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You want some Ten High.
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That time when you try to put your iPhone in the cupholder next to your chair where it normally goes, and you remember the reason it wasn't there in the first place is because there is a glass of whiskey there, as the phone clinks around the bottom of the glass. Yep.Comment
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WeakDear Maker’s Mark® Ambassador,
Lately we’ve been hearing from many of you that you’ve been having difficulty finding Maker’s Mark in your local stores. Fact is, demand for our bourbon is exceeding our ability to make it, which means we’re running very low on supply. We never imagined that the entire bourbon category would explode as it has over the past few years, nor that demand for Maker’s Mark would grow even faster.
We wanted you to be the first to know that, after looking at all possible solutions, we’ve worked carefully to reduce the alcohol by volume (ABV) by just 3%. This will enable us to maintain the same taste profile and increase our limited supply so there is enough Maker’s Mark to go around, while we continue to expand the distillery and increase our production capacity.
We have both tasted it extensively, and it’s completely consistent with the taste profile our founder/dad/grandfather, Bill Samuels, Sr., created nearly 60 years ago. We’ve also done extensive testing with Maker’s Mark drinkers, and they couldn’t tell a difference.
Nothing about how we handcraft Maker’s Mark has changed, from the use of locally sourced soft red winter wheat as the flavor grain, to aging the whisky to taste in air-dried American white oak barrels, to rotating our barrels during maturation, to hand-dipping every bottle in our signature red wax.
In other words, we’ve made sure we didn’t screw up your whisky.
By the way, if you have any comments or questions, as always, we invite you to drop us a line at rob@makersmark.com or bill@makersmark.com. Thanks for your support. And if you’ve got a little time on your hands, come down and see us at the distillery.
Sincerely,
Rob Samuels Chief Operating Officer Ambassador-in-Chief
Bill Samuels, Jr. Chairman Emeritus Ambassador-at-LargeComment
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So they watered it down to make a little more? Fuck that!ZOMBIE REAGAN FOR PRESIDENT 2016!!! hehComment
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Originally posted by YOLO View Post
Why Is Maker's Mark Watering Its Whiskey Instead of Expanding?
The news began to leak yesterday and became official this morning. Effective immediately, Maker's Mark is lowering the alcohol concentration of its standard expression from 45% alcohol-by-volume (ABV) to 42%. (90° proof to 84° proof, if that's how you roll.)
After aging, Maker's comes out of the barrel at about 60% ABV and water is added to bring it down to bottling proof. Maker's will now add a little more water and a little less whiskey to every bottle.
Why? To get more bottles from each barrel. This is necessary, they say, because "demand for our bourbon is exceeding our ability to make it." That's nothing new. Maker's has been on allocation for something like 30 years. 'On allocation' means that when customers tell Maker's how much they want, Maker's tells them how much they can have.
So what has changed? "We never imagined that the entire bourbon category would explode as it has over the past few years, nor that demand for Maker’s Mark would grow even faster." The proof cut "will enable us to maintain the same taste profile and increase our limited supply so there is enough Maker’s Mark to go around, while we continue to expand the distillery and increase our production capacity."
The bottom line, for them, is that lowering the proof doesn't change the taste, and nothing else about the unique way Maker's Mark is made has changed. "In other words, we’ve made sure we didn’t screw up your whisky," said the letter co-signed by Rob and Bill Samuels.
They've taste-tested it, they say, and*no one can tell the difference.
That may be, but there is no denying the simple fact that they have cheapened the product without lowering the price, so consumers will get a little less of what they paid for and Maker's (i.e., Beam Inc.) will make more money.
They're not talking about that, of course, but there's an even bigger story they're not talking about either. They claim they are expanding the distillery and increasing capacity, but are they?
In 2005, Beam (then called Fortune) teamed up with Pernod Ricard to buy and dismantle Allied-Domeq, which owned Maker's Mark. Maker's was the prize Beam wanted most.
Just months before the Allied sale was announced, Maker's announced a plan to expand the distillery's capacity by about 50%. In 1996, Maker's had doubled its capacity by creating an exact duplicate of the original distillery, right next to the original. The plan was to build a third identical plant there too.
Maker's announced the plan and Allied was ready to pull the trigger when it was acquired instead. It took several months for the transfer of Maker's to Beam to occur. Maker's said they assumed it would take Beam some time to evaluate everything, but since the expansion plan was ready to go and the brand was growing steadily, it seemed like a no-brainer. Once it had all of its ducks in a row, Beam surely would go forward with the planned expansion.
In 2008, Kevin Smith, who was then Master Distiller at Maker's, talked to me at length about the expansion plan for an article that ran in issue 72 of WHISKY Magazine. "My job is to guard the brand and make it the same way it's been made since 1954," said Smith. He explained that infrastructure improvements had been completed, such as raising the dam on the distillery's spring-fed lake to provide additional water.
As Smith explained it, Maker's Mark was the fastest-growing bourbon in the United States, with 2007 sales of 800,000 cases. The current distillery could support up to 1.5 million cases, the expansion would bring that to 2.2 million. The concern then was that, at the then-current rate of growth, they would hit 2.2 million in about 2016, and water source limitations would prevent them from growing further.
Yet here we are in 2013, and construction of the third distillery has not occurred. Asked this morning when construction on it would begin, Rob Samuels said he didn't know, but thought it would be soon.
So how did Beam let themselves get so far behind the curve on this? Since 2008, they have expanded visitor capacity, but not production capacity.
Did they really get blind-sided? Bourbons in the same price class as Maker's have seen strong growth for the last decade or so (hence Allied's expansion plan), but it has shifted into another gear in the last two or three years. One reason has been triple-digit growth in many non-U.S. markets. Rob Samuels says that wasn't a factor and Maker's export business is small and "strategic," but here's an interesting fact.
In Australia, Maker's Mark is 40% ABV (80° proof).Last edited by Strychnine; 02-10-2013, 12:34 PM.Comment
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I take it the Beam they are referring to would be Jim Beam? I would be disappointed to hear the maker's of some of my favorite bourbon's are part of this poor decision.Comment
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The original Jack Daniels recipe was 90 proof then was watered down to 86 before it's 80 proof iteration that we have today.Comment
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Let's see, what kind of week has it been?
Decisions decisions...
DavidComment
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Damn, I thought I had a bunch of shit in my liquor cabinet. Actually just left Bottle Giant with some Bookers. The couple of you that have gone there and liked their perpetual 20% off sale last year, it looks like it is good for this entire year also. lolz.Comment
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lol
You did notice that they are strategically placed right (cheap shit in back)?
BTW - I was going to shoot Matt (Strychnine) a pm and offer to put his name on the list at Specs for the Pappy VW coming in the fall. Limit is two bottles. As of yesterday they had a few spots left if interested.
DavidComment
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My system is pretty much vodka on the right, bourbon in the middle, tequila and rum on the left. Taller bottles go in back. Nah, I'm good for now.Originally posted by cobrajet69 View PostComment
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In 1952 liquor was illegal in Mississippi, but the state collected what was called a "black market" tax on it totaling millions of dollars.
Noah "Soggy" Sweat, who was elected to the House in 1947 at the age of 24, served one term and delivered the speech during his last year in office.
"My friends,
"I had not intended to discuss this controversial subject at this particular time. However, I want you to know that I do not shun controversy. On the contrary, I will take a stand on any issue at any time, regardless of how fraught with controversy it might be. You have asked me how I feel about whiskey. All right, here is how I feel about whiskey.
"If when you say whiskey you mean the devil's brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster, that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean the evil drink that topples the Christian man and woman from the pinnacle of righteous, gracious living into the bottomless pit of degradation, and despair, and shame and helplessness, and hopelessness, then certainly I am against it.
"But;
"If when you say whiskey you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the ale that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and laughter on their lips, and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer; if you mean the stimulating drink that puts the spring in the old gentleman's step on a frosty, crispy morning; if you mean the drink which enables a man to magnify his joy, and his happiness, and to forget, if only for a little while, life's great tragedies, and heartaches, and sorrows; if you mean that drink, the sale of which pours into our treasuries untold millions of dollars, which are used to provide tender care for our little crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitiful aged and infirm; to build highways and hospitals and schools, then certainly I am for it.
"This is my stand. I will not retreat from it. I will not compromise."
The Clarion Ledger, Saturday, February 24, 1996, Jackson, MS, p. 3B.
"When I finished the first half of the speech, there was a tremendous burst of applause. The second half of the speech, after the close of which, the wets all applauded. The drys were as unhappy with the second part of the speech as the wets were with the first half."Comment
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Fucking awesome!Comment
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