The Cult of Oldness

[gillmang]

I take the ad for what it says, an ad which refers to bonded goods, to technical terms like "rye malt", and to being an "anti-trust" supplier - all indicia of frankness and honesty. And anyway, even if the goods were fake, the appeal to advanced age showed that people thought such goods were superior and worth the money - this at a time when scotch whisky had almost no sale in America, and brandy from France ditto. Why would they think that, what cult of oldness would have existed then to sustain such belief? One could as well think that something very aged would be less good, as in cheese say, or hung beef.

Still, I recall the statement (1885) from the experienced Joseph Fleischman that caution should be exercised in regard to old whiskey - but he doesn't say how old.

On page 140 of the book, a reproduced price list from 1896 advertises "Old Kentucky Bourbon, 1880" (16 years old), "Cabinet Bourbon, 1885" (11 year old), "Nectar Bourbon, 1890" (6 years old), and Magnolia Bourbon which is called "new" (presumably less than 6 years old). The new bourbon is the least costly although the price differential between all of them is not that great. However as the legend states, prices were remarkably low then, and aged whiskey obviously was available, so the spread then may have been less than it was in 1910, say. The most expensive whiskey is "Old McBrayer" - with no age statement! Why, I don't know, maybe it was not bottled with an age statement and the consumer relied on the inherent quality of the taste, whatever the age.

I just don't believe in 1886 vendors could command more money for extra-aged whiskey if they, and consumers, didn't think it was better than 6 year old bourbon.

Maybe most specialists, as presumably Fleischman, then as now, felt no whisky over 6-8 years old was in fact a superior product (although this is not clear to me either), but that well-aged bourbon and rye were available in the normal market well before Volstead seems incontestable.

Gary

[Mike]

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[cowdery]

To clarify, Mike is correct that there probably was some honest-to-God old whiskey about and, of course, the existence of the real thing promoted the creation and promotion of the fake thing.

The Founding Fathers were well aware and fond of "old Claret." In other words, WRT to wine if nothing else, the "cult of oldness" had a base of awareness. The large numbers of Irish immigrants who arrived in the mid-19th century were well aware of Irish whiskey.

E. H. Taylor once estimated that less than 10% of the whiskey sold in the United States in the late 19th century was what it purported to be.

[EllenJ]

I particularly liked MikeV's reference to rectifiers who would gladly sell you 20-year-old whiskey made to order on the spot.

And of course, the reason they would do that is because there was a market for it, which is Chuck's point.

But, you know, that market didn't appear out of nowhere. There must have been some reason why people with the means to afford better whiskey chose older whiskey to spend their money on. Even today, MOST bourbon drinkers prefer Jim Beam white label; does that make it the best bourbon?

I think more important the fact that (as MikeV often reminds us) that the 4- and 8-year-old "perfect age" just HAPPENs to be the number of years that distillers could avoid paying taxes by storing in bonded warehouses.
Once the bonded period expired, by golly that whiskey had reached it's "optimum age"!

Hardly a flavor-based criteria, if you ask me.

But, far from li'l ol' me to tell someone what they like (I leave that to others).
Just stop buying all that 12-, 15-, 18-, 20-year bourbon, and let the price get down to where I can afford to get more of it.
You don't like that old tannic stuff anyway.

[gillmang]

Well, I am in partial agreement, John. E.g., no one prizes extra-old Brie cheese.

No market ever developed in an ammoniac cheese (actually there are local specialities in Northern France based on this idea but it is a very regional taste, like gueuze beer).

Yet, people valued, and still do, old liquor. Why? Because they like it, because they think older and more expensive is better - lots of reasons.

My point is that old bourbon and rye existed since the mid-1800's to satisfy a market much like the one today for similar.

Where we disagree perhaps is when the distillery people (many of them) speak of 6-8 year old whiskey as ideal: I think in most cases they really think it is - and they are right, at least for the whisky made today. But there are exceptions.

Gary

[bourbonv]

Gary,
I am not saying all advertising was false and you are right in that they were selling a lot of old whiskey before prohibition. Actually I do suspect that particular advertisement since they were not a straight whiskey distiller, but rectifiers doing the advertising.

E H Taylor, Jr. bought a lot of whiskey that was 8, 10 or maybe even 12 years old in the 1870's. If he saw some of this whiskey on the market he would buy it and re-sell it to customers out of state. He bought a lot of McBrayer, Bond, Lillard and Ripy whiskey this way. There is the 1870 letters/press release in the Taylor-Hay collection about General Butler judging between a 20 year old Old Crow and a 20 year old rye. In the 1890's Mammoth Cave Bourbon was advertised as a 20 year old whiskey that had been shipped overseas to avoid the taxes after 8 years. There was old whiskey available. The thing we don't know for sure is how they treated this whiskey to let it age so long. I expect most of it was aged in used cooperage.

[gillmang]

Mike, why did Taylor sell the older whiskey to buyers out-of-state? To get a higher price?

As for rectifiers advertising, maybe, but they also supplied straight whiskey. Especially in more distant (from KY) parts of the country, these intermediaries/processors were needed for this purpose. They would blend some of the straight rye and bourbon they bought but they would also sell some of it uncut. They could not have commanded high prices and acquired reputation as "anti-trust" suppliers unless their product was good.

Do you have the judging notes on those 20 year old ryes and bourbons being compared in circa 1870? That would be fascinating to read.

Gary

[bourbonv]

Gary,
Of course for the profit. He was a businessman first and foremost, as are the distillers today.

You are right that there were rectifiers who also sold aged whiskey. Wright and Taylor is a good example of that Right next to their fine OLD kentucky TAYLOR, brand was Old Charter. The big difference is that the recifiers, including Marion Taylor, usually faked the older stuff when they offered both straight and rectified whiskey. They were interested in quick turn around of the whiskey and the idea of letting the angels drink part of their whiskey over the years was just something they would do when you could add coloring and flavoring to make the old stuff now.

[EllenJ]

Well, I am in partial agreement, John.. ...My point is that old bourbon and rye existed since the mid-1800's to satisfy a market much like the one today for similar.

Where we disagree perhaps is when the distillery people (many of them) speak of 6-8 year old whiskey as ideal: I think in most cases they really think it is - and they are right, at least for the whisky made today. But there are exceptions.

Actually, I don't think we DO disagree, at least not about whether extra-aged whiskey was common in earlier times.

As for whether 6-8 years is actually an optimum time, though, you brought up a very good point: "at least for the whisky made today". Up until a few years ago, the whiskey we really LIKED (I'm thinking VeryVeryOldFitz; Pappy20 & 23; JohnnyDrum 12 & 15, etc) contained whiskey made before the "bland-ization" that occured contemporary with (if not the result of) Reagan's deregulation policies in the 1980's. By 2000 or so, most of what remained of that whiskey was 15-20 years old, and by now any whiskey under 15 years old will be the modern style.

I'm not implying that the modern style isn't good whiskey. In fact, I'd agree that, overall, today's product is excellent -- and that's because the distillers have done exactly what the marketing department spends millions telling people that they never do... they're making whiskey DIFFERENTLY than their grandpappy did!! In some cases, very differently. And that's why we have experimental whiskeys from Buffalo Trace, from Four Roses, from Heaven Hill. Especially from Woodford Reserve, whose entire operation is experimental, and whose original (and award-winning) product back in 1996 would have been the last of the '80s' Old Forester.

At 9 years, Knob Creek is the oldest of the Jim Beam small batch collection. It was introduced in 1992, and thus the whiskey was made no later than '83. Of course, since KC isn't single barrel, or even bonded, there's no telling the age of the oldest whiskey used, nor how long the old stock could be metered in. But it's probably safe to say that today's Knob Creek is a true 9-year-old with little or no pre-1990 whiskey in it. So, have those of you who do tasting notes noticed a change in its flavor profile versus say, ten years ago?

I didn't mean to go off-topic here. The reason I brought this up is in support of Gary's point about the whiskey made today. I believe it's perfectly reasonable that the flavors once associated with extra age are no longer present in today's whiskeys, and in fact, today's products may well be optimized for a specific maturing profile, in much the same way as Coca-Cola or packaged lunchmeat with "sell by" dates.

And by now, what we call "today's whiskey" would include any current 12- to 20- year old -- provided it's BONDED whiskey (since non-bonded whiskey could contain older product). And it's interesting that most distillers, even those offering a 100-proof expression, no longer wish to maintain the Bottled-in-Bond status that would ensure 8-year-old to be NO OLDER than eight years old.

[EllenJ]

P.S. - Thank you, Chuck, for starting this topic. It's a very good one, with lots of potential angles to explore.

Mark/Chris - Should this thread be moved to another location where it can be accessed by non-members?

[gillmang]

John, thanks, how would Ronald Reagan's policies have affected bourbon though?

I think the older style you referred to came from low entry in the old days (even after the rise from 115 to 125 proof), low distilling-out proofs, more barley malt in the mash, more wooden fermenters and wood generally in the process (with its attendant effects of house flavors), more use of barrel wood seasoned outdoors before coopering, more use of older trees. As all this wound down (over the period you mentioned) we ended up with a lighter, cleaner whiskey, which however can be very good.

I recall the original KC being almost like Kentucky Spirit today. For a time it went through a middling stage. Now it is back to high quality, but in a different way than originally.

I sampled some Beam 100 proof I bought in Las Vegas last year right on the Strip in a small store (near downtown). One was made in '58 and bottled '72. The other was made '66 and bottled '74. Both were similar and distinguished essentially by age in that the older was more concentrated and intense. Both were earthy (as if aged in unheated warehouses with natural ventilation), big in body, full of minty and caramel and spirity flavors and quite unlike any Beam whisky I know today. Both too had a kind of acidic edge (not "mellow"). In some ways the best of the current Beam range (i.e., KC, some Booker's) is better, but I'd say the older Beams were better than most of the current range. I never found in any older Beam, including a 1980 White Label tasted last year, the characteristic "funky" taste we find in Beam White and Black today.

I later mingled the two Beam's Choice I mentioned 50/50 and find that is an ideal balance and a good representation of the post-war Beam taste until the 1980's.

Gary

[gillmang]

Just a further note that the traditional practices I described and often discussed here, meant that whiskey didn't need long aging. Mike Veach has often pointed this out, e.g., that Banker's and Broker's bottle from 1939 - I know that example so well I often think I've sampled it myself - I have, in my dreams.

Mike might be right that some of the very aged bourbon and rye whiskey of the 1800's-early1900's might have been aged in reused wood or partly so, so that is a factor too. Old McBrayer didn't need an age statement in that 1896 price list in the Getz book because it surely was aged all in charred wood and matured sufficiently in 4-6 years or so. Its taste was its guarantee. (John, when will you taste this?! It is sitting there!).

So I take all these points, but the fact remains old whiskey was in the market then and evidently pleased many. Some was aged in reused wood, some was fraudulently labelled no doubt, but the fact remains, then as now, there was a choice in the market. There were some reliable suppliers. People have reputation in business in all eras and some don't, and there can be no doubt that if someone wanted a source of authentic very old whiskey, and was willing to pay, they knew where to get it. You can't fool all the people all the time. (What Canadian Prime Minister said that? I can't recall. ).

Gary

[EllenJ]

You can't fool all the people all the time. (What Canadian Prime Minister said that? I can't recall. )

Similarly, I believe it was a Baltimore rectifier and wholesale liquor dealer who once said, "You can fool some of the people all the time... and that's good enough for me!"

[gillmang]

That's true John, but even in an unregulated market, price is the final arbiter. No business can fool its buyers time and again and hope to stay in business. Sometimes buyers "know" they are fooled, because the price is just too good. But that is different. In fact I'll suggest agreement with Chuck and Mike with regard possibly to that 1896 price list. The differentials between brands of widely different ages are so small as to make me think, some of the alleged older whiskey may have been bogus. But that is one list, from out west, in one place. The fine families of the East and anywhere in fact, who knew what was good and had money to pay would get the real goods. Even if it was 20 year whiskey they wanted.

In fact, the fashion for old whiskey seems constant almost from the beginning (of methodical aging).

In that interesting-looking book on bourbons 20 years and older mentioned on the site today by its author, we see numerous whiskeys from 30-40 years ago showing an age of at least 20 years. This was years before the influence of the aged malt whisky market made its effect known here (although aged brandy was appreciated at the time and some aged scotch blends, yes).

There was always genuine aged whiskey around. At its best it can be very good and no doubt that is part of the reason for its appeal (e.g. Pappy Van Winkle 20 in today's terms). Very aged whiskey also goes well with cigars and pipe smoking, a habit far more prevalent in the past.

Possibly some people just wanted the "whiskey" (congener-influenced taste) blotted out. Well, they got that, largely, with super-aged whiskey; they can also get that today with Canadian whisky and vodka and that may have supplanted part of the old market for blandish super-aged whiskey. But the real hands do prefer, generally (in my reading and experience), 6-8 year old whiskey. They want that balance of wood and distillery character. And I have come, purely through experience and not any kind of inverted snobbery, to agree with them, yessir.

Gary

[bourbonv]

Gary,
I would think that bourbon made 30 years ago could be considered able to reach its peak in 4-8 years. I think with the higher barrel proof of today I would place the range more to the 6 to 10 year range.

Older whiskey has always been around for sale. It was interesting to read a sales flier from E H Taylor, Jr. and Sons from about 1910. They had some 10 year old bourbon to sell but could not sell it as bonded bourbon so they were offering it up at a special price to get rid of it. They assured the propective customers that it was still good bourbon, it just had been out of bond for two years because of a sale gone sour.