scots they ultimately abandoned the pot still, like the Americans did.

The Americans, on the other hand, developed their own rough-and-tumble rectifier tradition, which may have had its roots on the continent, where infusions and other flavoring of neutral spirits was more common than it ever became in the Celtic lands, and which was mostly motivated by the wish to make a quick buck.

I agree with John that whatever "real" Pennsylvania rye was, there were at least two very distinctive types -- east and west -- and nothing made today resembles either except in a cursory way.

Wouldn't it be interesting, fun and exciting if some of these so-called craft distillers would explore these matters rather than playing around with that joke of all jokes, artisan vodka.
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Unread postby gillmang » Wed Feb 07, 2007 9:38 pm

I think the whisky tradition in Canada was probably never as established as in the U.S. or Scotland. First, Canada was (and is) a much smaller country than the U.S., much less able to support small traditional businesses (as opposed to a few large rationalised ones). Second, Canada had a diversity of drinks from the beginning: genever gin and French wines in Quebec, Scotch whisky via British influence, American-style whiskey via the Loyalists (centred on the North shore of Lake Ontario), beer and ale, domestic wine and other fruit-based drinks in the Niagara. Rum was very strong in the Maritimes and never lost its foothold there. So there weren't the same conditions to favor survival of a straight whisky tradition.

The Loyalists with their U.S. whiskey was just one strand, and it survived, but in an attenuated form.

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Unread postby EllenJ » Thu Feb 08, 2007 12:40 am

cowdery wrote:...whatever "real" Pennsylvania rye was... nothing made today resembles either except in a cursory way. Wouldn't it be interesting, fun and exciting if some of these so-called craft distillers would explore these matters rather than playing around with that joke of all jokes, artisan vodka.

Amen to that, Chuck!
And I do think we might see such a thing.
But will we recognize it?
Most of the whiskey that was made in those days, at least the whiskey that isn't being made anymore, would not be allowed to use the word "whiskey" on the label.
How many of us would buy it?

The rest of this is for the rest of us. Me included, don'tcha know.

Would we endorse such a product, knowing that it isn't "whiskey"?
Knowing that it was (probably) caramel-colored (as every "brown" spirit except straight whiskey can be)?
Knowing that it probably contains non-grain sugars?
Knowing that it might be mostly neutral spirits?
Knowing that it could be produced as quickly and easily as Pepsi-Cola?
Despite the fact that (as is true of many old whiskeys in our collection) it might taste delicious, with depth and complexity and all those qualities we are taught are unique to followers of Dr. Crow's method of whiskeymaking.

As you know, there is a distiller of spirits right here in River City. A licensed distiller, although his product isn't sold yet.
And probably won't be, unless I can convince him there's a market for it even if he CAN'T legally label it as "whiskey".
Folks, Don Outterson's spirits contain corn. And rye. And barley malt.
And wheat.
And hops.
And sugar.
And sorghum.
And whatever makes the spirit he produces taste good.
He ages them in used oak barrels.
Or new oak barrels.
Or PVC barrels with toasted oak chips.
Or whatever combination works.
Because that's the way it's done. It's the way the people who made whiskey before prohibition used to make it (okay, maybe not the PVC barrels).
You just can't GET any more historically authentic than using wood chips.
After all, as Mike Veach has pointed out, the only whiskey makers that used charred new barrels were the bourbon distillers.
And that would leave everyone else using wood chips or not aging their whiskey at all, now, wouldn't it?
Yes, Virginia, there WERE makers of other whiskey than bourbon. Lot's of 'em. Maybe even MOST of 'em. They just didn't survive the Whiskey Wars of the late 19th century, that's all.
And some of their descendents continue the tradition today.

The question is, if you had a chance to sample Don Outterson's spirit product, would you expect it to taste like bourbon or rye?
And fault it if it didn't?
Would you make tasting notes and post them to a forum such as this?
And would you feel comfortable defending a product which must legally occupy a class of beverage that it would share with the likes of McKendric, or RedNeck Riviera, or Cat Daddy?

Maybe you could. That would be awesome.
And if it could happen anywhere, I believe it could happen on this forum.
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Unread postby cowdery » Thu Feb 08, 2007 2:42 am

"Whiskey" is a forgiving term, although it does require that all of the alcohol be from a grain source, I believe.

One does have to find some category in which to fit, legally, which might take some effort, in terms of going through the regs, but it can be done.

Would consumers accept it? Craft distillers have to learn what small wineries and craft brewers have. The small winery business survives on tourism and on selling its products primarily to its visitors. Retail distribution, if it comes at all, comes later. Likewise most craft brews either start out in brew pubs or start out with a bar relationship. Again, more conventional distribution, if it comes, comes down the line.

Most craft distillers seem to have some background in one of these other fields, so I think they know this. The point is, to sell to someone who has just toured your operation and listened to your pitch, the category designation on the label is not that important.
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Unread postby bourbonv » Fri Feb 09, 2007 11:15 am

This has been some interesting conversation. John is obviously playing the "Devil's Advocate" to try to stir up conversation with some of his statements. I don't think there was some great "Kentucky" conspiracy to destroy Pennsylvania rye distillers. As we have discussed before there were many factors, but most of them have their origin in that state, not Kentucky. The Pure Food and Drug act did not destroy the rye industry either. Maryland ryes were still made as a blended rye after that happened. The Taft decision, as John pointed out elsewhere, was well researched by President Taft and the grain percentages for rye, like bourbon, were based on what was being made as straight rye at the time.

Now the real interesting part of this conversation is discussing the "craft distillers" and them creating new products. If they distilled from anything other than grain they could not call it "whiskey". Again that is not some Kentucky distiller's ruling, but international treaty rulings. You have to blame the Scots, Irish and Canadians as much as Kentuckians for that call. Even so, what was supose to happen in Alabama was for them to make a product where they threw some apples in the mash before they distilled it. They would not be able to call it whiskey, but maybe something like "Brandy malt". The sad thing about the regulations is they could put apple juice or cider into the spirit after distillation and call it whiskey. That does not seem right, but those are the rules. If a craft distiller did something like this, and did it well, they might actually be successfull and profitable. They would have no competion from the big companies until after they made it a success.
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Unread postby cowdery » Fri Feb 09, 2007 4:54 pm

A discussion about Templeton Rye over at the other place yielded a couple of interesting TTB label applications. One showed a product of 10% rye, 90% cane and the designation was "Specialty Disilled Spirit." They are, however, still able to use as the brand name "Templeton Rye," but nowhere does the word "whiskey" appear.
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Unread postby EllenJ » Fri Feb 09, 2007 9:44 pm

bourbonv wrote:This has been some interesting conversation. John is obviously playing the "Devil's Advocate" to try to stir up conversation with some of his statements...

Well, of course!! :salute:

...what was supose to happen in Alabama was for them to make a product where they threw some apples in the mash before they distilled it. They would not be able to call it whiskey, but maybe something like "Brandy malt"...

That's been my point all along with Don (and maybe a few folks here as well). The TRADITION in America is innovation.

And that includes finding ways to produce a better product.

And in the realm of beverage spirits, that means finding new materials to ferment and distill.

Onceuponatime, the term "whiskey" meant any spirit at all. For those of us doing research (or even just searching on Ebay), one just can't help noticing how many people STILL think of any bottle that may once have contained an alcoholic beverage of some kind as a "whiskey" bottle.

So, all right, I understand the need to keep our categories straight. I'll be (and, as Chuck can certainly affirm, HAVE BEEN) among the first to defend the practice of preventing muddled terms. But that's only academic. Saying that a beverage labelled "whiskey" must conform to certain agreed-upon parameters is fine; I have no problem with that.

But allowing only beverages which fit our definition of "whiskey" to be considered worth drinking is MY complaint.

And probably Chuck's, too.

The problem ISN'T that the Alabama company can't make "whiskey" adding apples to the mash. It's that, if they DID do that, and they called the result "Brandy Malt", as MikeV suggests, so many (of us) would refuse to even taste it, or would do so only with the idea of ridiculing the product for "trying to act as if it were a legitimate beverage like whiskey".

Remember, this forum is made up of people who have (at least) one thing in common: our love of bourbon (and perhaps rye) whiskey. Without trying to bring up another group of online enthusiasts, what I really mean is "straight" bourbon or rye. It's rare to find anyone EVER discussing non-straight whiskey except as a humorous comparison. Check out the reviews of Early Times here. Or Jack Daniel's. Michter's, which was not a straight whiskey gets rave reviews, of course - but that's mostly from people who think that the Hirsch straight bourbon whiskey is Michter's.

What we need to do is to have the courage to seek out, taste, and be prepared to defend, distilled beverages that are NOT straight whiskey. WE need to be the ones (not the marketers of PepsiCola and Clydesdale-piss beer, who will be if we don't) who determine which new kinds of beverages (whether or not they are labelled "whiskey") will be considered "legitimate" (like Campari or Zaya, or George Dickel) and which will be CatDaddy, Pritchard's, or U.S. 1 UnBlended American). Our contemporaries in the thirties had their heads stuck up their leather and oak-paneled butts, and too many of us still do. That's why more Americans today drink Canadian whisky than Canadians drink American bourbon. No, Mike, I'm not campaigning against the Kentucky distillers. I believe they are among the finest in the world. Plus, they are SURVIVORS, and that certainly has to count for something extra. I'm a huge fan of Kentucky distillers. But you can be a huge fan of one and still realize that it's not gonna grow anymore, and that competing groups can't simply remain ignored forever.

You see, there's never gonna be another successful Kentucky whiskeymaker who isn't part of the existing system.

Ever.

Period.

That community is just too tightly knit to allow anyone in that isn't already related to someone there now.

And, to tell the truth, I really have no problem with that. More power to 'em.
Great is great, y'know?
Don't gild the lily.

But we, as whiskey enthusiasts... and make no mistake about it, WE are the ONLY MARKET that give Kentucky distillers a good reason that they can offer to their foreign owners so they can produce these wonderful products they're capable of but need a corporate excuse to do... we need to realize that OUR horizons go beyond Kentucky bourbon. Or even "whiskey". Why SHOULDN'T a distiller be able to put apples into his (or her -- remember, the Goddess is part of this, too) mash? Would I buy a bottle of something called "Apple Malt"? Would I taste it, without trying to compare it to Van Winkle Family Rye? And, if I enjoyed it, would I say so on a forum like this one? Would you?

People whose tastes are so narrowly-defined that they do not vary from, nor add to, the accepted standards, are people whose opinions I, for one, do not need. Isn't that really true of all of us?

Is this a blatantly challenging post, intentionally designed to be provocative, and even disturbing?

Of course it is.

To tell the truth, I'll credit Chuck with starting it. But I seem to be the only one so far who is taking up his banner. The "bourbon apologists" amongst us will feel my challenges to be threatening to "American whiskey as we know it". Be that as it may, the REAL American whiskey enthusiasts will understand the implications of what Chuck brings up... if WE don't have what it takes to set (non-Kentucky-whiskey) standards for new American distilled beverages, Kentucky whiskey will be left in the dust as the regional niche-product some of its proponents prefer it remain to be. And it will eventually fade into the same oblivion as Pennsylvania and Maryland rye.

Is that an easy statement to make?
NO!!!
But the fact is, like it or not, some vodkas really ARE better than others. And the sooner we become capable of discerning that, and figuring out which ones, and why, the better whiskey advocates we will be.
=JOHN=
(the "Jaye" part of "L 'n' J dot com")
http://www.ellenjaye.com
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Unread postby cowdery » Fri Feb 09, 2007 10:59 pm

Actually, John, I probably have never more thoroughly agreed with anything you've written. I agree with you 100%.

Take Beam, for example, taking every opportunity to pump up the word "bourbon," primarily to (not very successfully) dis their main rival, Jack Daniel's. I have some personal complaints about the Jack Daniel's black label product, but they have nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that it isn't bourbon.

Government regulation can have many benefits but regulations have a tendency to freeze things as they are. I certainly wouldn't want to let anyone call anything whatever they want, as they did in the bad old days before the Pure Food and Drug Act.

But it seems ridiculous that manufacturers are effectively prevented from making a healthier ketchup because reducing the amount of sugar in the product requires them to call it "imitation ketchup."

On the other hand, there is a problem in India right now with a product being sold as "whisky" that is, by our laws, rum (i.e., it's made from sugar cane), but India doesn't have the regulatory regime we have and the producers think there is a better market for "whisky" than there is for rum, but it's making it tough on the folks who are trying to develop a market there for actual whisky, i.e., scotch.

There is pot-calling-the-kettle-black dimension to that, too, since many scotch whiskey producers still refuse to acknowledge that the grain spirits producers of Ireland, Canada, Japan and the United States make "whiskey" too. You see this in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, such as their tendency to refer to "whisky" (when they mean their stuff) and "bourbon" (when they mean ours).

But I think there is enough room in the regulations for innovation. If someone made a "distilled spirit specialty" and they were honest about the way they made it, and both the process and the product were interesting, it could gain some attention and overcome any prejudices as to type. No product has proved that better than Jack Daniel's.

But there are elements of arbitrariness in the regs that do stifle innovation. For example, HH could make a "straight wheat whiskey" because "wheat" happens to be mentioned in the regs, but they can't make a "straight oat whiskey" because "oat" isn't mentioned.

That said, I think a lot of craft distillers are just making excuses. They could petition for regulatory changes, or they could find imaginative ways to innovate within the regs, most most of them would rather just make vodka.
- Chuck Cowdery

Author of Bourbon, Straight
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Unread postby gillmang » Fri Feb 09, 2007 11:21 pm

I agree with you John. But I have always supported a, well, holistic, inclusive approach to whiskey. For me it is one category internationally anyway, with national and regional sub-divisions that sometimes are in flux. For this reason, not because I have anything against bourbon per se, I have supported blending experiments of all kinds, unearthing historical whiskey formulas, and generally trying to inculcate interest in different styles of whiskey, new and old. Innovation (which in some cases is just a look far back) is good for consumers and the industry, ultimately. Casting bourbon in stone through the current legal definitions was a mixed blessing in some way, but the definitions of whiskey and spirit whiskey and so forth are broad enough to allow for change and experimentation. E.g. what Phillips Union is doing makes perfect sense to me. I'd prefer the whiskeys to be more assertive, but it is a move in the right direction, as e.g. the new Hudson Baby Bourbon, Isaiha Morgan rye and other new directions out there (inlcuding those charted by the BT Experimental program and whiskey such as the 4 grain pot still of WR). There is no way I will ever give up on straight bourbon and rye, but no reason to restrict myself to that either.

Gary
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