
The Rise, Fall, and Revival of American Whiskey - samclemens
http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/all-american-whiskey/
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rdtsc
I was reading a whiskey connoisseurs' magazine of some sort at a friend's
house. And they basically outlined how due to the popularity and profits
involved. A lot of the "smaller" ("craft") distilleries are often trademarks
bought by bigger companies from older distilleries that are long out of
business. The booze is bought in large batches, relabeled, and resold.

Here is another article on it I found:

[http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/28/your-
craft-...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/28/your-craft-
whiskey-is-probably-from-a-factory-distillery-in-indiana.html)

I like this quote:

Breaker bourbon, the “first bourbon produced in Southern California since
Prohibition.” [...] company behind the brand, Ascendant Spirits, wasn’t
started until 2013. Yet, they brag their “ultra small batch bourbon” is aged 5
years. So how do you open a distillery one year and have 5- or 15-year-old
whiskey to sell the next? Not by making it.

Reminds me of when recruiters ask for 5 years experience in a language or
framework that has been out for less than 3 years.

~~~
mng2
Yeah, this business tends not to be that transparent about where they source
their whiskey. It ranges from the big boys (Diageo is doing it with Orphan
Barrel) to the small labels. Most of the new brands just source MGP; which is
not necessarily bad but it's not fun to buy bottles from two different brands
that taste pretty much the same.

~~~
beloch
Whiskies with a high percentage of rye are actually fairly difficult to
produce. The enzymes in common use for breaking corn starches down into sugars
don't work well on rye, and the typical result is incomplete conversion, a
gummy mess, clogged machinery, and a lot of extra cleaning and maintenance.
Producing pure rye whisky efficiently requires special strains of fungi, etc..
For this reason and the relatively low demand for pure rye, there are very few
producers out there. A mixture containing a small percentage of rye and a
larger proportion of corn or other grains is much easier to work with, but a
lot of whisky producers simply buy rye whisky and blend it it with their own
whisky.

Other "producers" buy rye whisky and sell it unaltered. For example,
Whistlepig rye and Masterson's Rye, whose websites both make it sound like
they produce these products, are made from rye shipped South from Alberta
distillers. Alberta Distillers supplies a significant percentage of the rye
used in premium "artisanal" rye whiskies "made" in the U.S. as well as for
flavoring various other blended whiskies. Oddly enough, their own whiskies
(Alberta Premium and Alberta Springs) aren't typically sold South of the
border.

Every few years Alberta Distillers puts out an extremely limited bottling. The
last one was a 30-year-old 100% rye priced at a truly bizarre $50 a bottle. It
literally sold out _before_ hitting shelves. I had to ask a liquor store
manager to set aside a bottle for me, and when I picked it up he said they
weren't even bothering to put the stuff on shelves. People remembered the
25-year old bottling from 5 years previous and the bottles were all spoken for
while still in the crate. The stuff was amazing. They could have sold it for
$500 a bottle and it would have offered better value than any scotch priced
that high (Honestly, a lot of scotches priced that high aren't very good at
all). If you happen to be in Canada when the 35-year-old edition comes out...

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eggy
Whiskeys are making their way to China now; they are the newest wrinkle for
China's growing middle-class. I don't think alcohol in general,the most
popular legalized drug with all its ill-effects on society, ever goes down too
far in sales. Types of alcohol are just 5 to 10 year trends outside normal
consumption. It was tequila (Patron and others)for a while, vodka (Grey Goose
and other boutique vodkas)before that, gin had a renaissance, and now whiskey
- surprise. I remember growing up in Brooklyn, and people would trade food
stamps for cash so they could buy beer instead of food.

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lectrick
Whiskey is probably my favorite alcohol these days and its rich history is
always entertaining. Also see

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Rebellion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Rebellion)

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sandGorgon
India is the world's largest consumer of whiskey (despite alcohol in India
taxed at 150%).

Every known international manufacturer sells in India. single malts are really
big. P.S. alcohol advertising is illegal in India.

Yet the only american whiskey (sort of .. I'm including bourbon) we get is
Jack Daniels. There are marginal sales of Jim Beam.

This is also true for wine and beers. We get average quality wine and beer
from around the world.. but none of the spectacular Californian wine and ales.
I think American F&B companies have not yet figured out the India and China
markets .. like the luxury markets already have.

~~~
gaadd33
How much of the whiskey consumed is locally made? It seems like the US is by
far the largest consumer of Scotch whisky. I would guess most of the whiskey
imported is from either Japan or the US but that's mostly because I can't
think of any other top whiskey producing countries. (I guess Ireland is the
only other one)

~~~
smcl
Huge amounts - I stumbled upon this story recently and it was a pretty
interesting read - [http://qz.com/475494/how-a-cheap-indian-whiskey-beat-
smirnof...](http://qz.com/475494/how-a-cheap-indian-whiskey-beat-smirnoff-to-
become-the-worlds-largest-spirits-brand/)

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patrickmcmanus
this was a decent related read

[http://www.amazon.com/Bourbon-Empire-Future-Americas-
Whiskey...](http://www.amazon.com/Bourbon-Empire-Future-Americas-Whiskey-
ebook/dp/B00O2BS47O)

