In the years between the Repeal of Prohibition and the first years after World War II there were a number of advertising campaigns in the USA that emphasized camaraderie between men, and possibly carried a hidden marketing message related to homosexuality as well.  These ad campaigns were not limited to a single company or a single brand.  I will highlight three separate brands of whisky (and one of gin) in this post.  My point here isn't to point to particular ads and say "this ad is 'gay' but that ad is not 'gay'." Such an exercise is necessary fruitless and loaded with bias.  However, as the ads I'll present below will make clear, there is potentially a real topic here.  And it must be understood in the context of the laws concerning homosexuality in the USA.

Prior to 1962 engaging in homosexual sex was a felony in every single State in the USA - punishable by lengthy criminal sentences including hard labor.  In 1962 Illinois decriminalized consensual homosexual sex in the home - but it was a decade before any other State followed suit.  As recently as 2002, 14 States still carried such anti-sodomy laws on their books.  The 2003 Supreme Court decision "Lawrence v. Texas" finally struck down all these laws and ended this shameful period in American history.  During the long period of homosexuality's criminal status, gays communicated to each other in code out of necessity.  In some areas certain articles of jewelry, clothing worn a certain way, or sometimes even ways of speaking (check out the "Polari" dialect).  Certain thematic elements appear again and again in these ads - particularly the trope of a younger, more athletic man in a pool or ocean in a bathing costume and an older man in a robe or suit watching or greeting.  Others are more innocuous: a come hither look or a quiet domesticity.  Each ad on its own is easily disregarded as simply promoting friendship between men.  Viewed together, they begin to look like a concerted campaign aimed at marketing a particular type of whiskey to the US homosexual market segment.

 I say a particular type of whiskey because the three brands depicted here all have something in common: they were blends.  In the USA that means that they consist of some whisky and a generous amount of grain neutral spirits.  Blends were marketed extensively after Repeal as a way to stretch meager stocks of aged whiskey.  This became a necessity during WWII and immediately afterwards for the same reason - American distilleries were converted to producing pure industrial high proof alcohol for war production needs and aged American whiskies became scarce.  Some ad campaigns used a war-rationing fairness angle (e.g. Imperial, the subject of a later post).  But the eventual successful angle ended up being promoting their "lightness".  None of the ads that follow make a point of the lightness of the blends (indeed the first one makes a point of mentioning that Penn Maryland was the most whiskey-rich blend at 51% 6 yo whiskey content).  But it's striking that bottled-in-bonds weren't marketed this way; only blends.  It makes me wonder whether blended Bourbon was popular in the gay community, or whether marketers felt that gays might prefer a lighter whisky (insert joke about mid-century perceptions of gays being "light in the loafers" or something of that nature here).

Have a look at the following 5 ads, spanning the 30s and 40s.  Each on their own is fairly innocuous. Together they seem to suggest that the subject of a man in a bathing suit and a man in a robe or suit together might constitute something more communicative than simply a random happenstance.  It appears to be a real theme; a secret "tell" to gay readers of the time:

Young bathing men and older men in robes or suits watching them:

Penn Maryland  1935 ad - the year after Repeal. Older man in robe prepares drinks with a young man in a bathing costume at the beach.

Hiram Walker gin, late 1930s.  Older man in robe watches bathing men pool-side.

Kinsey Blended Whiskey ad - mid 1940s - detail.  Poolside highballs.

Old Sunny Brook blended whiskey ad - 1947. Older man in a robe greets a younger man in a bathing costume.

Old Sunny Brook blended whiskey ad, 1949. Bathing man in pool signals to a rather eager man in a suit.

The subject of secret gay-themed mid-century advertising was a topic of a post on Ad Week magazine's site in June of 2013:

"the gay subtext is a matter of opinion—or perhaps, perception. Consider a 1943 ad for Cannon towels portraying a company of soldiers skinny dipping somewhere in the South Pacific or a 1945 ad for Faultless pajamas showing three handsome young gentlemen getting dressed after an apparent sleepover. “It’s all in the eye of the beholder,” says Bruce H. Joffe, professor of communications at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Va., and author of A Hint of Homosexuality?: “Gay” and Homoerotic Imagery in American Print Advertising. “A straight person who looked at these ads in Time or Life magazines would just turn the page and not think anything, but someone with a gay sensitivity would say, ‘Oh my God, look at that!’”

Joffe attributes the obvious camp in these ads to what he calls “a kind of chuckle in the eye and pen of the illustrator”—a case of a gay artist slipping something past his oblivious, straight boss. But Joffe doesn’t rule out a bit of subconscious targeting. “Do I think that ad agency or client said, ‘We need to reach the gay market’? No. But by the same token, there was a gay community with its own language and symbols, some of them appearing in these ads. There’s just no question.”

http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/gay-advertising-s-long-march-out-closet-150235

Kinsey's Quiet Domesticity Campaign:

Men together playing parlor games, gardening, reading, making cocktails:

Kinsey blended whiskey - 1945 ad.  An "unhurried" summer day.

Kinsey blended whiskey 1946 ad.  Doodles and cocktails by the beach.

The coded doodles theme in this ad seems a pointed double entendre about using a symbol to convey a hidden meaning - an analogy for the whole business of communicating homosexuality in coded cues.

Kinsey blended whiskey ad 1948 (detail).  Making cocktails from the Kinsey recipe book. One of the men wears an apron, holds the book, and eagerly awaits the conclusion of the other on how good the drink is.  A butch / femme dynamic?

Kinsey blended whiskey 1945 ad.  Victory garden theme.

Old Sunny Brook's "come hither" expression ad series.

I'll limit myself to two (I know of 3 more) because this is getting long.   These gentlemen are inviting you to a drink, with a look in their eye that suggests maybe a bit more than "just a drink"...



I don't know if these ads were a concerted campaign to capture the homosexual market, or were a stealth game by some creatives - or were nothing at all.  Perhaps I'm just seeing phantoms in the changing values of our society.  If you have any information or perspectives please comment below, or email or message me (see the About page for address).  I suspect there is some additional scholarship on this topic beyond the brief mention in Advertising Age.

Update: Steve Ury (of http://recenteats.blogspot.com/) just posted a link to some old Chuck Cowdery blog posts with pictures of ads very much on this theme.  This one from Bellows titled "Partners In Pleasure" dating from 1966 is incredible.  Check out the vignette of the two guys in the lower right hand corner.

The 19th Century: Minstrelsy

http://black-face.com/minstrel-shows.htm

William H. West's Big Minstrel Jubilee "The Golf Crazy Coons" minstrel show advertising sign. http://www.authentichistory.com/diversity/african/3-coon/1-history/index.html

1934 through the 1950s: Blacks as Servants - accessories to class.

"Advertising images consistently show scenes of prosperity, material comfort, even luxury well beyond the conditions of life of most Americans. The advertising industry prefers to picture the world that consumers aspire to, not the one they actually inhabit."
Joseph R. Peebles & Sons. Co 1840 Cabinet Whisky Cincinnati, OH, USA. Via Pullman_compartment_cars_and_through_trains,_Cincinnati,_Hamilton_&_Dayton_Rail_Road_advert 1894.

"The "Coon" persona mitigated the low status accorded African-Americans by whites by feigning near-idiocy in order to frustrate whites by ironically fulfilling their low expectations (the "Tom," by contrast, is praised by whites for his good work and loyalty. A parallel racial caricaturization of black men by whites, the "buck," is the repository of their racial and sexual fears, and still can be seen in blaxploitation movies of the 1970s and, more recently, in the "gangsta" rapper)."

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0275297/bio

1934 Four Roses Repeal Thanksgiving Flaming Pudding Ad.   The text begins "It's your first Repeal Thanksgiving - so celebrate it right!   Over a lit plum pudding..." The simulated flames seem to endanger the servile black man bringing it to the table - but he doesn't seem to mind at all.  In fact, he's appears as happy as a clam. He, too, is a vision of an ante-bellum house slave.

1937 Hires Root Beer ad. "Yassuh... it's Genu-wine Hires".   The black servant entertains while he promotes - with his goofy minstrel-y mannerisms and speech. 1938 Pabst Beer Ad. This young bellhop is bringing the beer - but more than that - s/he is bringing  the "servant gaze" - approving how the good choice in suds shows "These sho am Quality Folks".  So white folks get waited on, and get a load of social approval as well.

mid 1930s Paul Jones whiskey ad. "Seems like they're all calling for a DRY whiskey"

1940 Cream of Kentucky ad signed Normal Rockwell More house slave action from the master of the American icon.

1955 Walker's Deluxe Whisky Ad.

1960s-1970s Black Men As Sexual Hunters

In the end, it's amazing - shocking really - to see how neatly the three eras of blacks in whiskey advertising correspond to the three major racist pidgeon holes blacks had always been put into by whites:  "Coon", "Tom", and "Buck".  The 19th century minstrel style was the era of clownish idiotic "Coon" characters.  The 20th century from Repeal to Civil Rights was the "Stepin Fetchit""Tom" character.  And the post Civil Rights 'sexual hunter' was classic "Buck".  Really, over the entire century and a half the basic script never changed.

But that was years ago.  How far we have come, right?  Maybe?  I must say, I haven't seen many blacks in whisky advertising at all in recent years.  Have you?  Here's how a black man was depicted in a Kansas Spirit Whiskey ad last year:

Maybe we still have a ways to go yet...
(There's nothing racially wrong with the last ad - except that the whiskey isn't any good.  That's the whiskey snob subtext here.  Meanwhile, most of the racist advertised whiskies shows above (but not all) are excellent or even legendary.  Half the bottles shown above would bring 4 figures or close at auction now.  Thanks to MAO,  http://myannoyingopinions.com for pointing out that this joke wasn't obvious at all.  So what does that say?  Marketing and the whiskey itself are two totally separate things.  Remember that).

Given the arc of the historical reviews of how stigmatized minorities appear in whiskey advertising in the USA on this blog over the past week, it's probably no surprise that my topic now is women.  It's a rich vein and I've decided to address the major themes in whiskey advertising about women spanning over a century - so this will be a long post.  In it you'll see reflected the major historical trends affecting women like a mirror in ads for whiskey that were primarily aimed at men (except fascinatingly, the few times they weren't).  It will probably come as no surprise that women were objectified through much of America's whiskey history and that they emerged as loci of power with the rise of the women's movement.  You might be surprised, however, to find that the return of whiskey's popularity is associated with advertising themes that are about pretending the women's movement never happened.

19th Century part 1: Women as Goddesses and Nurturers

In the 19th century women in public art tended to be depicted as classical allegorical figures (i.e. women who represented an embodied ideal).  As such women were depicted everywhere, often in classical dress (or nakedness) representing abstract ideas.  For example we had women on coins (and the iconic Statue of Liberty) as Liberty herself.  In front of the courthouse a woman wore a blindfold and held the scales of justice.  Given the agricultural roots of whiskey production it should come as no surprise that some early whiskey labels depict a a female who evokes the classical representation of Ceres or Demeter, goddess of grain:

Bininger's Bourbon circa 1860 Library of Congress

Roman Goddess Ceres 1852

Roman carving of Ceres - Goddess of Grain.

In the Clark's Pure Rye advertisement depicted at left the assembled drinkers hail a Gibson-girl dressed respectable woman who is labelled "Miss Peoria".  She is an allegorical depiction of the city of Peoria, Illinois (the city where the popular brand "Clark's Pure Rye" was made in the 19th century up until Prohibition shut it down and ended Peoria's run as one of the biggest whiskey producing cities in the world.  Another clue to her allegorical status is that, like the Statue of Liberty, she towers over the men.

Such allegorical depictions could be salacious too (and often were).  Allegorical figures were often depicted in the nude - as the image of naked female bathers here in this ad for Old Sunny Brook (shows below).  The nude bathers are depicted in a way that evokes the classical and Renaissance depictions of the 3 graces:






Other, more chaste depictions of women in the 19th century whiskey advertising centered on the perception of whiskey as medicinal and women as the mothering, nursing, care givers who administered whiskey as a domestic curative:

 

On the left, Mom administers Duffy's Pure Malt Whiskey as medicine to Grandpa.  Duffy's was a famous case of snake-oil like lie-filled advertising.  Malt whiskey was presented a nutritional powerhouse cure-all of disease.  Food and drug legislation got its start in the outcry against such exaggerated claims.  On the right, Deep Springs Whiskey makes a huge Confederate patriotic play.  General Robert E. Lee salutes astride his famous white charger "Traveller" while being hailed by Grey-coat Confederate troops waving the stars and bars.  In the foreground a field nurse administers a libation of Deep Springs Bourbon from a freshly opened case to a felled soldier with a bloody bandage on his leg.  These depictions show women in the classic role of nurturing care giver.

19th Century part 2: The Saloon Culture of Prostitution

However, in a Madonna/Whore dichotomy, women were also depicted as sexually loose seductresses in 19th century whiskey advertising as well.  As Fred Minnick makes clear in his masterful history of the subject, "Whiskey Women", a growing synergy between prostitution and whiskey drinking in the exploding saloon culture of the Wild West and later 19th Century culture of the East was becoming both culturally and economically ascendant:

"During the Gold Rush, taverns, brothels, and casinos popped up all over California, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming, and they all employed women to “please” men and sell whiskey. In what Wild West historian Cy Martin called the “Great Whore Invasion” of 1850– 51, 3 California bar owners ordered prostitutes from Chile, China, Mexico, and France. More than 2,000 women arrived in San Francisco in 1850... Once they arrived at their employer, depending on the establishment, the women became waitresses to serve prospectors working the streams and mines with gold to burn. The average waitress/ prostitute earned $ 15 to $ 25 a week, but she also made a commission on selling whiskey. At San Francisco’s Bella Union, thirty “pretty waiter girls” worked in the upper and lower sections of the casino and encouraged men to buy liquor, while arousing them. The more they drank, the more she earned. One French prostitute earned $ 50,000 in a year, likely thanks to her ability to keep men drinking. Collectively , the income of these women probably exceeded many states’ gross revenue. ... In 1857 New York, sex-hungry men spent more than $ 7 million at brothels or “nearly as much as the annual municipal expenditure of New York City.” Visitors spent nearly as much on wine and liquor, $ 2.08 million, as they did on the prostitutes, $ 3.1 million. 5 The liquor and prostitution business rivaled any moneymaking venture of its time. If a tavern did not offer sexual services, it stood to lose customers."

Minnick, Fred (2013-10-01). Whiskey Women Potomac Books Inc..

Whiskey advertising of the period showed this aspect of the relationship between whiskey and women:

Old Crow Ad card depicting saloon show girls smoking - 1870.  Library of Congress

This ad (left) for Belle of Nelson Bourbon (1870s), depicts women in an oriental harem.  Such depictions were extremely popular in the orientalist artistic traditions of the latter half of the 19th century.  An example of a late 19th century orientalist painting by Hungarian popular artist Gyula Tornai is shown below.  Such images represented an immoral sybaritic sexual free for all - code for the saloon brothel culture referenced by Fred Minnick in "Whiskey Women".  However, by placing this in a cultural reference to a remote region referenced by art and literature it, like allegorical art, could bypass the prudish prohibitions against the exhibition of the female body and be acceptably publicly displayed.

"In The Harem" - Gyula Tornai late 19th century

Evoking both the harem and the saloon bordello, this tin painted sign "A Nightcap of Wilson""'That's All'" (left) depicts two women partaking of shots of Wilson's Rye Whiskey (in the era before it became a blend).  The standing figure is wearing a gauzy nightgown that makes it clear she is virtually naked.  In the late 19th century the meaning of such a depiction would have been clearly sexual.

The 1903 advertisement for Red Top Rye - a Kentucky rye distributed through Cincinnati OH (right across the Ohio River) shows a pair of free spirited women apparently dressed as Can Can dancers.  Their wild spinning dance evokes the head spinning drunk of imbibing alcohol.  Their red flowers, exposed legs and wild abandon clearly communicate the sexual abandon of the saloon culture as well:


However the wild abandon of the saloon culture would become its undoing and would usher in the cultural backlash that culminated in Prohibition.  Fred Minnick, in "Whiskey Women" describes this movement thus:

"... towns across the country were filled with wives losing husbands to liquor and brothels. The country’s mood toward the saloon became a “social evil” where wild women forced men into intoxication and adultery.  ... it was much easier for society to blame the women, often forced sex slaves, and the whiskey than to hold the men accountable for their actions. When answering to their wives for their infidelity , the men would say, “The whiskey made me do it.” This growing concern led to cities cracking down on prostitution and passing prohibitive liquor laws. In 1892 time, it was much easier for society to blame the women, often forced sex slaves, and the whiskey than to hold the men accountable for their actions. When answering to their wives for their infidelity , the men would say, “The whiskey made me do it.” This growing concern led to cities cracking down on prostitution and passing prohibitive liquor laws. In 1892 the San Francisco City Council passed a law prohibiting liquor sales in theaters, effectively destroying Bella Union’s ability to attract clientele . Newspapers ran front-page editorials, calling prostitution a “parent of evil . It is not only a social evil, it is a sanitary evil, and is even becoming a political evil.”

"The best governmental fight against prostitution was temperance. Stopping the saloons and the ladies of the night became the battle cry for the temperance movement. It was also a marketing point for the suffrage movement, with the Woman’s Journal calling woman suffrage a cure for prostitution."

Minnick, Fred (2013-10-01). Whiskey Women (p. 61). Potomac Books Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Repeal - Women As Evidence of Class, Not Objects of Sex

In the aftermath of Prohibition, advertisers were careful to steer clear of any representation of sexuality.  Women generally hardly appear on any adverting for whiskey from Repeal until the advent of the sexual revolution in the early 1960s.  Men are depicted drinking, either alone or in clubby groups.  The few exceptions show women as chaste respectable companions in party or dinner environs that emphasize high class and good manners.   View a large gallery of ads from the Repeal era through WWII and see how many men appear on ads vs women during this period.

 The classy Manhattan cocktail - as presented in this National Distiller's advertisement of 1934, the year immediately following Repeal:  "At the fashionable places today, the Manhattan cocktail is again the correct apertif, just as it was in the days of Martin's Sherry's, and the old Beaux Arts when it was made with authentic Spring Garden Rye.  Aging for you through all the slow years in charred white oak barrels, this fine whiskey now comes to you in a mellow blend which has taken on added character and distinction.  Penn-Maryland Company, Inc. William Street, New York"
The women are shown as classy accompaniment for the handsome well dressed men.  This is also the case in the 1930 English ad for Dewar's White Label shown below.  The tag line hints give us their conversation - turgid and snobby as it is, given their extreme high class and well-dressed for dinner-ness (white tie for him).

 

The 1950s Fleischmann's Blended Whiskey Campaign: Early Signs of a Coming Sexual Thaw.

The 60s and 70s: rise of the Feminist Movement and the Sexual Revolution.

With the advent of birth control ("The Pill" was licensed by the FDA in 1960) social norms about sexuality transformed extremely rapidly.  Old notions about saving one's virginity for marriage quickly seemed outdated.  Advancing notions of women's liberation became conflated with sexual freedom.  This movement ended up represented in film, literature, and advertising.  Ads began to show men and women in close proximity with clear and present sexual tension.  Women were now sexually available, which was awesome - but they were empowered - which was confusing.  And, increasingly, they didn't want to be drinking whiskey at all.  The huge demographic shift away from whiskey towards white spirits which proved so devastating to the whiskey business world-wide began, seemingly, as soon as women became empowered.

The sexual subtext of whiskey advertising in this period is made textually explicit in this 1968 ad for Old Bernheim's I.W. Harper (left - with the DSP-KY-1 designation proudly shouted out right below the product's name on the ad).  The ad features a photo of a delighted attractive woman looking straight into the camera.  The tag line screams "Make It With Harper".  Presumably the girl's name is Harper and "Make It" refers to the sexual act.  Or am I just reading too much into it?  Overt and inappropriate sexuality was the centerpiece of the Imperial blended whiskey "Imp" ad campaign too.  The tag line was the text "it brings out the imp in all of us" at the bottom of each ad in the series' block of text.  But the photo, with the woman wearing a choker with a devilish imp medallion, shows that the imp is the sexually available woman herself.  The clear implication is that plying the modern sexually liberated woman with whiskey will produce some kind of love slave that "he can call his own".  It's an inversion of feminism's appropriation of sexual liberation into a kind of sexual slavery or ownership on the part of the male reader who, presumably was feeling a little defensive about this feminism stuff.  It's worth noting that this was the last national ad campaign for Imperial - a venerable Hiram Walker brand - before it disappeared into the world of ultra-bottom shelf well whiskey where it has languished ever since.  (Update: the history of Imperial Whiskey's advertising was the subject of a later post here on Coopered Tot.)

Late 1960s-Early 70s - White Horse Pretends To Be Feminist to Get Men Laid.  But Empowered Women Might Not Be Whiskey Drinkers.

Hyper-futuristic 70s whiskey?  Yes Seagrams attempted to deal with the rampant turn to white spirits by attempting to float the early Repeal era category of light whiskey.  It was a rapid failure.  We can see the feminist subtext in the body English here as well.  They are unisex - in identical jump suits.  But she sits in poise and power - appreciating the majesty of the Universe.  He is a dork with his back to the show, nervously attending her.

All of these women's liberation period whisky ads reek of the stink of failure.  The whisky industry attempted to equate feminine power with the masculine choice of drinking brown but it didn't work at all.  Women led the charge towards white spirits and utterly crushed the whisky industry... like a bug.

But this inversion of sexual power dynamics didn't last for long.

(Update - these last two sections have been re-written to incorporate the perceptive analysis Susanna Skiver Barton provided in the comments.  Thanks to Susanna for taking the time to engage.)

The 80s through today - Women As Sexual Prizes To Be Won.  And finally just disposable faceless aspects of male self-affirmation. 

In an odd way it's like a full circle.  The Evan Williams beauties are like allegorical figures - beautiful embodiment of the whiskey itself like the farm girl reaper of 1860 was the embodiment of Ceres - goddess of grain.  But it's just another step away from women being depicted as real people.  It, thus, wouldn't be long until we dispense with any shred of personhood for the woman at all.  With this late 2000s ad campaign from Jim Beam we have faceless tight cropped image of female sexuality posing with the whiskey.  Sexuality accents the product like it would in a fashion ad.

A fashion ad?  Yes - like this notorious Dolce & Gabbana pseudo rape ad.  It's all about male power and the woman is a silent victim - robbed even of her power to shock or evoke pity because she so damned fashionable and immaculately put together.  Male power is hot and female submission is a style decision - like whether to wear leather.


In this cultural environment it's not hard to see how we might end up in a situation where a whole ad campaign could be envisioned where whisky is a lifestyle accessory for men who completely objectify women; treating them as conquests and obsticles.  Indeed, on a recent Dewar's spot... on a dark road late at night with our handsome blond male protagonist being saved by the dark haired Baron.  Then ending up in a bar where this lady (on the right in the red dress) comes walking up:
Oh NO!  It's an overweight, and thus horribly unattractive woman!  She is clearly not at all a part of the century long narrative of female beauty so carefully constructed over decades.  That's unacceptable!  Who will save our poor male protagonist now?

Oh, yay!  It's the Baron!  Here he has diverted the overweight woman away from our protagonist; "falling on the grenade" in the parlance.  This grotesque: the cruelty to depict the potential affections of a an otherwise attractive person who who happens to be overweight is what drove this ad over the line as politically incorrect discrimination.

The controversy over this spot was well documented on Grub Street:
 http://www.grubstreet.com/2013/12/dewars-meet-the-baron-ad.html
And, perhaps, even better on Malt Maniac Oliver Klimek's blog Dramming:
http://www.dramming.com/2013/12/11/baron-dewar-crash-landing-of-a-glasgow-superhero/


Later we get to see that the Baron and the protagonist share the reward: a date with the "Swedish bikini team" of ultra-hot blondes.


The whole campaign is "hosted" by the lingerie and fur clad woman you see at right.  In a series of object lessons (the spots), this lingerie-clad hottie is going to teach you to be a real man.  Hint: it involves disrespecting women and embracing some very antique notions of behavior.  That socialization lesson is underscored by fashion and facial hair cues taken from the Victorian period.  (For more on this pulled campaign read this fawning piece:  http://www.theruggedmale.com/dewars-the-drinking-mans-scotch-claire-forlani/).

Now, thanks to Johanne McInnis (The Whisky Lassie) that particularly offensive ad campaign from Dewars was pulled - but that it was even produced and then released shows that our Zeitgeist is at least partially here:  Feminism took whiskey away; whiskey's return means feminism's negation. Women in this ad campaign have no autonomous reality.  They are just affirmation for the men in these ads.  Meanwhile, in the real world,  women are becoming an important market for whiskey.  Yet, much of the whiskey marketing feels like it's giving life lessons to sadly clueless men.  Significantly, women in these recent ads are not about - as they were in the 30s-50s - class, or - as they were in the 60s-70s - immediate sex potential.  Now they have become accessories to male empowerment.  The point here isn't that women will have sex with you if you give them whisky.  It's that women will let you be in the dominant position - as if the women's movement of the 60s and 70s had never happened.  Whiskey is presented as a cultural vestige of a time before feminism - and a magical way to transport you there.

We end with this 1998 Jim Beam ad: "Get In Touch With Your Masculine Side".  I.e., as a man, connect with lust, objectify women, and drink your Bourbon as if feminism had never happened.  Viewed from  a woman's perspective, drinking Bourbon is being like a man.  I.e. a woman drinking Bourbon is like a woman wearing a man's shirt or his underwear.  Sexy cross-gender dress up.  Bottom line, whisky is still depicted as utterly male.  A woman drinking it is surrendering her sex and choosing to subjugate herself to maleness.

Socially, "we've come a long way, Baby" but we still have far to go when it comes to depicting women in a mature way in whiskey advertising.  The last century and a half has seen tremendous advances, from suffrage through the women's rights movement.  But women are still paid pennies on the dollar compared to men and women are still depicted as objects and accessories and symbols of sex, rather than actual people.  They are still shown as feminine visitors to an exclusive male enclave of whisky which ignores the fact that women are a real and important growing market for whiskey.  In real life, women are empowered in the whiskey world - but they have not found a voice in the way whiskey is advertised yet at all.  Whisky, of course, isn't a magical elixir that puts women in a traditional role.  It's actually a tasty drink that women largely invented (at least according to Fred Minnick's Whiskey Women).  I wonder when it will start to be sold that way?

Westland single barrel selections vatted to create the Single Cask Nation Third Jubilee Festival Bottling

Westland, a five year old distillery in Seattle, is producing interesting single-malts that aren't trying to imitate the Scots. Instead, they're taking cues from the American Craft beer movement, using intriguing malts and yeasts from craft brewing.  A creative vatting of the range of flavors they are working with lately deserved to be the third of the adventurous bottlings the Jewish Whisky Company selects for their annual Whisky Jewbilee.

Josh Peters' 1970s bottle of Old Crow

Old Crow is one of the greatest brand stories in all of whiskey.  It has the most noble and legendary of beginnings but the recipe is lost at least twice along the way and it's currently a bottom shelf item.  A classic American Rust Belt tale.  Named for Dr. James C. Crow, a Scottish physician and chemist who emigrated to the US in the 1820s and who had come to work for Oscar Pepper in 1838 in Woodford county, Kentucky.  He is generally (and probably incorrectly) credited with inventing the sour mash process where some of the spent mash from the previous batch is reserved and used as a starter in the next batch where it acidifies the mash and provides continuity of yeast and fauna.  He also barrel aged his Bourbon in era what that wasn't the norm.  And he properly cleaned his mash tuns and washbacks and tended the recipe with a careful and scientific manner.  All this gave early Old Crow an admirable level of quality and consistency which made it beloved.

James Crow died rather suddenly in 1856, apparently taking details of his recipe to the grave with him.  Oscar Pepper continued to make Old Crow, but passed away himself a few years later.  A group of investors, led by E.H. Taylor bought the brand and all remaining stocks.  They called the company W. A. Gaines & Co.  Old Crow of this era was famous.  Supposedly it was the whiskey of choice of probably the 19th century's most famous heavy drinker, General and President Ulysses S. Grant.  Jack Sullivan (of the brilliant history blog Those Pre-Pro Whiskey Men!) wrote:

"In his book, The Social History of Bourbon, Gerald Carson recounts that during one night during the long and stressful siege of Vicksburg, General Grant said to his aides: “See here, before we go to bed, let’s have a nightcap. Stewart [an aide] has got some prime Old Crow whiskey around here somewhere.” Stewart got the bottle and then watched as Grant filled a large goblet with Old Crow whiskey and tossed it down. ”It was a whopping big drink...”'
http://www.pre-pro.com/midacore/articles/JS021.pdf

In 1878 the brand had grown to the point that a new, larger, and more industrial distillery was built further down the same road, South of Frankfort Kentucky, on the Kentucky river.  It would be made there for almost a century.  But in the 1960s sometime a tragic development happened where the amount of setback was changed and the original recipe forgotten.  Then the brand was sold and the the original recipe completely abandoned.  Chuck Cowdery, in his masterful book of whiskey history Bourbon Straight writes of Old Crow:

"After the war, whiskey-making resumed and Old Crow became one of the world's top selling bourbons. Until 1952, it was sold only as a bond, i.e., 100 proof. In that year, an 86 proof version was introduced.         In the 1960s, with sales still booming, production capacity at the Old Crow plant was increased significantly. According to a former National Distillers employee who was the last master distiller at Crow before it was acquired by Jim Beam in 1987, it was during this expansion that the original formula was accidentally changed. The error was in the percentage of backset returned to the new mash. This is ironic because the use of backset to condition new mash is the very essence of the sour mash process introduced by Dr. Crow. Despite falling sales, many customer complaints about the product’s new flavor, and even negative reviews from the distillery’s own tasting panels, the plant’s managers were either unwilling or unable to correct the mistake until just a few years before Jim Beam closed the plant in 1987. But by then the damage had been done.         Sales of almost all bourbon brands declined during the 1970s and 1980s, but none worse than Old Crow. In addition to losing sales, it also lost market share. Formerly number one, today it does not even rank in the top ten. For most of the period between Prohibition and Old Crow’s fall from grace, the brand’s chief rival for the position of best-selling bourbon was Jim Beam. As a final irony, the Old Crow whiskey in stores today is Jim Beam. That is, it is whiskey made by Jim Beam from the standard Jim Beam bourbon mash bill."

Cowdery, Charles (2011-05-20). BOURBON, STRAIGHT: The Uncut and Unfiltered Story of American Whiskey (pp. 114-115).

Interior of Distillery Building

Old Crow overgrown rickhouse.

Old Crow Distillery Building

After the 1987 sale to Beam, the Old Crow distillery where Old Crow had been made since 1878 and through the glory days of the 50s was closed and allowed to become a ruin.  There is a wonderful web site with many photographs of this ruin circa 2014.  Here are a few pictures from that site for color:

http://abandonedonline.net/locations/industry/old-crow-distillery/

So, what we're tasting in this head to head is Old Crow from the last decade or so of the Old Crow Distillery (that gorgeous ruin) - which was part of National Distillers Corporation at the time, and the new stuff from Jim Beam.

Josh Peters' 1970s Cabin Still

• Josh Peters of The Whiskey Jug: http://thewhiskeyjug.com
• Steve Ury (Sku) of Sku's Recent Eats: http://recenteats.blogspot.com/
• Aaron Kraus (of the West Coast branch of It's Just The Booze Dancing): http://boozedancing.com/
• Stephen of The Axis of Whisky: http://axisofwhisky.com/
• and Patrick "Pops" Garrett of Bourbon and Banter: https://www.bourbonbanter.com/

The four bottles Josh Peters sent samples of.

Bourbon's history includes farmers, pioneers, entrepreneurs, and industrialists.  It also sometimes includes operators, wise guys, and gangsters. Today's hero is a whole lot like Nucky Thompson from "Boardwalk Empire."

(Bottle photos credit: Chris Martin)

I  Tom Pendergast's Machine

Tom Pendergast (1872-1945) was born in a poor Irish immigrant family, the last of nine children.  He rose from working in his brother James' saloon in Kansas City to rule a vast political machine that controlled government patronage jobs, voting fraud, organized crime, law enforcement, and political policy in Missouri and ultimately sent a Senator to Washington who ended up as President of the United States.  Crime paid, but he got his comeuppance in the end.

Along the way, in 1938, Pendergast purchased a distillery called S.P. Lancaster in Bardstown, KY.  He gave it the name "Shawhan" - a storied distillery name from Missouri that he bought during Prohibition.  It wasn't surprising that Pendergast would have wanted a distillery.  His criminal activities during Prohibition had almost certainly involved a share of the bootlegging action.  Certainly whiskey oiled the saloon lifestyle in Kansas City in an era when a special type of Jazz was born; made famous by the likes of Count Basie, Walter Page, Bennie Moten, Lester Young, and the "Bird" himself, Charlie Parker.  Along the way, Pendergast briefly resurrected a some historic 19th century Kansas City whiskey brands one last brief time before they disappeared again into the darkness of history - carried along by the tide of social justice which routed Tom Pendergast out and put him in prison in an attempt to rid Missouri of systematic graft and political corruption.

Tom Pendergast depicted as the head of a machine whose tentacles encompassed Kansas City - Daniel Fitzpatrick cartoon. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch Editorial Cartoon Collection, March 31, 1939, The State Historical Society of Missouri]

Old Lancaster BiB Spring 1917-Fall 1930 50% abv

A lot of old Prohibition bottlings are overoaked, or just taste weird with old growth oak notes, or destruction caused by oxidation, heat damage and/or light damage.  Not this one.  Mint condition (see photo above)

Color: medium amber.
Nose: tingly brown sugar, apricot pie, peanut shells, char, old barn, the inside of an old chest, and something distant but distinctly fungal.  Forest floor with mushroom.
Palate:  Creamy sweet opening with honey, sandalwood, nutmeg and a bright acid fruity note like strawberry lemon.  The mouth feel is creamy.  Buttery vanilla kicks in on the mid-palate.  At the turn there is plenty of char and oak - burned oak and old trunk oak and also herbal rye notes: licorice and mint, but also something less tidy: dank ivy behind the shed.  The finish brings the char and the herbal dark note to the fore and ends a bit bitter.  This a pretty decent pour.  A tad lacking in intensity (probably the degree of oxidation common in Prohibition era medicinal pints), but really interesting - with a wealth of unusual flavors and a decent balance between bright fruity acids and dark herbal bitter which is plenty drinkable.

Passionate whisky enthusiast Matt Lurin is hosting the second annual Water of Life whiskey event Thursday night 5/12/16 and it's not to be missed.  The event serves an important charitable cause, supporting the medical research charity Life Raft Group's efforts to cure Gastro Intestinal Stromal Tumors (GIST). It's a good cause and, as a fund raiser, the cost of admission is tax deductible. But that's not why you should go.  The whisky community is generous, and many people donated excellent whiskies and other prizes for a raffle at the culmination of the event.  Personally, I'm bringing a 1970s-80s I.W. Harper to donate.  My friend Joe Hyman of Skinner's spirit auctions is bringing some stuff too - for one of the VIP extra classes:

Joe Hyman is bringing this....

...and this.

They feed you at this event too - with a focus on some
unique food and whisky pairings.  One of the VIP program options is a cigar terrace where you get to smoke special cigars with some special whiskies.  Last year the cigars were amazing and the whiskies were even more tremendous.

Last year - hanging on the cigar terrace with good friends: David Bailey, Compass Box rep (left) and Timothy Malia

But those aren't the real reasons why you should go either.

There are going to be over a hundred whiskies being poured - and if you go you will have the opportunity to taste over 25 of them (and please don't drive after having 25 whiskies).  These are top expressions from the best distributors and distilleries.  It's a top tier show.  The format for the tastings are really special.  Rather than crowded at tables, you get to sit down with the brand ambassadors and have a relaxed set of drams.  It's a "speed dating" arrangement where after a while you switch tables to enjoy a new set of drams.  It's incredibly civilized and makes a big difference.  It's more relaxing and pleasurable than any other whisky show I've ever gone to.  There is also a terrific raffle afterwards with a lot of fantastic whisky and other great prizes.  Your odds of winning are very high given the numbers.

But that's not the ultimate reason you should go either.

For more about the event go to the event's web page:  http://www.lrgwateroflife.org/

Tickets aren't cheap (but, again, your purchase is a tax deductible donation for a very good cause):  $300 for standard admission.  11 whisky speed dates, initial cocktail and hors d'oevres hour at 6pm.  Dinner, dessert, and glencairn.  $375 for VIP which steps up to 13 whisky speed dates, with  some special VIP selections, premium VIP offerings to be found in exclusive roof seating areas and a cut crystal glencairn.  You can use discount codes for 24 more hours (until 5/11/16).  Here's one from the best web site for checking out NYC's whisky scene:  "NYCWHISKY"
http://www.eventbrite.com/e/water-of-life-2016-tickets-18901772711

So - why should you go?  The people.  There are a TON of great NYC whisky people going to Matt's event.  There will be a ton of love in the room.  It's something you can feel and it colors the whole event.  I had an absolutely amazing time last year and I can't wait to go again.  See you there!

(FYI - The write up of last year's event on Coopered Tot:)
http://www.cooperedtot.com/2015/05/the-water-of-life-event-fund-raising.html

Matt Lurin - host of Water of Life

Cedar Brook Plankington Reserve - photo by Chad Hartsfield

Kessler went whole hog on marketing Cedarbrook's whiskey. Ad in El Paso Morning Times (El Paso, Tex.), Thursday, September 11, 1913 http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth196655/m1/11/

Julius Kessler

Julius Kessler was a Hungarian Jew, born in Budapest in 1855, who had immigrated to the US and came to dominate the Colorado whiskey trade in the mining boom era of the 1870s.  By 1899 when Julius Kessler bought Cedar Brook, he was a major veteran of the whiskey business and had become among the most powerful people in the industry.  He had led the reorganization of the remnants of Joseph Benedict Greenhut's first whiskey trust - the Distillers & Cattle Feeders' Trust - in 1896 and named the new entity, initially, "The American Spirits Manufacturing Company".  In 1899 the Kentucky Distillers and Warehouse Company emerged out of a complicated merger of 4 different companies including "The Distilling Company of America".  The complexity of the corporate formation was necessitated by the need to evade Federal attention.  Thus, the reboot of the Whiskey Trust required a lot of paper trail cover.  To understand that we have to go back a decade.  The first Whiskey Trust ran from 1887 to 1895.  The largest distillery in the world, Greenhut's Great Western, and 65 other distilleries merged to form the Distillers & Cattle Feeders' Trust with the goal of controlling the price of the commodity alcohol.  The problem was a large number of small distillers who dumped onto the market without tactics or control, lowering prices at awkward times.  The Trust aimed to buy them all up and close down the smaller less efficient ones and run the larger more efficient ones to higher profits.  The problem was that whiskey distillers were ornery people and many chose not to sell out.  The usual array of strongarm tactics were employed: threats, arson, killings, lawsuits.  Trusts were the Zeitgeist of the era and social reformers battled them.  The Sherman AntiTrust act of 1890 began the legal edifice which ultimately tore it down.  Greenhut bailed out in 1895 under the heat of Federal prosecution.  Kessler found a way to assemble the trust back to together and evade prosecution.

In that same year of establishment of the new Trust, 1899, Kessler also purchased Cedar Brook.  He renamed "Cedar Brook""Kessler" and made its Bourbon his namesake product.  The Bottled in Bond Act had just passed in 1897 and Kessler made the most of it in his advertising.  He upgraded Kessler Distillery and was trying to build something big.  The first two decades of the 20th century were the good times.  Kessler advertised extensively and Cedar Brook was his top of the line.  True, the whiskey trust wasn't effective in controlling commodity alcohol prices, but whiskey was a good volume business in that era.  But it wasn't long until it was all shut down by Prohibition in 1920.  Kessler tried his hand selling women's underwear - but only a year later - 1921 - he had decided to give it up and retire to Austria (in some versions it's back to Hungary).   He languishes in the Old World - apparently running out money until 1934 when Sam Bronfman brought him out of retirement to front a huge new brand roll out.  The brand sold big and old man Kessler made a fortune and died rich in 1940 - with an obituary in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

It is a classic truism in the malt whisky world that single malts are "better than" blends.  The usual reason given is that single malts are free of the "inferior" grain whisky.  It's been popular in the whisky blogosphere to debunk this conclusion, usually by pointing to certain high-end blends and grain whiskies which are so good they stand up to any spirit.  The point is valid: high-end grain and blended whisky can be as good as all but the most incredible single malts.  However, the reputation of single malts as a category remains, and for good reason.  Single malts have an extraordinarily wide gamut of flavors: from 'honey and heather', to 'richly sherried', to 'powerfully peated' and all sorts of distinctive flavors in between.  Alternately sweet, or dry, or phenolic, grassy, smoky, floral, shy or huge, malt is a chameleon which is a terrific carrier for flavor factors such as malting method, wood management, and terroir.  For many single malt enthusiasts, this wide gamut is the exactly the point.  Where bourbon, rye, rum, and brandy can often win out on richness and intensity of their distinctive flavor signature, no spirit can hold a candle to malt for such kaleidoscopic variety.

Could you tell single malts from blends if you were tasting blind samples?  Experience has taught me that it can be devilishly hard to identify what you're drinking when you aren't told anything up front.  (I did a double blind tasting of American and Canadian rye whiskies and failed to tell which was which.  Then, there was the time that I mistook a rye for a Bourbon (see sample #1 in a Smoky Beast blind tasting).  And, one time I actually won Dramming.com's first blind tasting competition - and I didn't get a single identification right, just attributes like ages and proofs.)  Still - single malts and blends and single grains whiskies.  You should be able to tell them apart, right?

Jennifer Lucille Wren (left) and Emily Ross-Johnson (right) at one of the USA tasting sessions involved in the research.

Recently a piece of formal academic research came out which takes on this question and hopes to settle it empirically.  The paper is called "The perceptual categorisation of blended and single malt Scotch whiskies" by Barry Smith et.al and it was published in a journal called "Flavor", put out by Biomed Central (sadly Flavor is due to cease publication after the next issue) - (DOI: 10.1186/s13411-017-0056-x).
http://flavourjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13411-017-0056-x

The paper notes that "a firm distinction exists in the minds of consumers and in the marketing of Scotch between single malts and blended whiskies" but asks "But does this category distinction correspond to a perceptual difference detectable by whisky drinkers?" In order to tell, expert and non-expert tasters in three different countries (UK, France, and the USA) were asked to apply standardized descriptors to the nose and palates to the following whiskies tasted blind

Four single malts Scotches:

1. Cardhu 12 
2. Mortlach (Flora & Fauna 16 yo)
3. Glenlivet 18
4. Glenmorangie (10 - although erroneously stated as 12)

1. Chivas Gold 18
2. Ballantine's 17
3. Johnnie Walker Black 12
4. Johnnie Walker Platinum 18

and one grain whisky:

1. Cameron Brig (6 years old) 

The standardized descriptors allowed the researchers to compare results across 92 different tasters in the three different countries and to chart the results.  Here are the charts for the results of nosing these whiskies by experts (top chart) and non-experts (bottom chart) for example.  Single malts are in blue, blends are in black, and the lone grain is in red.  Single malts and blends are all mixed up - although I notice that the experts and the non-experts put a number of the whiskies in the same general areas (although not the grain - which veers drunkenly).



I had the pleasure of sitting on one of the tasting panels, along with some very distinguished members of the New York whisky community at that time (September 2014), including Matt Lurin, the man behind what is probably the best whisky event on the planet at the moment, The Water of Life (more on this blog about that event very shortly - meanwhile click the link to buy tickets), Emily Ross-Johnson who, at the time, was the founder of the Astoria Whiskey Society (now she is the founder of the Portland Whiskey Society - and you should join if you're out there - click the live link), Jennifer Lucille Wren, a whisky blogger and event organizer then, who is now the West Coast brand ambassador for Glenfiddich, and Susanna Skiver Barton, whisky blogger, journalist, and now manager of the Whisky Advocate's web presence.  The experience of participating in the tasting gives me a personal perspective on how this study operated because I was there.

Lead author, Barry Smith, explains the tasting procedure to Matt Lurin (left) and Jennifer Wren (right)

Susanna Skiver Barton (left) and Josh Feldman (the author of this post) at one of Smith et al.'s NY tastings.  The blind samples in the study are before us.  Photo by Emily Ross-Johnson (thanks)

Smith et. al.'s conclusion is that people can't taste the difference between single malts and blends:

"The present study shows that the distinction between blends and single malts, which is central to the production, presentation and marketing of Scotch whisky, does not correspond to a clear cut perceptual distinction for tasters."

Barry Smith and his colleagues have structured an empirical blind study with a good methodology - so have they settled this topic?  In my opinion, absolutely not.  The problem has to do with the types of single malts and blends they selected for the study.  All of the single malts selected - with the sole exception of Mortloch, fall squarely in the "honey and heather" flavor profile, and that's exactly true of the blends selected too.  This isn't representative of those overall segments.  When you walk into a liquor store and peruse the blended Scotch, many of the options are considerably lighter and less distinguished than Johnnie Walker Platinum 18, Chivas Gold 18, or Ballantine's 17 - or even Johnnie Walker Black 12.  The likes of J&B, Johnnie Walker Red, Passport, 100 Pipers, Bell's, Clan McGreggor, Dewar's White Label etc... are far more grainy and less honeyed and floral than the unabashedly high-end blends in the study.  Conversely, many single malt enthusiasts will often opt for single malts well outside the "home plate" honey and heather flavor profile - going for sherry bombs like Glendronach, Aberlour, or Macallan, or peat monsters like Laphroaig, Ardbeg or Lagavulin, or dozens of different interesting variants (the rubber of Ledaig, the pheolic Strathspey, the salt and honey of Old Pultney, Springbank's fungal notes... etc...) rather than the gentle likes of Cardhu, Glenlivet, and the base Glenmorangie.  These single malts, delicious as they are, tend to be close to the center of the "honey and heather""Highland" flavor profile that is exactly what the blenders at Diageo and Pernod Ricard are aiming for.

To some extent, there is no way to structure a piece of scientific research which adequately captures this broad flavor gamut - precisely because it would be so easy to pick them out blind which would muddy the central question of whether something specific about single malts versus blends is objectively detectable.  It's clear that the designers of this study selected whiskies for the blind tasting deliberately to have a very similar flavor profile with the specific aim of trying to see if tasters could identify the sole distinction with flavor signature held constant as much as possible.  And, in that aim they have succeeded.  I couldn't tell the difference.  The preponderance of the other tasters couldn't either.  And I bet you couldn't reliably tell the difference blind with this set of drams either.  But, I argue that these selections don't represent the nature of blended Scotch whiskies and single malt whiskies generally.  Looking at the segments as a whole, you and I would be far more likely to be able to pick out blends versus single malts when the full gamut of flavors is in the mix.  Select J&B and Bells as the examples of blends, and Laphroaig 10 and Glendronach 15 as the single malts, for example, and then taste those blind.  I bet I could pick the single malts and blends in that example that every time and you probably could too.  It's those real perceptual differences that gave rise to the generalizations that aren't always true - but are true often enough to make them commonly held - which is why whisky bloggers are still writing pieces about how good blends can make you question those assumptions.

So where does that leave us?  Is there some Platonic ideal of "single maltness" which can be differentiated from "blendness"?  No.  Barry Smith et. al. have scientifically proved that, when flavor signature is held relatively constant, tasters cannot distinguish between single malts and blends.  My complaint is that they left that qualifying clause out of the language of their published conclusion, and I find that omission misleading.  It implies, to someone not carefully reading, that all this whisky epicureanism is some kind of snobby mirage and that no one can really taste the difference between the carefully crafted and inexpensive bulk stuff.  That isn't the case at all - and it's not what Barry Smith et. al. meant to imply either.  But they left the door wide open to that misinterpretation.  In social media where many people will only read the headline, that incorrect message will be the one that people will learn most from this study.  In the real world, you can actually taste the difference between many many single malts and many many blends all day long.

That Harlem Rensaissance vibe... Photo by Clay Williams

Jazz and dance.  Photo by Clay Williams

I'm headed to the Harlem Whiskey Renaissance 2017 tomorrow, Thursday March 30th, 2017.  It's a whiskey show - where you get an engraved Glencairn glass and can visit tables where brand ambassadors will take you through their lines - but you also get a lot more.  Live jazz music by Dandy Wellington and his Band with burlesque acts by The Maine Attraction and Calamity Chang.  Also an awesome raffle and charity auction, cigars, chocolate, food, and a great vibe.

There are a ton of whiskies on offer (I'll put the list at the bottom).  There are VIP tickets which include a master class tasting five different Heaven Hill mash bills and another contrasting Corsair, Leopold, and Charbay offerings.  Also, VIPs receive the book "Distilled Knowledge: The Science Behind Drinking’s Greatest Myths, Legends, and Unanswered Questions" by Brian Hoefling.

Last year's VIP tasting featured Alan Roth presenting Glenfiddich - photo by Clay Williams

Proceeds from this event will benefit a worthy charity which helps kids in Harlem: The Boys & Girls Harbor. http://www.theharbor.org/

The venue is conveniently located right on 116th St at MIST-HARLEM, 46 W 116TH ST, NY, NY

Visit the event's web site to learn more:
http://www.harlemwhiskeyrenaissance.com/


Here is the link to get tickets:  http://www.harlemwhiskeyrenaissance.com/tickets

Dancer joins in - photo by Clay Williams

Some of pours and other attractions will include:

Dandy Wellington and his band jazz up the joint. photo by Clay Williams

Aberlour
Andullo Cigars
Bain's
Bernheim
Black Bottle
Bunnahabhain
Crown Royal
Dad's Hat
Deanston
Elijah Craig
Evan Williams
Filibuster Bourbon
Four Roses
Glenlivet
Glenrothes
Glen Scotia

Jake Cahill pouring Four Roses Kentucky Bourbon. photo by Clay Williams

Harlem Chocolate Factory
Harlem Swing Dance Society
Henry McKenna
Hudson Whiskey
Johnnie Walker
Kavalan
Kinahan's
Larceny
Ledaig
Loch Lomand
Magnum
Meyer's Alsatian Whisky
Nikka
Old Portrero
Pikesville Rye

photo by Clay Williams

Sonoma County Distilling Co.
Tomintoul
Tullibardine
Wolfburn


Sounds like a fabulous time.  Join me there.
That link for tickets again:
 http://www.harlemwhiskeyrenaissance.com/tickets

David Bailey pouring elegant Scotch. - photo by Clay Williams

photo by Clay Williams

Matt Lurin hosts The Water Of Life Event

What is the best whiskey event in the world?  Indeed, what makes a great whisky event?  Great whisky to be tasted, to be sure.  But comfort, decadence, and camaraderie have evolved, for me at least, to be almost as important.  I'm going to make the case that Matt Lurin's Water of Life just might be the ultimate whisky event.  I'm going to lay out my reasoning in detail and back it up with photos and descriptions of last year's astonishing event and details of this year's which continues a dramatic evolution towards whisky event greatness.  This event is going down May 18th 2017 and you'll want to attend and pony up for one of the VIP ticket options (and there are more than one).  Read on.

Malt Maniac Peter Silver gets the story from Raj Sabharwal on the VIP Terrace

Why go to a whisky event at all?  The usual answer is - to taste a widely among current offerings - learning a lot.  The other reason is to reconnect with friends - and make new ones. The classic format, which I associate with the parent of modern whisky events: WhiskyFest, involves a large bourse with many tables each devoted to a given distillery, brand, or distributor.  People crowd around - Glencairn glasses extended - vying for a pour.  Presenters run through their spiel quickly - stating the same thing over and over to a disorganized swirl of people.  Over the course of such an evening, you spend most of the time standing.  Most of the drams are drunk too quickly - and too soon after the pour, lacking time to open up.  You run into friends, connect, lose them again in the crowd, and if you're lucky to reconnect.  Most whisky events - even the best ones (like the extraordinary Whisky Jewbilee) - tend to run like this.  They often have VIP sessions which are classroom style with sit-down tastings - but they tend to be at the beginning which means cutting out of work early to make them a challenge.

Diageo rep and fount of human warmth, Joe Gratkowski, pours the extraordinary Lagavulin 8.

The Water of Life is inherently different, and the difference comes from the central mission which is charitable.  Matt Lurin, the whisky enthusiast doctor who created it, developed it for a cause: helping cure a rare form of stomach cancer (GIST - gastro-intestinal stromal tumors) by supporting The GIST Cancer Awareness Foundation.  Every attendee is helping this charitable cause and this higher calling imbues the evening with a sense of celebration and meaning.

The main event (the non VIP ticket) is a sit-down format 'speed-dating' type of event where you sit with small group of 4-5 people at a table and at intervals move to a new table.  At each, you sit down and have the whisky representative's undivided attention for a chunk of time.  This eliminates the crush and creates a more leisurely comfortable tasting session that fosters real conversation, whiskies opening up, and a feeling of luxury and ease.  There are hors d'oeuvres, dinner, and dessert and the option to buy an additional ticket for cigars and terrace access (normally a VIP only perk).

This year, Matt has something special planned with different focuses available for both the standard and the VIP tickets.  You can choose either "The American Whiskey Trail"(which debuted last year) which is about Bourbon and rye, or the "Island Getaway" which is about Islay Scotch.  You can also choose "A little bit of everything" which omits the specific focus.  You can specify Kosher or non-Kosher meals.  The food was excellent in 2015 and 2016.  VIP adds special pours, a beautiful cut crystal glass and that cigar terrace (which has special pours).

Rare Japanest from Flavien's private collection in the ultra-VIP sessions

If you want to really experience what makes The Water of Life amazing you need an ultra VIP ticket - even more than at just about any other whisky event.  It comes back to the charity angle again.   This basis of the event in charity motivates presenters in a special way.  At the 2016 ultra VIP sessions, extraordinary people brought extraordinary drams.  A 50 year old Dalmore was served at the apex of an extraordinary flight.  Josh Hatton, impresario of The Jewish Whisky Company, Single Cask Nation, creator of the Whisky Jewbilee, and also brand ambassador for Impex, led a VIP session with the very cream of Impex's offerings.  The impresario behind New York's greatest whisky bars, The Brandy Library and Copper and Oak, Flavien Desoblin brought an astounding array of Japanese whiskies from his private collection - most of which I had never heard of or seen before.  They were incredibly delicious.  And, most amazingly of all from my perspective, was Joe Hyman's session which included a pre-Prohibition Belmont Bourbon - one of my unicorns, and medicinal pints, WWII era Scotches and Canadian whiskies and more.  You just don't see whiskies of this rarity and caliber at ordinary whisky events.  Unlike Germany's dusty smorgasbord Limberg where rare antiquities are on sale by the dram, to be had standing, these VIP sessions were included with the VIP ticket and were convivial, seated, leisurely, and extraordinary.  These VIP sessions came out of the love the NY whiskey community has for Matt Lurin and his cause.  It evokes generosity and people came with their A-game and it really showed.

The view from the cigar table at the 2016 Water Of Life VIP Terrace

For 2017 the Ultra-VIP ticket gets a whole second evening (May 17th) dedicated to those amazing pours. That way ultra VIP session attendees don't have miss time at the speed dating portion.  There is also a separate kick-off party on May 17th.  Get the details here:
http://www.wateroflifenyc.org/ticket-info.html

Last year the VIP venue was gorgeous and the cigars were delicious.  I love that he has created a way for standard ticket holders to get access to this.

All this luxury and charity doesn't come cheap.  But this isn't a regular whisky event.  It's for a cause - and it's something special.  The standard tickets are $275 and the VIP tickets are $400.  Use this discount code to get $25 off standard tickets and $50 off VIP ones:  "gcaf2017"
Get tickets here:
http://www.wateroflifenyc.org/ticket-info.html

Here are a few more photos of the 2016 event.  Notice the smiles.  The warmth and joy are real.  It was the best whisky event I went to in 2016 and may have been the best I have ever attended.  I'm excited to see Matt's assault of whisky event greatness continue to evolve in 2017.

Extraordinary pours courtesy of Raj Sabharwal of Purple Valley Imports on the VIP Terrace

Steph Ridgeway spreads HP joy. This was standard pour at WOL but not at any other show.

Prohibition medicinal half pint and 1950s dusties at The Water Of Life ultra VIP Yoni Miller, Ari Susskind, and Josh Feldman

Ari Susskind pours Tomatin, and also something dusty and special in his copper flask.

Why drink old found bottles?  (The term "dusties" refers to whiskies which are no longer available, but which can be found in old liquor stores, orphaned on shelves). My friend Steve Zeller - the blogger of The Smoky Beast blog - sometimes tells a joke.

"How many whiskey bloggers does it take to screw in a light bulb?"
"A hundred.  One to screw in the light bulb and 99 to write about how the old bulb was better!"  

Old bottles, "dusties, with old styles, obsolete age statements, or produced at vanished distilleries.

But all joking aside, a lot of old bottles are really interesting, and many are better than the current versions and there are sound reasons why.  Over the last couple of decades, whiskey has become a victim of its own popularity - with age statements disappearing and younger whiskey now standing in.  Less flavorful faster-growing grains are used.  Higher-yielding faster-acting yeasts make more alcohol out of units of grain, at the expense of complex flavors.  Mashing periods have declined.  Barreling proofs have increased. And maturation times have decreased.  Each change has reduced costs and increased profits for distilleries - at the expense of complexity and flavor.  You can tell the difference by drinking old whiskeys.  It's fascinating and often delicious.  Dusties can be hard to find.  If you want a guided introduction, join me in attending a unique event where dusty hunters score and pour.

The 1973 Old Forester BiB I sourced for the first BeastMaster event.

The last time I presented whiskey at a Smoky Beast BeastMaster event it was their very first public event and Steve Zeller and I were presenting a tasting that involved two dusty whiskeys: a National Distiller's Old Taylor and a 1973 Old Forester Bottled in Bond from 1973.   We were comparing them against current expressions of the same brands.

Now, I'm coming back to BeastMasters Club, in the new head 2 head contest format against my friend Joshua Richholt in a Dusty battle where we dusty hunt and bring our best finds to a public tasting.  If you've ever wanted to taste dusties with me here's a chance.

Branded as Gibson's Distilling Co. - this bottle actually contains whiskey from Stewart Distillery, Baltimore. Made prior to September, 1917.

Update:  My previous post announcing the upcoming BeastMaster Dusty Battle event between myself and and Josh Richholt showed a lot of pretty dusty bottle pics.  But I didn't specify which bottles we would actually be pouring - so it's just hype.  Except... it wasn't.  We are really going to be pouring some amazing bottles.   In brief, a Prohibition bottling of a Maryland rye, a 1950s bonded Beam, and a pair of glut era 1970s Bourbons: a Wild Turkey 101 8 year old, and National Distillers Bourbon DeLuxe.  There will be contemporary Beam and Wild Turkey so you can taste vanished expressions against today's head to head.  The ways that these flavor signatures have changed will be one of my topics.  But first, let me get specific with the two bottles I'll be pouring:

Stewart Distillery, RD No.12, Baltimore, MD around 1909

I Prohibition era bottling of Maryland Rye - labeled "Gibson" but actually "Stewart"

Distilled prior to September 8th, 1917 at The Stewart Distillery. Two stories in one because the bottle is labeled one way, but contains a different whiskey.  This kind of thing was common in Prohibition when brands were consolidated into a few companies who had medicinal whiskey licenses to sell to pharmacies.  Actual whiskey was taken from closed distilleries and stored together in a smaller number of more defensible concentration warehouses and brands and spirits were often conflated as expediency demanded.  In this case we have Lewis Rosensteil's Schenley operation - which would become the second largest liquor company in the United States (second only to American Medicinal Sprits, which became National Distillers after Repeal).  Rosensteil's concentration warehouse was at Schenley PA, RD No. 2 - and sure enough - the back label on this bottle says that whiskey from Stewart Distillery, Baltimore was "bottled for" Gibson Distilling Co. of Brownsville, PA (the heart of the Monongahela region), at Schenley's concentration warehouse.

These are interesting brands.  Gibson's was a classic pre-Prohibition high-rye mash bill "red" Mongahela valley rye.  Rosensteil purchased the brand and had obviously run out of the juice by the time this bottle was filled.  Schenley shifted production of Gibson's up to Canada after Repeal, and Gibson's remains one of the major brands of Canadian whisky to this day.  It's fascinating to see that its roots are in PA rye.

Stewart's is one of the brands of Maryland rye that disappeared with Prohibition.  In a 1920s lawsuit, the plaintiff alleged that the Stewart's Rye Whiskey brand dates back to 1788 (it also appears as Robert Stewart Distillery in the late 19th century).  According to tax records it was self-owned until 1901 when it was sold to the Carstair's Brothers - best known for Carstair's White Seal (another venerable Baltimore rye brand with 18th century roots.  Carstair's White Seal became a blended American whiskey after WWII).

This particular bottle has a front label that is age stated as 11 years old.  On the back is that odd statement "Made prior to September 8th, 1917".  The bottled in bond tax strip is missing so we can infer that this is probably a 1917-1928, or possible a 1916-1927 (or a 1915-1926). 

So this medicinal pint represents a rare opportunity to taste the whiskey from a vanished and historic Baltimore MD distillery which was part of the formation of Lewis Rosensteil's Schenley Industries in its heady formative days.

II 1955-1961 Jim Beam Bonded In Bond blue glass "Grecian" decanter.  100 proof.

How did mid-century Jim Beam differ from today's expressions?  Find out.  This lovely piece of mid-century kitch is a Mad Men era classic.  The decanter is blue glass - so there's no lead risk.  It feels and sounds full.  This bourbon is should be a rich with that mid-century heavy vanilla and brown-sugar loaded sweetness and that characteristic Jim Beam "funk" (which some people tastes like a barn smells - and other people say is "earthy").

This is a classic case of a historic American distillery which is still in major production.  Continuity and tradition will stand against industry changes in types of corn, length of mashing period, rising barreling proofs, shorter maturation periods, and other "enhancements to production".  Bottle maturation might also be a factor.  It's a half-century plus old decanter - who knows?  That's part of the fun of cracking a dusty.

And that's not all!  Josh Richholt is bringing some classic dusty Bourbons for our enjoyment as well:

a 1978 Wild Turkey 8/101 and a 1976 Bourbon deLuxe from National Distillers.  These are legendary delicious classics.

Want to attend.  Get your tickets here:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/beast-masters-club-dusty-battle-tickets-38289228112

The green bottled in bond tax strip on the Beam Grecian Decanter showing the year and season of distillation - and of bottling as a 6 year old.

On video it doesn't look like much of anything.  Chuck Schumer, Senator from New York, in a suit, at a conference in Kentucky addresses Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell:

"Brooklyn, where I was born, raised and proudly live, produces some of the best bourbon in the world."

Then he hands him a bottle of Widow Jane Bourbon. McConnell replies

"There's no such thing as Brooklyn bourbon," 

which gets a laugh.  But Chuck Schumer committed a gaffe today that has the whiskey world slapping its head in frustration and hilarity.  Widow Jane is one of those famous examples of a distillery that sources whiskey from a distillery somewhere else (in this case, supremely ironically, Kentucky of all places) and then lied (I'm using the past tense here) about being made locally in Brooklyn.  When people talk about "Potemkin Distilleries" (Chuck Cowdery's coinage), Widow Jane in Redhook is one of the famous, classic examples.  Chuck Schumer actually gave Mitch McConnell Kentucky Bourbon in a New York bottle and erroneously crowed about it being Brooklyn whiskey.  It's just awful, or hilarious, or pathetic, depending on how you look on it.

Newsweek got the angle first at 11am - well ahead of most of the press, in a piece by Gersh Kuntzman which gleefully points out that Widow Jane is Bourbon sourced from Kentucky.  The story spread from here.  Amusingly, Mr. Kuntzman makes sure to tell us in 3 separate parenthetical asides that he has been drinking the whiskey actively while writing up the story, and he really likes it.  He likes it a lot.  e.g.:

<<...Widow Jane is (full disclosure) exemplary whiskey...>> and <<...a taste of honey and cherrywood and a finish of charred oak and orange peel" (fuller disclosure: That is deliciously accurate).>>

http://www.newsweek.com/senators-chuck-schumer-and-mitch-mcconnell-enter-new-fight-over-bourbon-803372

By now, it's a talking point about what an idiot Chuck Schumer is.  But here is a moment when much of America is actually talking about and thinking about whiskey and they are getting exactly the wrong lessons about whiskey.  First of all, Mitch  McConnell's retort "There's no such thing as Brooklyn bourbon," is simply factually wrong.  That "Bourbon must be made in Kentucky" is one of the most common fallacies.  The legal restrictions governing the production of Bourbon only specify the mash bill, strength, and wood of maturation and the United States as the nation of origin:

For example, H.B. Kirk & Co. of 69 Fulton St. New York City extensively advertised Old Crow and Old Hermitage rye from the Old Hermitage distillery Frankfort KY.as exclusive distributor.  This  1884 ad (right) states: "We have taken every barrel made since January 1872".  Josh Richholt brought (and cracked) a bottle of Old Crow Rye from the 1940s that was still bottled in New York even then.  (It was pretty damned good and deserves its own post).

Another example you might have heard of is a New York merchant named Austin Nichols who operated a famous (and vast) warehouse in 184 Kent St. Williamsburgh Brooklyn that was built in 1915. The famous Turkey shoot story that Jimmy Russel always tells everyone dates from 1940s. Austin Nichols First bottled Wild Turkey in 1954 (the year that Jimmy Rusell began working there.)  They used sourced bourbon from many distilleries at that time, and throughout the 50s-60s. Later on, in 1971, they bought the Boulevard Distillery (previously JTS Brown, originally Old Moore, & Ripy Bros) to make Wild Turkey.  So Wild Turkey, even though it's a Kentucky whiskey brand, is a New York company with a New York story.

Dusty bottles of New York rye - and other whiskeys just bottled in New York - courtesy of Josh Richholt.

There is a lot more to this history story.  Park & Tilford appears in Richholt's lineup.  Schenley too.  Both were New York companies.  (Tasting notes will follow in another post).  Wine & Spirits Bulletin in the pre-pro era shows dozens of distributors on the Manhattan & Brooklyn waterfronts.  The famous "Kevin Bacon" of the 20th century whiskey world, Sam Bronfman, who is in just about every American whiskey history story somewhere, built the Seagram's Building in Manhattan.  JP Morgan's cellar books in 1884 show New York State rye and winter wheat whiskey in wicker demijohns.  The more you look, the deeper the story goes.  New York State is making seriously good whiskey, it has a serious whiskey history.  If Chuck Schumer had just researched a little bit - or had talked to any of us who know and love the ongoing story - he could have delivered a real whiskey gauntlet to Mitch McConnell, and everyone in America might be talking about whether New York just might actually be a whiskey power, instead of laughing at Schumer and at the idea of New York whiskey.  This was a lost opportunity for New York and for Chuck Schumer - and for America.

On a panel with awesome whiskey people talking about New York whiskey history... Yeah - I took a selfie.

A fascinating vertical tasting of Elijah Craig 12 & NAS bottlings. Photo by Michael Kravitz of Diving for Pearls blog.

The bottles above as blind samples poured and ready to go on my table.

Elijah Craig was one of my favorite daily pours back in the day.  It was good Bourbon and, perhaps coincidentally - or perhaps not, it was a 12 years old age-stated product.  Then a familiar pattern unfolded: popularity drove the product towards scarcity and Heaven Hill opted to remove the age statement so they could goose the production volume to keep it from becoming an allocated item like so many other brands which lose out because they can't deliver enough product to meet market demand.  You gotta hand it to Heaven Hill, they have managed to keep the product on the shelves even while the boom has boomed.  But the Bourbon-Skeptical people notice a different facet of the decision first: it's higher profit margin to sell younger whiskey so dropping the age statement is just "straight up corporate greed".  What's the real story? 

And, who cares?  Is younger whiskey necessarily worse?   It's one of those "truisms" of whiskey which need to be punctured and deflated: that older whiskey is necessarily better.  Experienced whiskey-lovers all have tales of old whiskeys which were over-oaked and flabbier than powerful, vibrant younger whiskeys can be.  I've had my mind blown by young whiskey that, tasted blind, had the complexity and deliciousness of much more mature stuff.  Prominent examples include Balcones, Amrut, Westland, Kavalan, and Koval.  I remember one night when Josh Hatton poured a Single Cask Nation 7 year old Glen Moray which drank like a 20 year old BenRiach with phenols and everything.  So you can't simply be dogmatic about "older whiskey is better".  But like many stereotypes, there is a core of truth.  A given whiskey, all else being equal, gains in complexity and richness as it matures in wood up to a certain point, and then it declines.  There's still not any way around that.  Cherry picking active-cask outliers scores rhetorical points, but doesn't alter the basic physics of the equation.  (Although the physics is definitely altered in tropical climates like India, Taiwan, and Texas).  It seems almost not worth calling out or testing, on its face.  Yet, Diving for Pearl's rigorous blind tasting really puts this question to an empirical test.
Michael Kravitz is a thoughtful drinker, a whisky blogger of wide experience, and an articulate and intelligent drinking companion.  When he asked if I wanted to participate in a blind tasting he was organizing for Diving For Pearls blog where we would taste a ladder of Elijah Craig expressions ranging from a pre-fire Old Bernheim (DSP-KY-31) EC12 from around 2001, to the current NAS in the new taller slender bottle, I jumped.  The flight took us through the evolution from a new Bernheim DSP-KY-1 EC12 age stated on the front from around 2015, to the transitional EC12 with the age statement tucked away in the block of text on the back circa 2016, to the old style bottle NAS EC circa 2017, to the new bottle design NAS of today.  This would cut across the transition period of NAS implementation and then a few years in, so we can see, empirically, whether a shift to NAS actually matters to the quality of the whiskey.  Or, as the distillery's argument goes, "by having the freedom to choose the best barrels regardless of age, we can get as close as we can to the flavor profile, so the NAS version should get even better - not worse.".  I know everyone "knows" the answer going in.  But, by doing the tasting blind, and in a group of 20 people, we'd get to see whether i) people can taste the difference when the age statement is dropped, and, more importantly, ii) I could find out whether I, personally, could tell the difference.

Read Michael Kravitz's blog post about his blind tasting.  It is chock full of convincing statistics that show a plurality of people found more or less as I did in the notes that follow... or did they? 
http://www.divingforpearlsblog.com/2019/06/an-elijah-craig-taste-off.html
Then, bless his heart, Krav gives us a separate post with full tasting notes for each expression (links are at the bottom of this post).  He's good.  What follows isn't that - but it's my personal experience of that shift to NAS evolution..

When I sat down to the blind tasting, the first sample was clearly the odd man out.  It had a darker color and much clearer, stronger, flavor than any of the others.  Because I knew in advance that we'd have a single sample from Old Bernheim, dsp-ky-31, and four samples from new Bernheim dsp-ky-1, I had a pretty good idea what the odd man out was.  I had never tasted EC12 from the old Bernheim distillery before, (although I regularly drink other bourbon brands from the same distillery, like pre-Fire JW Dant) so the flavor signature was somewhat new to me, but it had a constellation of the features I associate with old Bourbon: dank sweetness, richness, darkness, and a funky untidy quality.  I have come to prize those features highly.  But what of the other four?  While they all shared a bunch of flavor signature aspects: peanuts and corn oil and a grassy sweetness; there was one of the four which was head and shoulders above the rest.  And those other three were mediocre and pretty similar to each other.  How to proceed?

I made a snap decision: I would forget about all of the iconoclastic honey-barrel cherry-picked challenges to conventional wisdom and I would just go with the stereotype: richer flavor means older whiskey and thinner hotter flavor means younger whiskey.  Then I added the assumption that Heaven Hill's evolution of Elijah Craig was a straight-up linear growth in demand with a somewhat fixed supply of aging stocks and a growing premium market, so there would be a linear decline in quality as the expressions moved through time.  In the 2001 bottling, some (most) of the whiskey was probably much older than 12.  By the time Heaven Hill was planning to ditch the age statement, by hiding it on the back, they were probably already pulling out the honey barrels for higher-priced premium bottlings, and then in the NAS era, they were free (or forced) to use younger and younger whiskey so that the flavor slope should be a one way decline.

So I ranked my tastings by score and preference and assigned identifications in a straight linear by date arrangement.  This approach turned out to be correct and I nailed all of the identifications.  Furthermore, I wasn't the only one.  Florin (@whiskystat on Twitter) also nailed all the identifications (and he's a man who seems to know Bourbon quite well).  He said in the comments below The Krav's first post on the tasting that he was guided by the same simplistic assumption that I was: that Elijah Craig was just going to simply decline in quality over time.  To his great credit, Michael Kravitz stuck with what he knew and didn't quite say so on any of his blog posts on the topic (even while holding Heaven Hill's feet to the fire regularly in his review of their contemporary whiskey products). 

I'm a huge fan of Heaven Hill, but there's no denying the evidence I was experiencing first hand here.  I found that the quality of Elijah Craig declined dramatically when the age statement was dropped.  Furthermore, I found that the current version of the product scores about the same as the next brand down in their line up - Evan Williams.  My tasting notes are as follows, as submitted as guesses to the Krav for his blind tasting.  All my identifications are guesses - and you can see, I'm pretty cocky in my confidence:

Sample A - Ranked #1. 12 year old, bottled ca. 2001, distilled at the old distillery, before the fire.
N- Pecans, hops, iron (ketchup), marigolds, brown sugar buttercream and a hint of Kentucky tobacco That nameless smell of old mature Bourbon
P- Honeyed, nutty, notes of brown sugar, leather, mint and beery hops. Richer mouth-feel and clearly more mature. Herbal and mossy with some dank well notes on the turn and in the long finish. Nice rich bourbon with the old-school brown sugar and vegetal mossy and hoppy notes,.

Score: 87

This one stands head and shoulders above the rest in quality, and clearly has a different flavor profile, which is consistent with it being the only one of these made at a different distillery than the others.  Different water, different washbacks.  It's also the end of the glut so this batch would probably have included barrels far older than the stated age.  Also, fewer special editions had drained out the honey barrels.  Not to mention a couple of decades of bottle maturation.

Sample B - Ranked #5. Small Batch, no age statement, current bottle/label style
N- linseed oil - solventy, sunflower seeds, daisies and clover, earthy loam
P- Thin, hot, lightly floral, spicy

Corn oil note. A little bitter on the finish. Not unpleasant but clearly thinner than the rest.

Score: 76

The weakest of the bunch and I’m assuming it’s the most recent of the bottlings and that there is a linear progression of decline in the richness of Elijah Craig as it gets sold younger as a consequence of its popularity. I also wonder if more selectivity in the barrel management is routing more honey barrels elsewhere

Sample C - Ranked #4 Small Batch, no age statement, previous bottle/label style
N- very shy on the nose. But what there is: Corn oil, Unroasted peanuts and pecan. Nut brittle (candied). With air some coconut and peach notes emerge.
P- Thin again. Nutty grassy and young. A bit of bitterness. Some bitter orange. A bit of solvent.

Score: 79

Not great, perhaps just a hair better than Evan Williams - and also noticeably a hair better than sample B. Why would a label change correlate with a flavor change? Maybe it’s just a bit of random variation. Or maybe Elijah Craig continues to get younger as time progresses as a result of rising sales?

Sample D - Ranked #2. 12 year old Small Batch with the red 12 on the front label.
N- Honeyed Pecans, barn dirt, glove leather, hints of tobacco and a bit of distant lavender and mint
P- Big, sweet, grassy, notes of honey, cooked , stonefruit, juicyfruit gum, and oak and char on the finish.

82

The real stuff, from the New Bernheim distillery. It’s good. But I can’t help but notice that tasted blind it is smoked by the stuff from the Old Bernheim distillery. (If my guesses are correct). I wonder if the Old Bernheim stuff had older barrels because they were still working through glut stocks in that era? In any case, this is good, but it’s not in the same league. Still, it’s better than any subsequent expression.

Sample E- Ranked #3.  12 year old Small Batch with the age statement moved to the back label.
N- Corn oil leading, linseed oil (solvent), corn husks, cream, daisies, and sun-dried oak
P- Nutty, grassy. Hot at mid-palate with more grassy sweetness, some marigold florals, but a tad bitter on the finish. Things open up slowly and it gets a tad richer and sweeter with more time.

80

This is the mysterious one. Still age-stated 12 years old, why is it noticeably less tasty than the stuff with the age statement on the front? I don’t think it’s just the location of the age statement ink. I suspect that barrel management “improved” and that more honey barrels were removed for use in single barrel private, or premium distillery-only “Select” releases.
N- Corn oil, earth oak
P- Grassy sweet and thin, hints of honey but also a solvent note. Opens into grassy sweetness

79

Evan Williams is the less expensive expression from Heaven Hill, and it’s clearly an expression of the same distillery. It’s amazingly good for such a bargain basement price (the 86 proof Black goes for around $14-18, and the BiB, although rarer, is only a few dollars more) and, amidst the blind, is clearly as good as at least two of the Elijah Craig bottlings. Eye opening.



Bottom line, it's yet another sad tale of dropped age statements leading to younger whiskey which, I'm so sorry to say, just doesn't taste as good. Period. I mourn Elijah Craig's long slow decline. We all know Heaven Hill makes good whiskey. If they can mature this stuff a bit more, Elijah Craig can return to tasting less like Evan Williams and more like Elijah Craig once again.  It's almost enough to make one wish for the end of the Bourbon Boom.  I know... bite your tongue.

Again: read Michael Kravitz's blog post about his blind tasting.  Great stuff.
http://www.divingforpearlsblog.com/2019/06/an-elijah-craig-taste-off.html

Then read his subsequent posts with tasting notes for each of the expressions:
http://www.divingforpearlsblog.com/2019/06/elijah-craig-12-year-old-small-batch.html
http://www.divingforpearlsblog.com/2019/06/elijah-craig-12-year-old-small-batch-12.html
http://www.divingforpearlsblog.com/2019/06/elijah-craig-12-year-old-small-batch-12_26.html
http://www.divingforpearlsblog.com/2019/06/elijah-craig-nas-small-batch-bottled-ca.html
http://www.divingforpearlsblog.com/2019/06/elijah-craig-nas-small-batch-current.html

Mastering Whiskey to Reshape your Brain's Right Insula and Entorhinal Cortex

What does it take to become accomplished at anything and why does it matter?  Expertise isn't only about the possession of skill or knowledge.  It turns out that it affects the way you experience sensation and process thought and that changes everything.  This sounds like hyperbole, but I'm being completely serious.  I mean it literally and I have the science to back it up (well... maybe).  And, in a very Coopered Tot kind of way, I'm not going to stop there.  I'm going to tell you how to develop whisky expertise yourself and have it expand your consciousness in a way that will literally re-wire your brain.  And doing so will be pleasurable and easy and won't require a lick of reading (not counting the untold thousands of words here!)  This is some high-grade wisdom, and like any kind of wisdom, it requires a bit of work to understand and implement fully, so I'm going to take you on a journey.   First I'm going to give you a poetic example of what I'm talking about before we get to the empirical stuff.  Why?  Ask deceased neuro-science-popularizing genius Douglas Hofstadter who explains how dendritic mappings in the brain give rise to consciousness and self-awareness in his classic book "Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid" but first makes you do a lot of philosophy of logic exercises with paper and pen and then read a lot of poetic stuff about Zen and parables and Greek philosophers and mathematics and music and art first.  He wasn't just being a jerk.  He wants the conclusion to resonate with a larger part of your mind than just the language centers where you'll process his verbal arguments.  He wants you to put down a layer of visceral experience so that later when the conclusions hit, they will vibrate the whole complex of associated experiences like a bell and the experience will be powerful and immersive.  And, patient readers, that's the whole point of the exercise here too.

I'm going to relate a portion of an essay here that I titled "Whisky is a Time Traveler".  I wrote it back in 2012 for Islay Wild & Magic impresario Rachel MacNeill's blog "Whisky for Girls" (it's now https://www.islaywhiskyacademy.scot/ ).  It's an essay about how *I* drink whisky - but it's also an essay about a certain kind of mindfulness.  It illustrates a point that I'll raise later, but I'm hoping it will be thought-provoking along the way in its own right:

Whisky Is A Time Traveler

Everyone drinks whisky in their own personal way.  When I drink whisky I try to slow down and focus very clearly and intensely on what is going on in the glass - as the dram interacts with time and air and water and my shifting and evolving human palate.  Part of that appreciation includes knowing the larger context which radiates in like a ring from particulars such as what distillery made it, the nature of the water, what proof, which grains were used, how they were malted and handled, the differnt tree woods used in barrel aging and what other beverages were previously aged in those barrels and so on.  Because I like to drink a lot of antique spirits I think about the era they were made, the people involved, the aesthetics and intentions of the crafters.  But the flavors also lead me to think about the land, sea, the odors of the air in the places where grain was grown, distillation happened and barrels matured.  Whisky is a distillate of mash, but it is also a distillate of the physical environment of where it was made and of where its components came from: of the fields of grain, the water, wood, fuels, breezes and the weather.  It is also a distillate of the hands and minds that made it.  The spirit, culture and decisions and actions of the people who designed and executed the recipe you end up tasting.  The distillate is a concentrated essence of these physical and also human elements which are preserved in the glass bottle as a fly is in a piece of amber.

Valentine Distilling Co. - Ferndale, MI

We inhabit a particular time and place.  The exact meaning of both of these terms are controversial topics in the fields of theoretical physics and philosophy - but everyone has a clear and solid feeling of what it is.  We also have knowledge of other times and other places.  We read history, see accounts, visit museums and encounter artifacts and depictions.  While the power of the abstract is vast, we relate most to the specific.  Scientists have plumbed the reaches of the cosmos with theoretical models describe the physical nature of the universe back to within instants of the big bang.  But our most intimate knowledge of distant times and places comes from direct physical evidence.  These bits and pieces of other times and places take many forms: representations such as documents, records, photographs or artistic representations; or actual things holding the physical essence of time and place; sometimes both.

"Blueberry" deposits on the surface of Mars - NASA

Things like this have been a source of fascination, desire, and obsession for me for as long as I can remember:  they are time travelers with the power to take you back to their origins.  Coins, documents, ancient artifacts, fossils, mineral specimens meteorites all provide direct experience of distant times and/or places.  These things are time travelers because they were made in a particular time and place and they embody and convey that to us.  Some connect directly and forcefully to the past.  For example I have an ancient Minoan pot shard with a fingerprint on it.  It's a tangible physical connection to a moment in time when a potter gripped the clay over 3,000 years ago.  The presence of the fingerprint brings home in an immediately obvious and visceral way that a human being touched this actual bit of clay when it was wet on a particular day, feeling a particular mood in a vanished time, a vanished culture, a vanished world.  

Once you feel how an object can allow you to make a physical connection with distant times and places you’ll find these connection points everywhere.  My old lobby was lined with marble with clam shells in it.  I was aware that these were once living clams in a living sea over a quarter of a billion years ago.  I have a quartz crystal from New York's Herkimer County mines with an inclusion that is water.  You can tell it is water because inside the water is a tiny bubble.  When you move the crystal the right way the bubble moves.  The rocks there are dated to the Cambrian - over 500 million years old.  I'm entranced that the little air bubble has been there, fighting the water and exchanging molecules back and forth with it for half a billion years.  Inside chondritic meteorites you can see the grains of rock and metal that formed from the collapsing dust cloud that formed the solar system 4.5 billion years ago.  These objects speak to me and I feel the distances of time with an almost physical force.  At times this has been almost like vertigo.  When the NASA rover Opportunity found hematite "blueberries" lying on a rock on Mars I was 

viscerally aware that they had crystallized out of the evaporating Martian ocean over 3 billion years ago and had just laid there - undisturbed - for unimaginable eons.  Somehow that vast ocean of time that those little pebbles had just sat there on that rock seemed overwhelming, almost horrifying - out of scale with anything living or even comprehensible. 

I work in a museum that has an astounding collection of manuscripts and books.  One of the perks of my job is the occasional opportunity to closely encounter amazing objects such as medieval illuminated manuscripts.  Over time, as I have learned more about the materials and methods of medieval illuminators, and of their culture, world view, and intensely complicated system of visual metaphor and iconography I experienced a transformation in the way I have come to see these manuscripts.  At first, I saw a depiction, like a cartoon.  Now I experience being in the same place (i.e. in front of the page) as an illuminator centuries ago.  I can see his brush lines, pounce marks, and drafting lines.  I can sense his creative struggle and more deeply appreciate his genius and his deeper message.  In the moment of reverie of such observations, I’m, briefly, no longer in the room, or even my time.  I’m at the cloister, in an illusory way, centuries ago, as his hand is creating the manuscript.

Morgan Library - Las Huelgas Apocalypse (detail)

 

Well, whisky is a time-traveling physical talisman too.  I am moved when I taste a meadow and summer's day from a far off time when drinking certain old whiskies.  Here is a tasting note from a dram of Dallas Dhu 12, purchased in 1998 and sipped in 2012:

"Nose: Heather, flax, honeyed sherry, vanilla oak notes. There's a distant herbal vegetal note like milkweed sap that is bracing. I would characterize it as wildflowers in lush grass near some oak woods on a dry hot summer's day. Given the context (that the distillery closed in 1983 and that I bought the bottle in 1998 on the eve of my wedding) this is an echo of summer's day from a time far off, when I was young... when things were different"

http://www.cooperedtot.com/2012/02/dallas-dhu-whisper-of-memory-of-summer.html

That feeling I’m describing is an awareness that this whisky was distilled when I was a senior in High School, a year before I moved to New York City and met the girl who would one day become my wife.  Before jobs, children, or even whisky, entered my life.  The Sun was shining on that barley and that meadow was there.  Tasting that dram literally takes me there.  It’s not mysterious in any way.  Yet it is absolutely magic: real perceptual time travel that anyone can experience with a simple shift in mental perspective.

   

To time travel with a dram is about awareness.  The cues to time and space in whisky are subtle, underneath the more obvious factors such as spirit, sweet and wood.  Our minds have evolved to constantly pick out the most salient feature in any circumstance and skip the rest.  In normal situations this is a benefit, otherwise we would be overwhelmed by the flood of sensations that surrounds us most of the time.  In order to really experience a dram fully it is necessary to eliminate distractions and let the dram fill up your perceptions.

A wonderful blog post on this topic is Jason Debley's Slow-Whisky movement:

http://jason-scotchreviews.blogspot.com/2012/03/slow-whisky-movement.html

It's an essay on the zen meditative approach to drinking a dram.  The ultimate goal is, for me, to understand the whisky on its own terms as it evolves in the glass through interaction with air, time, (and water - if you go there - and I often do) and progresses across your palate. And then to understand how this in-the-glass evolution and the on-your-palate progression fits into the larger context of your perception, desire, tastes, and cognition.  This should lead you to a deeper sense of your dram’s significance in a larger context.

However, Jason’s excellent article leaves out one important technique that I find vital for detecting the minute details necessary to fully plumbing the depths of a dram: that is detailed observation for representation, i.e. writing out your tasting notes.  Writing out your tasting notes is a very useful enterprise.  I got the idea from sketching what you see in the telescope's eyepiece in amateur astronomy.  In astronomy, you are supposed to sketch, not just to keep a record of what you have seen - but also as a way to induce you really LOOK.  When you observe merely to satisfy your conscious mind you gloss over details.  The evolved ability to identify the salient detail and not bothering to perceive the rest is very active in the visual sense.  The act of recording the observation causes you to observe more deeply - to actually pay attention to the subtle details that you may not have bothered to really notice visually, but suddenly need in order to flesh out your depiction on the paper.  All this goes double for tasting whisky.  Like astronomy, whisky tasting is best done in solitude, at night, in the quiet still and dark.  And like the astronomy eyepiece, the whisky glass is circular porthole into the depths of time and space and the deepest mysteries of the universe.  The act of sketching actually forces you to truly OBSERVE.  Thus take notes when you critically taste.  Tasting (a fusion of the sense of nose and tongue) is tied deeply to the limbic system - the most primitive interior “reptile brain” beneath our cerebral cortex.  These areas of the brain are more tied to the subconscious than the conscious.  This can be a drawback for awareness - but also a secret strength.  Certain smells and flavors can powerfully evoke distant memories and visceral sensations, seemly mysteriously, by exploiting these limbic pathways.  Thus it is extremely difficult to put words to flavors and smells - but the act of attempting to do so forces you to focus on the details of what is flying beneath your radar.  This is the power of meditation to increase awareness: they key to observing the most subtle cues connecting what’s in the dram to what’s in your mind and body.  

When you really listen, you’ll find that the whisky is telling you a story.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

What in the world am I getting at with that long-winded story?  It's simply this: that my experiences of the flavors are affected by the constellation of associations that I've developed around what those flavors **mean**.  For me, the nexus of that meaning is **history**.  A couple of years ago I had the wonderful experience of drinking with gifted distiller Lisa Roper Wicker.  She had a whole set of associations that were different than mine - but even more useful.  She knew the specific chemical compounds that were associated with the flavors I was getting and understood the production-level reasons for those compounds.  It's entirely reasonable that her experience trying to influence the crafting of spirits - from mashing through distillation and maturation - would give her a lexicon for those flavor components related to the details of whiskey production.  I've had similar experience drinking with other distillers - particularly Chip Tate who is notably articulate about both the flavor and the process to get them.  In thinking about this stuff I went back re-read Jason Debly's "Slow Whiskey" blog post and noticed that I had written the following in the comments below:

"Writing out your tasting notes is a very useful enterprise. I got the idea from sketching what you see in the telescope's eyepiece "n amateur astronomy. You are supposed to sketch, not just to keep a record of what you have seen - but also as a way to induce you really LOOK. When you observe merely to satisfy your conscious mind you gloss over details. Our minds have evolved to constantly pick out the most salient feature and skip the rest. The act of recording the observation causes you to observe more deeply - to actually pay attention to the details that you suddenly need in order to flesh out your depiction."

Like astronomy, whisky tasting is best done in solitude, at night, in the quiet still and dark. And like the astronomy eyepiece, the whisky glass is circular porthole into the depths of time and space and the deepest mysteries of the universe. The act of sketching actually forces you to truly OBSERVE. Thus take notes when you critically taste."

He replied:  

"Joshua, I hear where you are coming from, but for me, the act of writing or note taking would distract from the experience. I would quickly become worried that my notes are not 'correct' or missing something."

"But, for you this is not the case. And that, my friend is totally okay. It's all up to the individual."

https://jason-scotchreviews.blogspot.com/2012/03/slow-whisky-movement.html

Jason Debly's response is quintessentially Zen.  He wants you to be lost in a sea of pure experience.  In Zen, words for things get in the way by putting a layer of abstraction between you and the experience itself.  Debly wants you to fully self-immerse in the experience without the screen of abstractions that language demands - that process of arbitrarily putting experiences into the pigeon holes of words.  But my position is based on the observation that people's first memories always seem to date back to the time they begin speaking in complete sentences.  I believe that language provides the structural cognitive framework for memory and that's a part of rewiring your brain.