Considering Michter's.

I love Michter's.  But which Michter's?  There are two.  There is what we'll call "old Michter's" the Pennsylvania distillery in Schaefferstown that people known as Michter's - and which marketed itself as Michter's but was actually named Pennco for most of the recent past and Bomberger's Distillery before that.  That distillery has been closed since 1990.  It is most famous for one particular 1974 contract run of Bourbon made for a guy named Hirsch and aged for a heck of a long time.  This became the subject of a fantastic book called "The Best Bourbon You'll Never Taste - The True Story of A. H. Hirsch Reserve Straight Bourbon Whiskey.  Distilled in the Spring 1974.  Made and Bottled in Kentucky" by Chuck Cowdery.  This book is a miracle, which somehow tells something profound and universal about the Bourbon business, the craftsmanship, and history by focusing on one particular legendary run of juice.  I cannot recommend this book more highly - it is a sweet and compulsive read and will teach you lessons about Bourbon that any enthusiast must know.  It will also make you crave a taste of A. H. Hirsch's Bourbon - and that's a bit of problem as it is not around except at auction and then at stratospheric prices - dozens of times what it sold for even half a decade ago.

Meanwhile, there is a brand of Bourbon, whiskey, and rye sold in many stores called Michter's which is made by an unrelated company - owned by Chatham Imports, a middle-tier importer/wholesaler.  We'll call that "new Michter's".  New Michter's has extensive distribution for a company producing small quantities - and an excellent reputation for quality offerings at the high end of their line.  You frequently see particular issues highly sought after in the Bourbon enthusiast community.

A few months back I visited the home of New York American whiskey enthusiast Jared Zuckman.  While his newborn son slept next to us, Jared graciously and generously led me through a tasting which spanned such Bourbon stellar bottlings Four Roses Small Batch 125th Anniversary, Jefferson Presidential Select 18, A.H. Hirsch 16 foil top ("old Michter's"), and Michter's 20 ("new Michter's") among others.

Jared Zuckman's bottles of new and old Michter's

My quick notes from that tasting for the two Michter's are as follows:

A.H. Hirsch Reserve 16 gold foil top Straight Bourbon 45.8% abv - 91.6 proof

Dark amber color
A beautiful big rich nose of Vanilla florals, brown sugar, sandalwood oak
The palate is thinner than you'd expect given the nose.  Thinner mouth feel.  Sandalwood perfume, citrus, and toffee bourbon flavors.  In the mid-palate there is a a pervasive but gentle mustiness.  The finish all about astringent oak.

Michter's 20 Single Barrel Bourbon 57.1% abv Barrel 2368, bottle 12 of 220

Hazelnut Chestnut color
Huge nose of dark oak perfume, deep musky loam, rich molasses and dark chocolate.  With air and a drop of water, raw chocolate chip cookie dough and pancake batter notes.
Huge sweet palate with thick mouth feel. Toasted & burnt coconut,  dark roasted cocoa, maple glazed roasted pecans.

In some ways it's not a fair comparison - the Michter's 20 is a barrel proof product.  But there's no point actually denying the fact that the "new Michter's" 20 is a superior pour - for whatever that's worth.  And pretty dramatically so.  Jared would be the first to say so.  He called the Hirsch 16, "historically interesting but overrated".  He called the Michter's Single Barrel 20 "the pour of the year" for him.  I had to concur.  Obviously the A.H. Hirsch is something more than just what's in the glass.  It's a "one year type" - like the 1793 Chain Cent is a one year type - rare and unique as a type - beyond just rare as an issue - functioning as a vanished symbol of something beautiful and gone.  Pennsylvania's demise as a distilling center is all tied up with the death of rye, the death of distilling in the North-East, and the decline of American Whiskey in general in the dark days of glut.  A.H. Hirsch's batch represents the "jewels in the darkness" - which came out of the rickhouses in the 90s as forgotten treasures, like the gold of King Tut's tomb.  More on Tut and Michter's later...  But for all that, what's in the glass (i.e. what you'd taste blind) is vitally important too.  And the takeaway here is that new Michter's 20 is a stunning pour - and a true leading product.

So, what is "new Michter's" and how does it relate to "old Michter's"?  I have my take on it, but here's how Cowdery describes it in "The Best Bourbon You'll Never Taste":

http://chuckcowdery.blogspot.com
/2012/09/print-edition-of-best-bourbon-youll.html

"What about the Michter’s bourbon, rye and other whiskeys on store shelves today? What’s that and what is its relationship to the Michter’s Distillery and A. H. Hirsch Reserve Bourbon? After Michter’s closed, the Michter’s trademark was abandoned. A few years later, a Philadelphia company called Chatham Imports re-registered the abandoned mark and began to sell a line of Michter’s bourbons and other whiskeys. None of the whiskey they sell was made at the Michter’s Distillery in Pennsylvania. They are a non-distiller producer, which means they buy bulk whiskey made by one or more of the usual suspects and bottle it under the Michter’s brand name. Because they control rights to the Michter’s name, they can and do claim what is now (as of 2012) 259 years of Michter’s history as their own, even though they have just the name and nothing else that connects them to the distillery in Schaefferstown. Ironically, the Michter’s name itself is only about 60 years old. Over the years, the distillery was known by many different names."

"In 2011 , the new Michter’s announced its intention to build a micro-distillery in downtown Louisville, and they joined the Kentucky Distillers Association. That Michter’s had nothing to do with A. H. Hirsch Reserve and has no further role in its story."

Cowdery, Charles (2012-05-02). The Best Bourbon You'll Never Taste. The True Story Of A. H. Hirsch Reserve Straight Bourbon Whiskey, Distilled In The Spring Of 1974. Made and Bottled in Kentucky.

Everything that Chuck says in that passage is factual and these facts have led some people to be angry at the new company selling whiskey with the brand name Michter's.  But, as I'll explain later on, it's not quite the whole truth.  Yet the anger in some quarters is quite real.  For an example of this angry reaction you can't do better than the anonymous blogger of http://thebourbontruth.tumblr.com/ who writes under the pseudonym "Lloyd Christmas".  He rages at Non-Distiller-Producers (NDPs) like Jefferson's and others.  but he reserves a special vitriol for new Michter's:

"The distillery closed in 1990 for good and when the abandoned name finds its way into the public domain for Mr. “Sleaze of the Year” to take it as if it’s been his forever. The new Michter’s starts releasing Michter’s Rye, Bourbon and Whiskey under a very fake, very dishonest story. Washington’s troops drank it, you say? Bullshit, I say."

"Makes up a bunch of more crap that only a con man comes up with. Obviously this sleaze has never taken — or at least never paid attention in — an ethics class while at Yale, but I bet he aced Lying 101 and Advanced Greed."

"I’ll be honest and say I don’t know if he owns barrels he sourced, aged or if he bought them ready for bottling. What I know is that Kentucky Bourbon Distillers bottled most/all of it and, I believe, supplied the barrels. Many, if not all, are being bottled by someone new, I believe in California."

"To give some credit, there were some older batches of 10 year Rye and Bourbon that were great. Incredible 25 year and first batch 20 year bourbons as well. The rest is stuff you try at a bar and are glad you didn’t get a bottle. Chatham imports is not even second rate but they beat the Michter’s name they adopted from the scrap heap as the gift that keeps on giving."

http://thebourbontruth.tumblr.com/post/41798018064/whisky-sleaze-of-the-year-and-sinking-to-the-bottom-of

Actually - "Lloyd" says some much worse things in that post.  His rants peel paint and often go way over the line.  I actually picked some of the more gentle areas to quote from.  I have issues with many of the things "Lloyd" says, but there are some legitimate beefs here.  If you go to Michter's web site the first thing you see (before giving your birthday) is the caption "Wine Enthusiast Distiller of the Year" and the following image:

Photoshopped barrel heads - see missing support cables at right and just left of center.

Michter's is, as Chuck reported, building a pair of distilleries - one in Shively, KY and another in urban downtown Louisville on the strip.  The one in Shively already has a pair of small test stills and a large 60' column still from Vendome is being fabricated and is expected to be delivered and installed this coming summer.  It will have a pot doubler - or "thumper" - as the old Michter's distillery did.  But Michter's isn't in full production yet - and that group of barrels in the photograph on the web site are a dream for the future rather than an actual group of physical barrels with that printing on the barrel ends. Michter's was, indeed named "Distiller of the Year" by Wine Enthusiast in 2012.  But those barrels in that photograph are photoshopped.  Lloyd rages that this photograph is a deliberately constructed lie - calculated to mislead people into believing that the whisky they buy is actually distilled, barreled and aged by Micther's.  That's clearly where Michter's intends to go - but they aren't there yet.

 Let's deal with "Lloyd"'s objections.  They are, to summarize:

• Willie Pratt given the title "Master Distiller" while Michter's still isn't distilling
• Wine Enthusiast awards Michter's "Distillery of the Year" in 2012 before their distillery operations are in production.
• Michter's Celebration sold in a fancy box for $4000.  The idea is that is like Dalmore: elitist and ultimately based on hype.
• new Michter's chose to base operations in Kentucky, rather than in Pennsylvania where old Michter's was located.
• The assertion that early releases were wonderful - and had Stizel-Weller stocks, and have gone down hill as those stocks disappeared leaving current bottlings inferior to older ones.
• new Michter's claims the mantle of centuries of history in their advertising, but are totally unrelated to old Michter's .  

Some of these points are straight up correct, and some are just wrong.

• Willie Pratt's title is "Master Distiller" and he is already doing test distillation batches, and he is doing barrel selection and is vatting.  That's all some master distiller type stuff.  But the whiskey you buy on the shelves wasn't distilled by Willie Pratt.  So this is ambiguous at best.
• The text accompanying Wine Enthusiast's award is a well written restatement of Michter's marketing literature.  It commits the mistake of confusing old Michter's and new the same entity.  It states that Michter's was "restarted".  This simply isn't true.  While the award text describes both of Michter's distilleries which are under development in the present tense - it also talks a lot about Michter's "making" whiskey.  This is clearly misleading.   It reminds me of the Nobel committee awarding Obama the Peace Prize - presumably in the hopes that he would be a force for world peace going forward.  Clearly new Michter's has some very well defined ambitions about being a distiller that they are sinking capital into.  But that's the future.  What you are drinking now wasn't distilled by Michter's - although some was contract distilled for them - and to their specifications including some unique mash bills.  I don't know if you can blame Michter's for the wording of the award - but it clearly confuses the truth of the matter.
• Michter's Celebration is an exercise in fancy decanter type "ultra-premium" marketing, like you usually see high end Cognac or single malt Scotch whisky engaged in.  It's an ominous development for American whiskey - primarily from the price pressure perspective.  I don't like the decanter business, in general, in any market.  However, it was a tiny production run.  No one forced you to buy it.  It sold out quickly.  Who really cares?  If it's a matter of principal to you, then you do.  Otherwise, not so much.
• Joe Magliocco, Michter's President makes clear that the decision to locate their new distilleries in Kentucky was a business decision based primarily on the culture and labor resources there.  It's hard to argue with that.  They didn't attempt to resurrect the old Michter's site because it's a rat's nest of liability. 
• While Lloyd Christmas regularly asserts that Michter's is going downhill, I took part in a blind tasting held by Steven Zeller - The Smoky Beast - where we had three different bottlings of Michter's Single Barrel 10 year old Bourbon (and a Pappy Lot "B" thrown in for confusion).  I ended up picking the newest one as the best and, in fact, ranked them in inverse order of date.  In other words I liked the oldest bottling the least and the youngest the most - in order.  And that was tasting blind:  http://smokybeast.blogspot.com/2013/10/going-vertical-history-of-michters.html
• Lloyd's complaint about new Michter's deliberately stating that they have a multi-century history in their marketing (which is not true) is absolutely correct and is certainly troubling.

Joe points at old Michter's King Tut decanters.

A little while back, New York food and whisky blogger Susanna Skiver Barton of http://whattastesgood.net/ and I spent a very nice evening with Joe Magliocco, President of Chatham Imports and Michter's and Emily Malinowski who works with him.  (She blogged about the evening here).
Over the course of the evening we discussed a few of these issues, but mostly we talked about history and drank most of the Michter's line (and then kept drinking various other things late into the evening).  The first thing that popped out at me was that Joe Magliocco has a long history with old Michter's whiskey and has a real affection for it.  He tells a story about his first job, when starting at Chatham - his father's wine and spirits import and distribution business in 1976, was to move a large number of surplus King Tut decanters which old Michter's had produced to catch the fever of "Tutmania" that accompanied the traveling exhibition of King Tut's treasures.  He still has a good collection of King Tut decanters - among his extensive collection of Michter's decanters generally.  For example I had never seen some of these Michter's decanters before:

Some unusual 1970s Michter's decanters.

Joe Magliocco and Old Michter's
American Whiskey

Magliocco shows plans for the Louisville distillery.

Joe began our conversation by putting a tax stamped 1970s-80s dusty of old Michter's whiskey on the table and cited it as a frequent pour of his father's and an inspiration for a number of the things they are doing today.  This is the odd extremely high rye and high-malt corn whiskey that was almost but not quite Bourbon (because the mash was 50% corn.  1% too low to be legally Bourbon).  Joe said that his father drank and enjoyed it.  This old, unusual, classic Michter's form of American whiskey continues to be an inspiration for new Michter's today and is found in at least two of their expressions US1 American Whiskey and the Celebration bottling.  This effort at continuity with Michter's past is admirable.  Over the course of the evening we tasted much of the Michter's line up.  I'll post tasting notes for a few of those expressions below (the ones I took samples of, and/or have bottles of), but suffice it to say, there's some excellent cask selection and some very good palates on display at new Michter's.  The whiskeys, Bourbons and ryes in the US1 line are quite good and some of the single barrel offerings are state of the art.  Furthermore, as Joe made clear, and already noted Michter's isn't just an NDP and a bottler of contract runs made elsewhere.  They are actively developing two distilleries in Kentucky.  They aren't alone in independently bottling other distillery's whisky while developing their own distillery.  There are a range of examples. from Willett's (Kentucky Bourbon Distillers), to Smooth Ambler, Old Pogue, Widow Jane, and many others.  The fact that they are developing their own whiskey production and are members of the Kentucky Distillers Association should give them a degree of legitimacy and respect.

One of new Michter's test stills in their new Shively distillery.
image from:  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-29/
forget-scotch-rye-whiskey-comeback-packs-100-proof-punch.html 

The US-1 line up.

By the way, when we tasted that homage to old Michter's Sour Mash Whiskey, the US1 American Whiskey - I found that the new batch was considerably better than the one I had tried before.  It is butterscotchy, grassy, with nice jujubee juicy fruit flavors.  The other entry level expressions were good too. US1 bourbon was light, floral (marigold) with nice balance.  The US1 Rye (6 years old) had floral herbal spice but also a characteristic toffee note you'll find in all the Michter's ryes.  Michter's US-1 Sour Mash (little over 6 years old) is very nice with floral sweetness, but also some sophisticated notes of clay, dust, butterscotch & spice.

Michter's 10 (barrel 2340) 47.2%a abv

Color: dark amber with coppery glints.

Nose: Candy corn, blackstrap molasses, herbal rye, bourbon vanilla pods and char. Nosing deeper you get coconut, and beautiful sandalwood incense perfume. Musky, musty, earthy and spicy.

Palate: syrupy mouth feel, dark molasses sweetness, deep char, beautiful vanilla and coconut from white oak, and a lilting refrain of herbal rye spice dancing above the dark heavy brown cooked sugars and bitter char foundation.  That dark vanilla extract leads - with plenty of vegetal treacle and brightly acidic citrus preserves.  Notes of aspirin and ivy herbals speak to old rye.  The expansion is big and bold with dark toffee, caramel, and rich sandalwood oak.  The oak tannins wax on the turn - getting spicy and drying.  The finish is long, and complex with big old wet oak dominating, but also molasses, dark chocolate, black coffee, and aromatherapy oils hanging around.  It's a big, rich, darkly brown old style whiskey.  In some ways it's bigger, more darkly wooded, and more displays more dark cooked sugar Maillard reaction flavors than the 20.  But the 20 has greater complexity, bigger rounder sweetness, and more going on to tease apart.   It's oily heavy dark flavored whisky that feels like old fashioned whisky. It is very reminiscent of the style of the big Old Fitz's of the 50s (not the candy notes of a wheater, but the same dark malty feeling and balance).

Michter's Celebration 112.3 proof 

A vatting of 30 yr bourbon and 30 year old rye plus younger favorite casks
Color: medium amber
Nose: Honey, pecan, old musty oak.
Palate: Honey, citrus floral, rye spice.
Intensely floral, herbal, sunny and balanced.  There are sunflowers, lemon and candied orange peel.  Canola oil, almond oil, and orange rind.  Old rye's dark green aspirin and complex old herbal bitters flavor hang as a backdrop behind the sweet and sunny.  Added air brings out the sweetness and a bit of mineral dust.  This is big, complex, flavor dense stuff - but with a balance that is much brighter, sunnier, and less brown than the Single Barrel 20 or the 10.  The story is the vatting in of plenty of rye - both hyper mature and vibrantly young.  It's unusual, very good, and yet very much of a piece with the rest of the Michter's line.  It is, however, sold at a very silly price.

Michter's Single Barrel Bourbon 20 57.1% abv

Color Dark amber,
Nose: oak forward, qumquats, ambergris, caramel, marigolds and daisies, cooking oil
Palate:  Beautiful rich toffee and rancio roundness like old cognac, enlivened with tart acid citrus, which melds into rich sandalwood perfume and darker, mossier, old wet oak aspect.  Dark chocolate blooms at the turn which waxes into tannin spice.  This is a big bold dark brown flavor.  With extensive air, a beautiful sweet herbal flavor asserts itself - perfumed, darkly green, and complex.  This is a monster that opens with a drop of water too - becoming sweeter and more floral.  It's beautiful both neat and with a drop.

It's quite clear there there is a definite set of flavor preferences here.  There is a clear sense of aesthetic regarding  flavors across the line.  The preference is for full flavors - rich and dark and old fashioned.  There is also some excellent palates at work in barrel selection, batching, and filtering.  Why is it so good?  Joe Magliocco, not surprisingly, has some things to say on the topic.  Stuff they have contract distilled is barreled at 103 proof.  125 proof is standard.  They have barrels made using yard dried wood exposed to the elements for 18-36 months.  With their barrels they have them toasted them before being charred.  Their barrels come from Mcinnis in Cuba Missouri, Independent Stave in Lebanon Missouri and a 3rd source he cannot name.  They do a lot with filtering - which sounds like a dirty word to whisky enthusiast me - but Magliocco assures me that filtering a creative paintbrush that Willie Pratt can use to change the balance of flavors - executing creative control.  The unavoidable impression of all that is that there is some knowledge, palate, and crafting going on.  Good whiskey is seldom an accident.

Yet I find reactions like the one I got from EMT paramedic and bourbon afficionado, Ari Susskind, earlier this week at a whisky event who said that he doesn't buy Michter's because he doesn't like that they muddy up the identity of Michters.  Mr. Susskind is a leader of a whisky group, as well as someone who makes private cask selections for liquor stores in his area, not just a casual drinker - so this presents a troubling aspect.  It's not the whiskey - it's the branding story and it isn't just "Lloyd Christmas" howling in the wilderness over at BourbonTruth.  But many of the other examples I previously gave (Willet's Old Pogue, etc..) are apparently in the same boat:  old distillery brands resurrected with newly built distilleries, selling someone else's juice until their own is in full production and ready for market after barrel maturation.  You don't hear this complaint much about them?  So what's the deal?  Is it that Chatham Imports is a middle tier distributor  Shouldn't be.  There is a grand tradition of whiskey merchants becoming distillers.  Pappy Van Winkle himself was a wholesaler and distributor before he partnered with Stitzel and built a new distillery to resurrect a beloved old brand.  So what is it?

Part of it is that it's Michter's.  Chatham took the brand name because Joe Magliocco loved it legitimately and it was abandoned.  He might have bought it but the owners had literally fled the liability of the busted down site of the physical distillery.  Picking up that abandoned brand name looks like good business and Joe is certainly a good businessman.  But the story is deeply connected to a sense of Bourbon's history and new Michter's connecting piece to that history is lacking.  With Willett's, Drew Kulsveen is a 2nd generation member of the Willett family and the distillery is the same one.  With Pogue - it's the same blood of the old family name.  With Smooth Ambler it's a new brand with no baggage.  But with Michter's the ghosts are thick and Michter's marketing talk that attempts to blur the very real line between old Michter's claims to history (already a bit fanciful - even when they were in PA) and the new project.  Michter's is special because it's about the tragic death of Pennsylvania's distilling tradition - deeply connected with rye whiskey in America.  It's about A. H. Hirsch and the story of that one amazing batch that has come to symbolize the dark tomb of the Bourbon glut era in the way that King Tut's glorious golden death mask has come to symbolize the vanished glories of ancient Egypt.

Should you care?  I'm here to tell you straight up that Michter's Single Barrel 10 is one of the best Bourbons on the market you can actually find on a store shelf.  I actually picked it blind ahead of Pappy (thanks again, Steve Zeller).  You have to decide for yourself whether what's in the glass is more important to you than a marketing story that blurs the truth that old and new Michters are separate things.

Michter's 25 yo rye. Toffee, dark spice, kiss of baby aspirin. Caramel, ivy, rich

Update:  Great post from "Lloyd Christmas" @Bourbontruth about Michter's:  loaded with scholarship and detail about specific editions.  It's also loaded with a point by point rebuttal of this post.  But he tempers his tone, and loads the post with some much empirical and useful data that I'm left only feeling grateful.   I readily concede that Bourbon Truth's post has a lot more specific information that this post provides.  It's also among the best writing that he has done to date:

http://thebourbontruth.tumblr.com/post/79568476215/deceit-vs-deception-the-heroes-and-hobos-of-whiskey

Glenmorangie Companta. The Master Comes Back To Red Wine.

Glenmorangie just came out with its fifth annual limited release.  This year it is titled "Companta" which means "Friendship", which Bill Lumsden, master blender at Glenmorangie, said refers to the ancient (1295-1560) Scottish historic alliance with France against England usually referred to as "The Auld Alliance".  The relationship with France is the central narrative with Companta as this is a red wine finishing barrel management story with wines from the Côtes du Rhône region.  Red wine finishes on single malt whiskies are tricky.  They can impart sour flavors, can overwhelm, and are hard to balance.  "I don't like red wine finishes" is an almost automatic response for some whisky enthusiasts.  But we should all keep an open mind.  This is a red wine finish with a twist - as executed by someone who really knows what they are doing.  I won't withhold the surprise, this one is yet another success.  It can't be as easy as it looks, but Lumsden's annual limited editions have all been interesting and worth drinking in one way or another and this is no exception.  I suspect this one will go over even better than last year's more purist Ealanta.

Lumsden introduces Companta

at The Brandy Library

Red wine finishes are familiar terrain for Lumsden and Glenmorangie.  In the mid-90s he started the mania for wine barrel finishing with Madeira, Port, and Sherry finished expressions. This led directly to the Sauternes finished Nectar D'Or and famous special wine finished editions from Chateaux Margeaux (a Bordeaux) and the legendary 1975 & 1978 vintage Tain L'Hermitage finished bottling made with casks from the Côtes du Rhône region. Later there was a regular OP Burgundy cask finished version and a more focused Burgundy edition that specified Côtes de Beaune cask finishing. That's a lot of history with using casks, or "Barriques", Lumsden specifies with characteristic precision and excellent brogue.

This fascination with red wine hasn't always been well received by everyone and, at a launch event for Companta at New York's Brandy Library, Lumsden alluded to the risks of tartness and possibility of the wine overpowering the delicate stone fruit and floral nature of Glenmorangie's distillate. With Companta, Lumsden has taken two dramatically contrasting wines from them same Côtes du Rhône Burgundy region.
60% of Companta is from a big tart pinot noir "Clos du Tart".  Lumsden took 1999 vinage ex-bourbon barrel aged Glenmo which was 9 years old in 2008 and then aged it for an addition 5 years in Clos du Tart for a total age of 14 years.

Clos du Tart 2004 Burgundy

Then he tempered it by using an older sweeter 1995 vintage Glenmo and finishing it in barriques that held a sweet fortified grenache graped Côtes du Rhône called "Rasteau" for an additional 8 years, totaling 18 years. At the Glenmorangie launch event we were poured each of these.  It was fascinating to taste the wine flavors that contributed to the cask finished flavors.  And the combination of these two contrasting flavors with mature Glenmorangie distillate has produced something greater than the sum of its parts.  It's hard to taste and discuss this without considering the larger issues swirling around lately: NAS bottings, and the use of fancy barrel finishes to hide younger whisky.  Obviously, in this case where the youngest whisky is 14 years old and the rest is 18 that isn't a pressing issue.  This one feels like a real exploration of the flavors for the flavor's own sake: an artisinal effort and not an exercise in covering things up.  I suspect people who don't like red wine finishes will find aspects to the tartness to the object to.  Others who decry the loss of hyper-mature extremely estery glut stock single casks might grouse about the wild showy flavors of Companta as wood management pyrotechnics in the place of the complexities of extremely mature whisky and maybe that's true.  But the wine finish game is Lumsden's innovation and it's a defining aspect of Glenmorangie so if anyone is going to be playing the wine cask finishing game it's going to be Lumsden - and he shows a deft touch here.  If anything he seems to be upping his game year over year.

Glenmorangie Companta 46% abv.

Color:  russet medium amber, with pink, copper, and gold tints.  It's brick red and pink and honey caramel color.  One of the more appetizing colors in the bottle and the glass that you'll ever see.

Companta's color is extraordinary

Nose: Creamy berry tart with darker notes of chocolate dipped raspberry on rich honey malt.  Undertones of forest floor loam, strawberry jam, and earthy sweet and elegant oak.  It's an interesting an involving nose.

Palate:  This isn't a whisky where the nose outshines the palate.  The opposite is true. At 46% there is enough intensity for sweetness and fruity acids to pop brightly on entry.  The entry is full of  milk chocolate, tart raspberry acid-sweet with notes of currant and malted milk with floral vanilla and creamy fudge.  The raspberry tartness deftly evokes the rich acid fruit of the Clos De Tart. There's a good balance between sweet and dry going on.  The creamy vanilla floral raspberry tart fruited entry opens into a taut and elegant mid palate expansion full of darker malt, dark chocolate, cocoa, and black currant fruit notes.  Thanks to the wine tasting portion of the launch event I can recognize the black currant herbal sweetness as coming from the rich port-like Rasteau (which really comes off as a Port that tastes more of currants than of grapes).  In the mid-palate expansion you can clearly taste the nectarine stone fruit flavors of the Glenmorange distillate itself.  Plus undefined additional notes of herbal brush and animal musk.  The finish is medium long with lingering fruit skin tartness, pepper heat, cocoa dust, and tannin that reads both of oak and wine.

Companta needs air to open, and takes water well.  Water increases the estery, sweet, and fruity aspects, and the milk chocolate covered raspberry note even while upping the spicy finish.

Companta is a Valentine.  A red fruit covered in chocolate - a kiss of sweet from a taut lithe body.  This might be the best one yet.  Bottom line - as soon as I saw a bottle I bought it and cracked it.

*****

(Sample provenance disclosure:  The bottle tasted for this review was purchased at Bottle King, Bloomfield, NJ with my own funds.  I had previously attended the launch event as the guest of the BA.)

FYI - the prior 4 limited Glenmorangie editions:

• Sonnalta PX (Pedro Ximinez, 2009), 
• Finealta (kiss of sherry and of peat 2010), 
• Artein (Italian "Sassicaia" Super Tuscan cask finish, 15 years old, 2012), 
• Ealanta (virgin toasted oak - 2013)

Stitzel-Weller Old Fitzgerald Bonded Bourbons From Different Eras: Speaking Kindly of the Dead.

Old Fitz S-W BIBs. 1997 (left), 1959-1966 (right).

The story of Stitzel-Weller (S-W) is a story of something very beautiful that died.  It has become a symbol and a touchstone of something uniquely and particularly American which is seeming to pass away in a larger cultural sense too - which gives the story a lot of resonance.  What that thing is, exactly, is bigger than a single phrase and hard to pin down - but it's along the lines of  'a perfectionist vision of how Bourbon should be made', a Southern gentlemanly code, and a 19th century set of values that placed craftsmanship first and seemed to typify the United States of America in its period of expansion and glory.  This period, like the American obsession with craftsmanship itself, went through a nadir where it seemed to disappear, and is now being reborn.  Stitzel-Weller is a slice of a vanished America where we made the best cars, did business with a hand shake, and liked richly flavored Bourbon.

Stitzel-Weller, formed from the pre-Prohibition partnership of Pappy Julian Van Winkle's and Alex Farnsley's Weller (a wholesaler), and A. Ph.Stitzel's distillery, that was incorporated as "Stitzel-Weller in 1933.  In Prohibition, A. Ph. Stitzel was one of only six companies in the whole country with a license to distill medicinal whiskey.  It ended in 1972 when it was sold to Norton Simon Inc. in the midst of Bourbon's decline.  Norton Simon apparently purchased the great reputation of S-W for the expressed purpose of dumping a large quantity of inferior Bourbon that had been made at the Kentucky River Distillery in Jessamine County into a brand that had a market.  After the takeover they immediately began mixing this inferior whiskey with awesome S-W stocks in the base expression "Old Cabin Still" (a story with personal ramifications for me, dating back to the early 80s - but that's another post).  But even after Norton Simon's takover, the distillery continued to produce Old Fitz and the other brands at a high level of quality.   Then the distillery went though a parade of hands and ended up with United Distillers (which formed Diageo later) who finally closed it in 1992 and treated the facility as a semi abandoned asset of warehouses.  The whisky in those warehouses has continued to come out in the decades between then and now.  Older bottlings of Old Fitz (and other S-W brands) continued to be made with S-W juice for a number of years (until the late 1990s).

Postcard of a newly completed new post Repeal Stitzel-Weller distillery circa 1935.

But the story of Stitzel-Weller is far more than one of corporate takeovers.  It is the story of the personalities that built the business culture that ended up with a Bourbon that was reputed to be absolutely the best in the golden era of American whiskey distilling.  Chief among them is, of course, Julian P. "Pappy" Van Winkle. Pappy was the president, and while never the master distiller who actually made the whiskey, was the heart of the operation which he governed by an honest, forthright, and gentlemanly creed:

"We will sell fine Bourbon.  

At a profit if we can.  

At a loss if we must.  

But always fine Bourbon".  

After Stitzel-Weller was born as a corporation in 1933 with Repeal, they immediately began construction of a new much larger distillery in Shively, KY and it was completed in 1935.
They put Pappy's motto on a sign and posted it at the distillery's gates.  It was a clear commitment to a perfectionist level of craftsmanship.  And, as it happened, the moment passed.  Pappy died in 1965 and his son, Julian P. Van Winkle Jr. took over.  But the market was already heading South and with his sister and 49% of the board voting stock wanting to sell, he did in 1972 for the sake of family unity.  Then S-W went down the Norton-Simon rabbit hole on its path to closure.  But Julian Jr. wasn't done.  He subsequently created the "Old Rip Van Winkle" brand and contracted to buy Stitzel-Weller whisky and bottle it himself as a NDP.   His son, Julian III went into the same business and expanded it, and created the signature expressions of Pappy Van Winkle's Family Reserve 15, 20, and 23 that have become the vanguard of the tulip mania that is high-end Bourbon today.  Bottles of Pappy Family Reserve are effectively unobtainable these days and sell for many many multiples of the non-existent retail price.  Part of the mania for Pappy is its extremely high critical ratings - the buzz around which helped rekindle the widespread resurgence of ultra-high-end Bourbon in the mid-1990s.  Part of it is the tireless efforts of Julian P. Van Winkle III as a brand ambassador for his family's legacy.  Certainly part of it must be credited to the beautiful family history his sister Sally Van Winkle Campbell  wrote titled "But Always Fine Bourbon - Pappy Van Winkle and the Story of Old Fitzgerald".  In a brief but satisfyingly detailed book, Campbell tells the story of the distillery, Pappy, and the culture that thrived around a traditional and home-spun notion of a gentleman's honor code of whiskey.  It has the love and family focus of a book written by a doting granddaughter - but it also packs a good amount of detail about the business operations of Stitzel-Weller including an impressive tour of the distillery, illustrated by photographs from the United Distiller's collection (the company that ended up

The Key to Hospitality - reverse label of the 1959-1966 BIB.

with Stitzel-Weller in the end).  Many of the details in this post come from that book.  I highly recommend it.  This book certainly contributed mightily to the mystique of Pappy's whiskey.  But, honestly, the whiskey speaks for itself.  People tend to fall in love with it.  Wheated (with wheat in the mash bill instead of rye) - it's very sweet - but the sweetness is balanced by a big load of very mature quality old growth American white oak.  The wheated mash bill is a legacy of A. Ph Stitzel who made this mash bill in his old distillery before Prohibition.  It was the quality of this whiskey which had originally attracted Pappy and led him to the partnership.  It was as if Stitzel used oak spice in the place of rye spice to balance the extra load of candy apple sweetness.  That was accomplished with barrel management.  Pappy's barrels didn't look like regular barrels.  The staves were much thicker and thus the coopers had to use an extra pair of hoops so the barrels look enormously beefy and armored.  The whisky tastes enormously beefy from the oak perspective as a result.  This is a high amplitude balance; the bass of oak and the treble of sweet are turned way up high.  But more than this is the dark and rich tonal palette and thick mouth feel.  It's nutty and musky like an Olorosso sherry or a dark Cognac rancio  This bigness, balance, and heavy richness has made this Bourbon legendary.

Stitzel Weller made 4 brands:  Old Fitzgerald, Weller, Old Cabin Still and Rebel Yell.  They each had a niche.  Rebel Yell was the smoothie, with a marketing angle that targeted the South with its residual patriotism for The Confederacy.  Cabin Still was lighter and sweeter - "for sportsmen" according to Pappy.  Apparently because it didn't need as much air time to open up.  Weller was lighter as well, but also stronger.  Old Fitz was the unapologetically old fashioned full body and full flavor oak bomb at the top.  It was sold exclusively bottled in bond at 100 proof until Pappy's death when his son Julian immediately introduced an 86 proof version: Old Fitzgerald Prime.  It's significant that Sally Van Winkle Campbell chose to subtitle her history of Stitzel-Weller "The Story of Old Fitzgerald".  Old Fitzgerald wasn't just another brand in a portfolio: it's was Pappy's statement product.  Pappy had loved the brand and pursued it for years during Prohibition from its original owner S. Charles Herbst.  It had been named for a bondsman (a security guard at a bonded warehouse who enforced federal tax policy) who had such a good palate for picking good barrels to pilfer from that his name became a byword for a good barrel.  Herbst sold the brand after Prohibition shut him down.  In Campbell's book Herbst asks for $25,000 but ends up selling for $10,000.  On the Bourbon Enthusiast's excellent S-W timeline, the sale is listed as being for $4,000 in two payments in 1922 and 1925.  

(a faded date stamp is revealed to be Spring 1959 - Fall 1966 using high contrast photo filtering)

Like a lot of Bourbon enthusiasts I've encountered Sitzel-Weller's Bourbons in a variety of independent bottlings since the distillery's closure.  It has ended up in certain bottles from Willett's, Black Maple Hill, Michter's, Jefferson's Presidential Select 17 and 18, and, of course, Old Rip Van Winkle and Van Winkle Family Reserve.  Some of these bottlings are really stunning.  But the whiskey that Pappy himself considered the statement of his art was S-W's flagship brand:  Old Fitzgerald.

I've been assembling samples and bottles of Old Fitzgerald from three eras:

1. 1950s and 60s - during the tenure of Pappy himself.  Represented here by a Very Old Fitz 1953-1961 (thanks, Mike Jasinski), and a 7 1/2 year old Old Fitz BIB 1959-1966 (full bottle found hunting)  
2. 1965-1972 - the tenure of Julian Van Winkle Jr., represented by a 1966-1972 Old Fitz BIB "Fighting Irish" decanter (thanks, Mike Jasinski) and 
3.  The time of closure represented by a 1997 dated Old Fitz BIB (courtesy of Joshua Scott).  

I'm also tasting a pair of Old Fitz Primes from the era of its introduction - the Julian Jr. period:  an Old Fitz Prime decanter from 1970 (Mike Jasinski) and a pair of Italian export market minis sourced from a German auction house.  Master dusty hunter Mike Jasinski was clearly a big part of this story, providing half the samples tasted.  Kudos to Mike for both being able to find these in the wild and for generously sharing them in the interest of science.



The idea is to get a sense of the flavor profile of this expression and how it evolved in the decades spanning the heyday to the final days.

Very Old Fitzgerald 8 year old 1953-1961 50% abv

Color:  Deep amber with reddish coppery tints.

Nose: Beautiful deep oak with tremendous fidelity.  Sticking your nose in a the drawer of a fine old oak desk.  Plummy round malted milk and dark chocolate, pecans, preserved cherry and dark bourbon vanilla beans.  Further back, earthy loam and char and mineral note that sometimes comes off as fresh cut grass.  This nose is heaven.  It smells of time,

Palate:  Sweet on entry with candy apple, musky malt, cherry, vanilla, and cognac rancio.  The  expansion is spicy and redolent of old dark oak.  Oak tannin bitterness rises to meet the rancio and malted milk chocolate cherry sweetness.  The turn to the finish is full of rich oak desk - fine polished furniture; herbal bitters, char and earth.  Delicious darkly oaked Bourbon.  With extra air it gets a little sour.

The extra age here takes the wood flavors to new heights, but the body isn't as malty-rich as the nearly equally aged 7 1/2 year old BIB.
(Thanks, Mike Jasinski for this sample)

Old Fitzgerald BIB, 7 year old age statement tax stamp dated Spring 1959-Fall 1966 50% abv

Color Deep amber with rich reddish coppery tints, almost like a glass of Cocoa Cola but more reddish and less brown.

Nose: Deep, plummy, round, and constantly evolving in the glass.  Malted milk balls made with dark chocolate, dark cooked toffee, well cooked citrus compote containing preserved cherry, ginger, and baking spice. Cinnamon red hots and candy apples and the dark nutty vinous quality you find in old sherry and Spanish brandy.  And, ultimately, oak: rich and deeply iterated oak.  But not the sawn oak note you get so often in Bourbon; a rich furniture oak with sandalwood perfume.  This whisky smells like time.   Over half a century in the glass, we can expect bottle maturation to have full play here.  Dark and tannic, this one took weeks to open up.  It was tight and astringent at first.  As it opens it becomes glorious.

Palate: Complex and evolving as well.  Sweet and candied and at turns honeyed, the classic wheater notes are present: candy apple, sweet corn, peach citrus, and charred oak.  But there is so much more - all in a dark palette.  Molasses, malt, chocolate, oak char, oak tannins.  This is full bore rich, dark whiskey.  The combination of sweet and dark gives this bourbon enormous flavor amplitude.   The progression of the palate works like this:  Floral treacle sweet cherry vanilla on the opening at the tip of the tongue.  A big spicy expansion full of mandarin orange, oak tannins, dark chocolate, malt, caramel, molasses and old brandy rancio take sway and never let go.  At the turn robust hyper-detailed oak with darker notes of char joins the endless and continuing rancio and big brown sweet flavors and fade off into the sunset together with the mass of the attack moving across the middle of the palate to the rear in a stately and fully mouth encompassing way.  The mouth feel is oily and thick.  This is a masterpiece.  It's a dark rich spicy pudding.  This is a Bourbon that completely embraces its brown and rich flavors.  Such Bourbon isn't made any more and it makes me want to cry.

Old Fitzgerald BIB 6 year old crockery decanter ("Irish Luck") Spring 1966- Spring 1972 50% abv.

Color: medium amber.  Just a shade lighter than the '59-'66 BIB.

Nose:  similar but a tad drier than the '59-66 BIB.  More citrus and cherry, and less vanilla floral sweetness, dark char and rancio.  It's a year and half younger and you can smell it.

Palate:  Glorious in the classic Old Fitz ways: candy apple sweet on opening with nutty rancio, malted milk, and old preserved cherry vanilla.  Darkly tannic at the turn, big oak dominates the turn and the finish.  The balance seems better here than with the 1959-66, even while the heavy malt and rancio flavors that are so distinctive are less fully emphasized.  Is this Julian's take?  The same instincts leading Julian Jr. to start making Old Fitz Prime leading him to make a slightly younger less malty-funky expression of Old Fitz?  It's clearly the same brand, same recipe and style - just turned a notch down in amplitude.  (Thanks, Mike Jasinski, for the sample).

By 1997, S-W isn't automatic.  The label here specifies that the distillery is DSP-KY-16.  That's S-W

Old Fitgerald BIB, NAS bottle date 1997 50% abv

While distilling ended for Old Fitz at S-W in 1991, Old Fitz continued being made with aging stocks of S-W juice for another half decade or so.  This NAS Old Fitz BIB appears bottled in 1997 or 98.  Given that the whisky in that bottle was laid down in 1992 at the latest, it must have been 5-6 years old, most likely.

Color: coppery medium amber

Nose: Candy apple, orange compote, orchid flowers, apricot nectar, floor varnish, and hints of pineapple and coconut.

Palate: Big and floral opening - almost perfumed.  Candy apple from the nose meets fruity cherry vanilla. Citrus and florals meet in the mid palate which brings a big dose of fragrant tannic oak.  Darker notes of char, caramel and leather rise up in concert with the oak.  There's a very nice balance to the three aspects - flowers, citrus, and dark oak and leather in the turn to the finish which isn't as long as you'd suspect, but full of the characteristic Stitzel-Weller Old Fitz rounded oaky bitters on the finish.  It's remarkable how it's the same flavor profile as the 1966 stuff, but younger, sweeter, and more dynamic.   It's pretty clear that the Old Fitz product was being bottled younger and maybe was being barreled at a higher proof - but the recipe was the same.  Tasted head to head with the 1966-1972 crock 6 year old version of Old Fitz it is a hair lighter and less malty-rancio rich, but only a hair.  Frankly, I was surprised how close they were.  I could never pick between them blind.

The 1997 date stamp.

Pappy resisted the market forces which led most whiskey makes to offer lower proof versions than Bottled In Bond 100 proof.  Here's a 1963 ad which expresses Pappy's creed on the topic:

But when Julian Van Winkle Jr. took over in 1966 the first thing that he did was introduce Old Fitz Prime:

1966 ad announcing the new Old Fitzgeral Prime expression 86.8 proof.

Old Fitz Prime (86 proof) mid 1960s mini (left) and 1970 duck decanter sample

Old Fitz Prime Duck Decanter 1970 43.4% abv.

Color: medium amber
Nose: dusky sandalwood oak, candy apple floral vanilla cherry compote.  Sweet, fruity, dusky, musky oaky, and intense.
Flavor: sweet with toffee, caramel, malted milk balls, a quality of Spanish dark brandy with dark sherry grape and rancio and a dose of floral vanilla on the opening.  Succulent dark cherry joins at the expansion, with notes of chocolate, and even light and sweet coffee.  Just beautiful.
The added bit of dilution in the Primes takes the oak tannin intensity down a notch and opens the palate with more sunny sweetness, but at the expense of a bit of richness of mouth feel.  This is an excellent and classic flavor profile.  Despite the lower proof, one of the tastiest pours of the evening.

Old Fitz Prime Italian Export market 6 year old Bonded 1/10th pint 43% abv - around 1965

For dating, note the two tone (white and gold) painted label and see #4 at:
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/miniature/smallworld/image/BourbonO.htm
The all gold color scheme of the late 50s turned into a gold and white two toned painted label mini like the ones here.  By 1968 a paper label had replaced the painted one.
Not technically a "Prime" at 43.4%, but an export version of the Bonded bottled at 43%.

Color: medium amber
Nose: very similar to the decanter: sandalwood oak, candy apple, black cherry fruit, floral vanilla.
The palate is also nearly identical: toffee sweet on opening with musky malted milk balls, dark cherry, floral vanilla, with a marked minty note as a distinguishing feature.  Lots of fragrant oak.  Really delicious.

The Primes succeed because the added water helps sweeten and mellow the dark tannin oak of the 100 proof BIB.  The trade off is the lighter mouth feel.

Old Fitz 1959-1966 BIB. Look at the color!

There is a remarkable unity in the flavors of the Old Fitzgeralds of the Sitzel-Weller distillery across the decades between the heyday and the end.  It's a heavy and old fashioned style of whisky.  Dark sweet and sherry-nutty were more common attributes among Bourbons of the early 20th century.  It was clearly inspiration for the  first year Eagle Rare 101 from Old Prentice (the malted milk and rancio).  For decades, S-W's whiskies were the only wheated mash bill whiskies around.  So the various wheaters you find now are all descendants of these S-W whiskies.  The crafting and attention to quality for which it is famed is immediately apparent.  S-W Old Fitz is a lush and heady beauty.  Candied, fruity, richly oaked.  (Some would say over oaked).

Old Fitz tastes old fashioned because that's the ideal of whiskey that Pappy had in his mind.  Pappy wasn't going to compromise on anything to do with the whisky - and that whiskey was all he was going to do.  In the end, Pappy stood for something.  He made his stand on the topic of quality Bourbon in the way he understood it - timelessly - to be.  Ultimately his fierce dedication to this inflexible definition of quality left his company too specialized on a type of whiskey that had become nonviable in the market to survive.  It's a shame.  Meanwhile, change is inevitable and isn't only about loss.  You can love a mid-century American car and note that "they don't make them like they used to" while still driving and enjoying a new car - which has certain benefits.  For example, compared to, say, Buffalo Trace's statement wheater - W.L. Weller from the Buffalo Trace Antique Collection, old Old Fitz is distinctive - but isn't unambiguously better.  This shows me that the state of the art isn't necessarily lost.  Although, clearly, something very special was indeed lost:  a culture of the grace of old time Southern gentlemen, the passion of craftsmen, and a sense of commitment to keeping a tradition of excellence - family owned.  Bottom line, Pappy's business was about family.  And that human dimension was the first thing that disappeared into the maw of the culture of corporate behemoths.

Pappy's name and the legend of his whiskey have become a mania in the Bourbon world at the current moment.  People are scrambling for the brands that have become associated with his legacy and don't seem to care when what they are actually buying is a cleverly made Buffalo Trace replica.  Old Fitz is now made by Heaven Hill and doesn't share S-W's lofty reputation among the hunters and the epicures.  (I need to taste the new Old Fitz.  It's not sold in my area - but I do get on the road from time to time.)  My purpose with this post isn't to stoke the mania for S-W further.  Auction prices are through the roof for Very Old Fitzgerald and vintage bottles of Old Fitz.  The hype ship has already fully sailed.  My purpose is to take a moment and remember Pappy's bourbon and try to understand what makes it great.  The distillery tour in "Always Fine Bourbon" tells the story:  Old Fitz was mashed a long time from carefully milled corn, barley, and wheat using a closely guarded old yeast and limestone aquifer well water (that is now no longer safe to use).  It was barreled at a low proof into high quality custom made bespoke cooperage and aged a long time for Bourbon.  It wasn't afraid of tasting rich 'n thick like "Old Man's" whiskey.  In In order to move on we have to know where we've been.  America isn't the same place it was in 1959 or 1965.  That moment in history has passed, but with some passion and some love our best days may still be in the future.

A year ago news came come out that Diageo is fitting Stitzel-Weller to restart Bourbon production there.
http://chuckcowdery.blogspot.com/2013/01/after-more-than-20-years-stitzel-weller.html 
The gist is that they are going to make Bulleit there:
http://whiskycast.com/decision-time-for-diageo-on-stitzel-weller/
BourbonTruth takes a deeper dive into the buzz of activity and the rumors and evidence for why:
http://thebourbontruth.tumblr.com/post/62732920744/whats-going-on-behind-the-gates-of-the-old

So, Stitzel-Weller will soon be making Bourbon again.  But, apparently, it won't be what we know of as Stitzel-Weller Bourbon.  It will be Diageo's replica of Four Roses' expression of Bulleit Bourbon.  And yet, Pappy's ideals are very much alive out there in the world of distilling.

Update:  As the story unfolded it became clear that production was not being restarted.  Rather, Diageo converted the old office house into the "Bulleit Frontier Whiskey Experience" - a tourist destination on the Bourbon Trail to be the spiritual home of their Bulleit whiskey expressions (Bourbon and Rye) - neither of which has any connection with the distillery in any way, as far as I know.  

"Whiskey Women" - the untold story of how Fred Minnick became the new voice of whiskey for a generation.

"Whiskey Women: The Untold Story of How Women Saved Bourbon, Scotch, and Irish Whiskey" is so important that
I own(ed) 3 copies of it.  I have carried it around with me for months, inhabiting it.  I have consumed a pre-release publisher's timed self destructing electronic edition (based on my Amazon reviewer status), a signed hard cover (destroyed in an accident), and finished with a kindle edition.  I consider it an important book - the kind that can change your view of the world.  Or at least of the whisky world - and, in my view, that counts for a lot.  The particular view that "Whiskey Women" undoes is the notion that whiskey is a man's drink and that, after that fact, it's OK for women to like it too.  The "it's OK, honey, I'll scoot over for you and make room for you on this bench on the whiskey express" notion that is embodied in such facts as whiskey marketing people developing extremely light whiskies to be marketed to women and developing flavored whiskies specifically to appeal to the women's market.  For example:

"Though industry officials don’t like to talk about it, it’s no secret that one initial aim of the [flavored whiskey] bottlings was to bring women into the whiskey fold. “I do think it’s a major effort to go after female drinkers in an aggressive way,” Mr. [Dave] Pickerell said."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/26/dining/flavored-whiskeys-expand-the-market.htm
This point of view is nothing new.  In fact it is very old and well nigh universal - but it doesn't square with a reality where women invented and were the ones to practice the art of brewing beer in the earliest eras of civilization and where women invented the art of distillation and where women were the first and traditional practitioners of the art.  Whiskey was born as a home made agricultural product as an outgrowth of the kitchen, and as a medicine that emerged as part of a woman-centered tradition of folk healing.  Fred Minnick documents all of this in Whiskey Women in a careful and authoritative way.  He does so in a way that isn't all that common in whiskey books.  Minnick takes us back to ancient source materials, Sumerian cuneiform tablets, medieval illuminated manuscripts, and a host of other source materials in a mature approach that melds scholarship with journalism.

But, as Minnick takes pains to show, this feminine locus of domestic whisky production was a dual edged sword in the culture wars that raged around whiskey in its initial rise from locally produced agricultural product to highly political source of tax revenue and then focus of industrial revolution mechanization and economies of scale.  In this era women distillers were demonized, hunted, exploited, and ultimately displaced.  Women making whiskey as part of traditional folk healing became connected with witchcraft and women distillers were burned at the stake as witches.  In the American culture that followed in the 19th century whiskey become intimately connected with prostitution and gambling and addiction.  It was a culture that produced strife and the women-led temperance movement which gave rise to Prohibition.  This movement portrayed whiskey as part of a complex of sinful anti-family activity on the part of men that included the image of whiskey bearing women as temptresses.  This created the great trope of women in bars as lures to a dissipated and destructive path.  This ultimately resulted in general banning of women from working in bars in many parts of the country for decades in the period from  Repeal to the 1950s and 60s.

Prohibition was a time of organized bootlegging and here women, once again, played a major role.  Minnick is on solid ground here with the fantastic stories of lady bootleggers, both high and low such as Gertrude, "Cleo" Lythgoe, "The Queen of the Bootleggers".   This stuff is fun.  The next historical moment is the movement for Repeal which was also led by a woman, Pauline Sabin.  And then the rise of single malt Scotch, greatly influenced by the woman who owned and ran Laphroaig, Bessie Williamson.  Bourbon's resurgence is connected with a number of fascinating women, as is the current global explosion of whiskey popularity.  We meet women master blenders, executives, brand creators, taste makers, and owners.  This cast of characters will be familiar to many whiskey enthusiasts.  There's plenty of #WhiskyFabric here.

And so we end up in the current day and into the ironic situation where women are becoming leaders of the whiskey world and the bar and cocktail scene and it's presented as though it is a "new thing".  Fred Minnick shows us this couldn't be further from the truth.  We have it backwards.  Women gave whiskey to the world and men took it from them, soiled it with big money, bloodshed, vice and greed and painted it as the very juice of the "Y" chromosome.  This is a fictional recasting of what whiskey actually is - something originally made in a kitchen that is part of the attributes of hospitality, medical and emotional care, and social interaction and there is nothing inherently male about any of it.  Get inside this idea and you'll understand why the Women In Academia Report listed this book on of the "Recent Books That May Be of Interest to Women Scholars" page.  "Whiskey Women" will change the nature of scholarship on the subject and I cannot see how it will not ultimately change the modern view of whisky's history and how it is told in the future.

(update...)  I recently wrote a post about how women are represented in American whiskey advertising and quoted heavily from "Whiskey Women".  You can see how Minnick's content inspired a whole thesis:
http://www.cooperedtot.com/2014/05/women-in-american-whiskey-advertising.html 

You have to understand that Fred Minnick wears an ascot, loves his bourbon, and has been to war. 

Fred Minnick isn't just a whiskey blogger, although he most definitely is one of those, and an important one - check out:
http://fredminnick.com/blog/
It's that Fred is also a professional journalist with a rapidly growing stature in the whiskey (and wider world).  He is a frequent contributor to Whiskey Advocate magazine:
http://whiskyadvocate.com/whisky/tag/fred-minnick/
He is the author of the Iraq war memoir Camera Boy.
http://www.amazon.com/Camera-Boy-Army-Journalists-Iraq/dp/1555716687
And, as a journalist, he writes regularly on a wide variety of topics for a wide variety of audiences.  But, significantly, he is commonly presenting aspect of the Bourbon world to the wider world, such as these articles in Scientific American:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/author/fred-minnick/
My point here is that Fred is more than just a guy who loves his bourbon, has been to war serving his country, and who wears an ascot.  He's also fast becoming one of the most important voices in America on the topic of America's whiskey.  I recommend you start keeping track of him, if you don't already.


FYI - if you want to read reviews of this book written by women whisky bloggers (and I recommend you do) check out the following:

Alwynn Gwilt's excellent review of this title:
http://misswhisky.com/2014/01/13/book-review-whiskey-women/

Johanne McInnis' interview with Fred - placing the book in a wider context:
http://whiskylassie.blogspot.com/2013/12/writer-circle-profile-fed-minnick-no.html

Susannah Skiver Barton's thoughtful and hard hitting review:
http://whattastesgood.net/2013/10/29/a-whisky-woman-on-whiskey-women/

Suntory becomes a caretaker of American Bourbon traditions. And that's OK.

High end Suntory whiskies glitter like the jewels they are.  Yamazaki 25 is the second from left.
Look at the color  of it:  all natural - and yet supernatural

The news that Suntory purchased Beam International for $13.6 billion has provoked a host of reactions - some of them racist and negative.  It's not surprising in a way.  There are few products more iconically American than Bourbon and the number one rye mash Bourbon is Jim Beam and the number one wheater is Maker's Mark.  And Japan bombed Pearl Harbor... as I remember every December 7th.  Here are a few of the thousands of comments floating around social media and the comments sections of the news articles all over the Internet to illustrate what I'm talking about:

"Another American iconic brand sold to a foreign company ... 

You will never get another cent from me .. 

Go count your yen and choke on it..."

"You sold heritage to a bunch of japanese businessmen. Sell outs! Sure, it might taste the same but it's not and ya know it. You just sold out a kentucky tradition to another country."

" I don't own a Japanese car I will not drink a Japanese bourbon. I would drink saki if I wanted a Japanese drink"

"SELL OUT... Continue to brew your whiskey, I for one will not buy 'Japanese Whiskey'"

Do all of these people understand that Bourbon, by law, must be made in the USA and thus every single drop of Bourbon is American?  Do they understand that Beam's management team, not to mention all the distillery jobs, aren't going anywhere?  That no one is changing the mash bills or recipes or the flavors of the iconic Beam Bourbon brands?  That other major Bourbon distilleries are already foreign owned?  Who knows?  It's an emotional "gut" sort of thing with some people.

But there is an irony here.  Japan is a major savior of Bourbon.  When Americans had forgotten it in the 1980s and Bourbon distilleries were going bust, Japan fell in love with mature Bourbons and began sucking out the aging glut stocks.  And that helped teach the world that Bourbon wasn't just an old American's uncreative fallback drink but was a legitimate epicurean product worthy of notice and demand.  Japanese whisky epicures became obsessed with Bourbon and it's a true love that helped resurrect a dying Bourbon industry.  To support that I'll quote Michael Veach, Bourbon historian for the Filson Historical Society who wrote, in his 2013 book "Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey: An American Heritage":

"The Japanese economy, which had grown at an outstanding rate in the 1960s and 1970s and continued to do so in the 1980s, also paved the way for bourbon’s comeback. Along with such best-selling brands as Early Times, Four Roses, Maker’s Mark , and Jim Beam, Blanton’s caught on in the Japanese market, selling for a very high price, and making Age International a nice profit. But the favorite was I. W. Harper. It sold so well that Schenley pulled it from the American market in order to circumvent its profits being funneled off by the gray market—"

Why?  Veach gives a very revealing and coherent explanation for that as well:

"Just as Scotch whiskey went global by following the armed forces of Britain to every corner of its empire, so too bourbon whiskey followed the U.S. military to its bases in South Korea , Japan, Germany, and Italy. Initially available only through base exchanges, bourbon was soon among the standard offerings of local bars catering to servicemen, giving the locals a chance to develop a taste for it as well."

Veach, Michael R. (2013-03-01). Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey: An American Heritage (Kindle Locations 1185-1188). The University Press of Kentucky. Kindle Edition.

To return to the irony of the "patriotic reaction", there is also the fact that Japanese whisky companies are already deeply involved in the Bourbon business - from Kirin's ownership of Four Roses to Age International being owned by Takara Shuzo Ltd.  (That's the company that flipped what became Buffalo Trace at the turn of the current century, but kept ownership of the Buffalo Trace Mashbill #2 brands like Rock Hill Farms).  Japan's involvement with Bourbon is nothing new - but somehow, with Jim Beam and in the current cultural mania over Bourbon it's different this time.

Or is it?  Of course Beam International isn't just Jim Beam Bourbon, it's a multinational conglomerate with distilleries and products around the world - and that's true for Suntory as well.  Suntory owns Morrison Bowmore and their moves there, such as making Rachel Barrie master blender and giving her tremendous freedom to be creative have resulted in some stunning whiskies and a some major turnarounds.  As far as patriotism goes, generally speaking, major multinational corporations are multi-national.  If you buy a Ford made in Mexico is it a more patriotic act than buying a Toyota made in Tennessee?  The idea that "the dollars stay here" is simply out of touch with the reality of the global economy.  The real issues are functional:  will it serve the whisky?

That's why, on Chuck Cowdery's excellent blog post about this sale, there is a comment that got to the root of it for me:

"Soonami said...
Will acquisition by a private company ultimately be beneficial to the brand from an enthusiast perspective? Will it be good for us like Kirin ownership of 4 Roses? Or will it be more like Campari, literally watering down Wild Turkey?"

http://chuckcowdery.blogspot.com/2014/01/its-suntory-time-for-beam-inc.html

I answered by equivocating - talking about how Suntory sticks to its guns and many of their expressions are just sold out a lot of the time and they aren't building new distilleries.  But I also noted that they are lowering the proof of Hakushu Heavily Peated for imports to the US (starting this year) to 43% abv. from the 46% abv. it's sold at in Europe.  But I had an experience in the Spring of this last year that really taught me something about Suntory.  It's something that gives me comfort and should give you some too if you have concerns about this deal.  What I saw was an obsession with quality and with the production of some of the worlds greatest whiskies.  The experience was an event: Suntory's 90th Anniversary celebration.  If you want to know about that astounding event, I'll refer you to the excellent work of several other whisky bloggers who were there and who all wrote up great posts about the event (links at bottom).  I wasn't blogging at the time, so I didn't.  There was something about that event that was really special.  Not just because it was the most astoundingly slick and beautiful whisky event I have ever attended or even ever heard of (because that is about the event - and not the whisky) - but because the whisky they were pouring was extraordinary and really astounded me.

Hiroyoshi (Mike) Miyamoto - former Master Distiller and General Manager of Suntory leads 
the first tasting.  His final selection, served to hundreds of people: the rare and 
stratospherically expensive Hakushu 25.

I'm not here to write up the event 6 months too late.  I'm here to tell the story of the whiskies they poured.  You see, I took samples - and I did follow up tastings (actually with a number of people including Peter Silver and Steven Zeller - The Smoky Beast.  And the whiskies that they served on the main bar (depicted in the photograph at the top of this post) rocked my world.  From left to right they were Yamazaki 18, Yamakai 25, Hakushu 18, Hakushu 25, Hibiki 17, and Hibiki 21.

I'm going to brief (ha ha).  Here are tasting notes for just a few of the highlights (Suntory's entire line of single malts was poured that night and I had them all - but will limit tasting notes to my top 3) and a a conclusion to wrap this all up.

In the glass.  Left to right: Hibiki 21, Hakushu 25, and Yamazaki 25. 

Hibiki 21 43% abv.

FYI - Hibiki is complex blend of Hakushu and Yamazaki malts and Chita grain (which is just wonderful - a butterscotch bomb).  As a blend there are a wide variety of malt, grain and wood influences which include American oak, Spanish oak, Japanese oak, and Japanese plum wine cask.

Color: rich gold

Nose: achingly lovely orchid florals, honey, bee's wax,

Palate opening is sweet and richly floral with plum blossom, and melon.  The mid palate is rich with honey, malt, bananas and butterscotch (which I recognize from the Chita grain).  The turn to the finish adds the complexities of mineral, forest, and a kiss of iodine and distant smoke.  A delicious whisky that takes sweetness close to the line, but stays dry enough and complex enough to be an absolute stunner.

*****

Hakushu 25 43% abv.

Neyah White, Suntory West Coast BA,
pours for grateful people including,  G-LO.  Center.

Color pale gold

Nose: big waxy estery fruity florals.  Orchids, magnolia, and ambergris.  Underneath there are complicating notes of mineral, forest oak leaves, and iodine.  There are distant notes of high grade leather and whiff of smoke.

Palate:  sweet, complexly floral in a tropical jasmine and magnolia vein, malty buttery, waxy and brilliant on the opening.  It just gets better on the mid palate as tropical fruits (quince, mangosteen, gogi, pineapple, and apple) emerge and dance with the complexity of mineral dust, oak tannins and smoke.  The turn to the finish is lovely as the elements turn toward oak and roasted seeds.  The finish is long, fruity, malty, oaken, and still, somehow, floral to the very end.

Complex, and richly intense, but what's special is how it melds light and dark aspects of the uniquely Japanese unsherried flavor profile.

*****

Would have been the dram of the night except for...

Yamazaki 25 43% abv.

Color: an astonishing scarlet dark reddish amber with mauve, almost purple glints.  I'm sorry to go on about the color but it is outstanding.

Nose: really big and involving evolving progression of dried roses, raisins, plum and berry jam, old oak, red fruits, rosemary herbals, and sandalwood incense.  

The palate, even at 43%, luxuriates in a syrupy thick mouth feel with mouth filling flavors of rose floral and chocolate covered raspberry sweetness expanding into elegant rancio, toffee, sherry, dried fruits (fig loaf, black raisins) and pipe tobacco. The finish is extremely long with dried figgy fruits, pannatone, and old money fancy oak furniture.

An incredible dram.  Truly memorable.  I wish I could even think about affording a bottle.  Definitely one of my fantasies.

*****

Conclusion:  Suntory is a company that is obsessed about quality whisky and has a deep and abiding love for whisky.  Having tasted their top expressions (which have won pretty much every award in sight, by the way) has convinced me that something special is in the DNA of that company.  A company that can make whiskies like this as OBs (Original Distillery Bottlings) is clearly deeply into the topic of what makes a whisky great.  All in all, I'm sure Beam International is in fine hands.  Here's to hoping that they consider bringing some of this magic to Beam's Bourbon line up.

Linked image of some whisky bloggers at the Suntory 90th in LIC
from The Whisky Woman Blog

Links to proper blog posts about the event:

G-LO and Limpd's write up on It's Just The Booze Dancing - with excellent photographs:
http://boozedancing.wordpress.com/2013/05/24/event-review-suntorys-the-art-of-japanese-whisky-long-island-city/

Stephen of the Malt Imposters uncharacteristically un-tongue-in-cheek and non-hallucinatory version - a very thorough and lucid bit of journalism:
http://www.maltimpostor.com/2013/05/suntory-art-of-japanese-whisky-event-in.html

Allison Patel's perceptive and beautiful post on The Whisky Woman blog: http://thewhiskywoman.wordpress.com/2013/06/13/suntorys-art-of-japanese-event-nyc/

Some weirdos from Malt Imposter and Booze Dancing... 

Update:  I just noticed that Sku said much of what I've said - but more succinctly and clearly written - on Sku's Recent Eats:  http://recenteats.blogspot.com/2014/01/bourbon-bigotry-suntorybeam-deal-brings.html