My company[1] works in this space, building tools for artisan brewers, distillers, and coffee roasters. I know this market quite well!
This is a known practice, and one that a lot of people are unhappy about. We suspect that the TTB will be cracking down quite harshly on this in the near future; forcing a named distiller statement on the label.
That said... not all of the whiskey, rye, or bourbon that MGP produces is bad - some of its aged production is quite good, and companies like Angels Envy which further age it (basically double oak or quarter casking) can produce a unique and high quality product.
My problem with this is from the deception;
imagine if it turned out that Dogfish Head and Stone brewing were actually buying their beer from MillerCoors!
This is an unfair practice that puts actual craft distillers (some of my clients!) at a huge disadvantage. A named distillery requirement would go a long way to correcting this.
I posted almost this same exact comment on my friends facebook post for this article, even mentioning Angel's Envy. This happens in Wine and coffee too. The reality is many "distillers" are curators and finishers, and sometimes battlers (sometimes not, whoever bottles or makes the Templeton Rye-like bottle must bottle half of the craft market). In wine, this smaller places will buy grapes or wines from the larger vineyards, and often make blends as well. For coffee, most businesses in the Bay Area hit up Royal Coffee in Oakland for their green coffee. Definitely everybody from Peet's and Starbucks to Blue Bottle and Philz have used them, according to my girlfriends father who has used them for 25 years. or tea leaves. even then, a lot of people hit up roasters to supply them roasts or blends.
So, the modern beverage industry is largely an industry based on curation, blends, and added value. And that's fine. I'm not so sure why people care so much, but it must be because people have this romantic view that their beverages should live up to some farm-to-table ideal.
I'm not sure how much I agree; wine and coffee work quite differently than distilled spirits.
In wine, you have never needed to own the vineyards to be a vintner - as far back as medieval Europe, we had merchants purchasing grapes from various regions and blending their own house wines. There is still skill in matching various grapes, yeast, water, and oak - much more so than simply bottling someone else's spirit.
It is similar in coffee; individual farmers tend to the crops and produce the green coffee (sometimes a commodity, sometimes a specialty product). Roasters purchase the green coffee from a middleman who takes care of sourcing, shipping, and storage. Often this is done after a sample has been sent and roasted and the price has been negotiated. The roaster is then responsible for the majority of the final flavor profile of the bean. His (or her) level of roast, airflow, timing, etc, will determine how the coffee should be brewed, and what notes will be present and what will be absent.
So again, it's a little different in coffee than spirits... the grapes and green coffee beans are closer to the raw grain used in making whiskey and rye, than to the finished spirit. There is no deception in selling wine made by another vineyards grapes or coffee purchased through a middleman.
As a side note, all of the largest artisan coffee producers (ie Stumptown and Blue Bottle) have started Direct Trade relationships with coffee farms, and pay a price premium to the farmer to increase the quality on the farm side - investment like this has yet to happen in the distilling industry.
In this sense, yes, it's true that they have direct trade. I don't believe it's true that it's completely direct trade. Royal Coffee, like MGP, does one thing and they do it very well. They do it better than most anyone with modest resources could hope to do. Is that dishonesty? Is that straight up dishonesty? Maybe, but maybe not. If you are looking for the highest quality coffee for your company, it'd be foolish not to take advantage of a place like Royal Coffee.
As for other whiskies, I do think dishonesty is bad, although I'm not sure how many companies are "straight up dishonest" about their operations. Like Blue Bottle has Direct Trade coffees, High West does have a distilling operation. Angel's Envy seems to almost tout their finishing. Similarly, Hooker's House says their bourbon is "born in Kentucky".
>> I'm not so sure why people care so much, but it must be because people have this romantic view that their beverages should live up to some farm-to-table ideal.
People care because the bottles are straight up dishonest.
> So, the modern beverage industry is largely an industry based on curation, blends, and added value. And that's fine. I'm not so sure why people care so much, but it must be because people have this romantic view that their beverages should live up to some farm-to-table ideal.
You don't get to second-guess or rationalize peoples' reasons for buying your products. You can't lie to people and then tell them they shouldn't care you lied to them.
My wife loves Templeton Rye, both because of the taste and because she grew up in a small town in Iowa. Knowing it's made by MGP doesn't change the taste, but knowing its made in Indiana would sure as hell leave a sour taste in her mouth!
From the article:
> “I have purchased hundreds of barrels of rye and bourbon from them,” John Bernasconi admits when asked about the Indiana factory. A principal in the New Mexico company, Bernasconi says that purchasing whiskey from MGP and bottling it is “a means to develop a brand and help fund the next step” of actually distilling a unique product.
Said like the contemptible opportunistic scab he obviously is.
It seems like the labeling restrictions are what matter here. I can buy a wine from France and see it was grown and bottled on the estate. Or I can see it was bottled by a negociant/middleman. I really have no strong preference either way, as long as they're labeled correctly. (Louis Jadot, anyone?)
This bourbon thing, though, I guess Americans don't care what's printed on the label. Hell, it was France that gave Andre flak for their "California Champagne". (Champagne comes from France, nowhere else) Anything goes here, I guess. Bourbon should be labeled similarly: either it's distilled, aged & bottled on the estate or it's bottled by a reseller. It's rather funny to think about champagne now, because I think "bourbon" is an American trademark like "champagne" is a French one. Naming things, harder than it seems.
The EU has quite strong laws regarding the naming and labeling of wines. A Champagne bottle is not only a sparkling wine coming from France, but from the specific Champagne region, from a limited types of grapes grown in that region and obtained using a specific fermentation process. There is also a limit on the cultivated surface and the number of bottles produced each year. As the "champagne" name is renowned, this keeps the prices very high for the whole process. As I remember, only the right to cultivate a couple of acres of vineyard in the Champagne region can cost up to $1M - not including the actual land and vines. (in the EU the vineyards are regulated, you cannot just plant 100 acres of vineyard wherever you want, you have to obtain a kind of license to be able to cultivate wine grapes, and this license is given only for specific types of grapes depending on the region).
Bourbon has quite a few labeling restrictions for instance:
- Must be produced in the US.
- Must be 51% corn on the mash bill.
- Aged in new charred white oak barrels.
If it is straight bourbon it must be at least 2 years old. If it is less than 4 years old it must say how old it is. If it has an age statement on it, that must be the youngest bourbon in the blend.
I'm not sure, but I think interstate legislation requires that the distillery location be on the label as well. Anyone who knows what they are talking about can narrow down the distillery based just on this.
> My problem with this is from the deception; imagine if it turned out that Dogfish Head and Stone brewing were actually buying their beer from MillerCoors!
Kona Brewing has the vast majority of their beer brewed in facilities on the mainland. Many people buy the beer thinking it's a brewed in Hawaii beer, but realistically it's just brewed on the mainland according to Kona's specs.
With consolidation in the craft beer industry I'd only expect more of this sort of truthiness in the future.
Consolidation is a ways off. The large beer producers have acquired a few craft producers in the last few years, but the artisan beverage market will continue to grow in both number of firms and amount of production.
I think it will be at least another 10 years until we start seeing large craft brewers purchasing smaller craft brewers. This has already happened in coffee with Blue Bottle (venture backed) purchasing Tonx Coffee and Handsome Roasters. Artisan Coffee has had ~10 years of growth on Craft Beer.
If someone tells you something is amazing and gives you the notion that it'll be better than a competitor's 'factory made' product then you'll enjoy it more. Not in the sense that you simply believe it's nicer, but in the cognitive brain chemistry sense that you will actually enjoy it more - different parts of your brain will light up on an MRI scan. Even if it's an identical product. Just telling someone that one bottle is better than another is enough to change how they'll react to it. It's a cognitive bias called expectation bias - what you expect to happen affects the result you get. It's one of the reasons why we do double-blind studies.
Of course, whether or not you consider that 'adding value' enough to sell to people or being fraudulent is a matter of opinion.
When you're saying "Our stuff is different than that factory stuff because we don't make it in a factory" and it's actually made in the same factory as everyone else's stuff, it's not "just re-branding".
When the term "craft" doesn't have a strict definition, they can say whatever they want as long as they aren't outright lying.
If you're a consumer that doesn't realize that there are no restrictions on the "craft" denotation, (similar to the organic denotation), then I would argue you are a for taking it on faith that there's a difference.
Is it disingenuous? Sure. Is it illegal? No. Should it be? Not unless you have a legal definition for the terms.
What possible definition of "craft", as understood by a reasonable person, could possible make "small batch heirloom spirits handcrafted in New Mexico." not outright lying when the spirits were not created in a small batch, or in New Mexico?
Ditto “ultra small batch bourbon” not being part of a small batch, or “first bourbon produced in Southern California since Prohibition.” where the bourbon is not produced in Southern California?
Ditto "They brag that they focus their “complete attention on executing each step of the distillation process.”", when they themselves don't pay any actual attention to any steps of the distilling process.
But hey, if you're fine with companies misleading as many people who read the common usage of English words into the English words they read, as much as they like, providing their wording can possibly be read, if you squint hard enough, in one very precise way that isn't quite lying, well, I suppose you'll get the companies and the advertising that you deserve.
As for me, I'm glad that over here we have the ASA.[0]
I agree with all your specific examples. "Lying" is hard to define in gray areas (your examples arent very gray =P ) but someone has to do it. I'm glad we have those institutions as well.
The American Distilling Institute (ADI) begs to differ. It defines 'craft spirits' as "the products of an independently-owned distillery with maximum annual sales of 52,000 cases, where the product is physically distilled and bottled on site."
Slightly unrelated, but at least in the US "Organic" does in fact have a specific meaning with real standards that require USDA certification before a product can claim the term [1]. You may be thinking about "All Natural", which is effectively meaningless [2].
"Is it illegal? No. Should it be? Not unless you have a legal definition for the terms."
These two points are going to need to be assessed on an individual basis. Something sufficiently disingenuous can cross into false advertising even without the words having a strict "legal definition".
My favorite local/"craft" rye whiskey gets a mention in the article as one that actually makes their own: Catoctin Creek, here in northern Virginia. [1]
Anyway, there are a couple issues with the labeling. One is that some may feel the TTB's requirements aren't strict enough. The second issue is that the TTB is swamped and violations of the existing requirements get through all the time until someone gets around to filing a complaint.
Chuck Cowdery is quoted in the article, his blog [2] touches on these issues a lot, both with MGP rye and similar problems with bourbon.
I live in Colorado and the closest retailer of Caotctin Creek is in Wyoming. Thinking about picking some up the next time I drive through Cheyenne. Do you think it's worth it to make a special stop?
People bring up Stranahans a lot in discussions like these, and I have the same thought. It's interesting and impressive what they've done, but the end result is inferior to major label bourbon.
If you're in SFBA and you want unique, independent rye, Old Potrero (an Anchor product) is a pretty good bet.
Also excellent are the Sonoma County Rye and the 1512 Spirts Aged Rye (their white rye is also good, but hardly what most people expect from rye; don't miss their wheat whiskey either.)
By far my favorite rye though is Goldrun: http://oldworldspirits.com/rye.html It's got some rare flavor notes, bready and yeasty almost--I like to say it has a "cheerios" note?--while still having some spice.
That said: I also love pretty much every bottle of High West I own (something like eight at this point.) They're all from the one source. Oh no. They're still well selected, blended, and aged. They make great drinks. Who cares if they're from the mainstream sources? I'm into drinking, not being a hipster.
I agree the regular Stranahan's is just ok, but a friend had a bottle of one of their special releases (I forgot the details, but it had a silver label, so probably a Snowflake) and it was significantly better. Check it out if you get a chance.
Depends on what you mean by "special stop" I guess. If you're driving by anyway, then sure, go ahead. It's a solid rye whiskey, probably pretty different from others you've had, and definitely worth trying. But it's not going to change your life or anything, so you don't need to go too far. :)
"Status" whiskey drinkers are often surprised at how many of their favorite brands roll up to giant beverage conglomerates. The best whiskeys in the world almost to a one are traceable to giant corporations.
Thank you for that link! Here in Finland we only got tiny selection of American Whiskey and that link pointed out that I still have so many American Whiskey left to experience :) And seeing as the Buffalo Trace is one of my favourite Whisky I think I'm not going to be disappointed when I have the chance to try out one of the more "rarer" ones. Only if our local stores had more American Whiskey selection (Eagle Rare 10yo is "rarest" pre-order bottle for 60$)..
Whisky is a fundamentally industrial product; fetishizing the "small batch artisinal" etc aspects ignores all the hard work that goes into making a replicable product, especially over the course of a decade-plus production cycle.
Beer has a similar problem; "small batch artisinal" tends to result in inconsistent product, so the easiest thing to do is to cover up inconsistencies with a lot of malt and hops. It's actually significantly harder to make a nice light pilsner than it is to make a heavyweight IPA.
If you want a "craft" product, you should really make it yourself.
Some of that is true; but there are historical antecedents that explain the use of hops and malts...
My company[1] builds quality control tools for artisan beverage producers; we know that craft production is a batch process relying on agricultural grains with inherent variation.
That doesn't mean it shouldn't be produced.
Craft production is undoubtedly higher quality than any continuous production - it just takes more skill (or software tools..) to do correctly and consistently.
Furthermore, the use of certain ingredients to reduce noticeable inconsistencies came at a time before process control was a known science. For example, hops were originally added to beer being shipped from England to India (hence the name India Pale Ale or IPA). Now, that practice didn't survive because of quality control - it has survived because people like the taste of IPAs and there is demand in the market for that flavor profile.
Consumers don't think of skill of production when rating beers or whiskeys; they judge only the resulting flavor profile and are influenced by contextual clues such as age statements or 'hand made batch numbered artisan spirit' promises.
"Craft production is undoubtedly higher quality than any continuous production - it just takes more skill (or software tools..) to do correctly and consistently."
Craft production peaks at a higher quality than any continuous production, I think is what you're trying to say? Because obviously, those who fail to do it correctly or consistently are still engaged in "craft production".
If we take this a little further though,
part of craft production is the curation;
being willing to dump batches that don't meet your quality standard.
Any producer who knowingly ships product below their quality standard is no longer engaded an artisan production.
I think it certainly runs risk of "No true Scotsman". It also assumes that "their quality standard" is higher than that employed in the continuous production cases. I do think it's a good nudge for artisanal producers, which fits your role :-P
Only if you see inconsistency as bad (if you do, then McDonald's makes the best hamburgers.) Inconsistency is the key selling point of small batches.
Agreed, IPA is a no-brainer beer without subtlety. If you put enough hops in sewer water it'll taste like an IPA but that doesn't mean making a pilsner is rocket surgery.
And as long as I am ranting on IPA, I can't wait for the current craze for them to be over. A few years ago when I would ask the waitress what beers they have on tap she'd rattle off 8 wheat beers. (Seriously, one wheat beer in the summer is plenty and Bell's Oberon is a pleasantly inconsistent choice.) Now it's half a dozen IPAs. I have a suggestion to the bars and brewers for the next beer fad: an old world artisinal classic - lager.
Over here in the UK everywhere is doing IPAs at the moment. It's such a pain. I think it's because the hoppiness masks the fact that they don't clean their lines as much as they should.
I miss the days of a good mild or bitter with porters and stouts thrown in the mix.
On tap at a bar in my area? Yes, absolutely. I see nothing but wheat beer, IPA and maybe a stout or porter. If I want a lager I usually end up with Sam Adams, which is OK, but it'd be nice if another brewery could make a lager too.
Perhaps this is my "Midwestern privilege" rearing its ugly head, but I suspect that most of the USA has a different sort of bar scene.
"Oh yeah we got lots of stuff on tap. We got Bud, Bud Light, Miller, Miller Lite, Busch, Busch Light, Michelob, Michelob Light... oh I forgot: Coors Light, too!"
Frankly I'm always ready for an IPA the recipe for which is "sewer water + hops".
Hey, brazilian feeling good here! Because we sucessfully make huge amounts of pilsen beer, in a very consistent way. Yes, the thing always tastes like water and cat piss :)
Covering a beer up with a lot of hops and malts isn't so much to hide the off-flavors. Rather, some producers like to weave together complex malts and hops into a balanced product.
And the off-flavors aren't a by-product of the size of the producer. I work in the industry doing quality control at the same company[1] as another commenter, and we see inconsistencies with producers the size of a local brewpub to large producers that sell to 7+ states.
Using technology can help reduce inconsistencies, but the end goal it to never let the consumer taste a bad batch. It is cheaper to dump a bad batch than to ship it, as this may result in loss of customers.
Bigger producers know this and will more readily dump a bad batch than a smaller producer.
Lastly, I have seen a producer that ships to 3 states have a manual brewing system, while a small neighborhood brewpub that just started distributing uses a fully automated system.
It's hard to figure out where your American whiskey is coming from. There are a handful of bottles I like, and strangely enough, they all happen to be "brands" managed by a company called Kentucky Bourbon Distillers[0] who only recently got into distilling their own stuff.
On the one hand, if you find a product you like, who cares about the story behind it?
On the other hand, when some brands are charging an arm and a leg (like Pappy Van Winkle) as other, less expensive, brands made by the same people with the same equipment (like Buffalo Trace), then it might be worth it see what the difference is between the "high end" and "lower end" brands.
I did a blind taste test and found I liked the mid range whiskey the best.
A related issue is that there are still stocks of aged whiskey from distilleries that have closed long ago - and they get sold to independent bottlers and existing distillers alike.
Side-by-side comparisons are often misleading in hedonic sensory evaluation. Even trained individuals have a tendency to select the sweeter and stronger flavored (intense) product.
Bitter and woody notes are important balances in higher quality bourbons, but are often perceived as negatives when doing comparative evaluation.
This is likely from your description, as the higher end bourbons tend to be wheated and lighter, but with a more prominent woody body from their longer barrel ageing.
Adding to JasonCEC's comment, a semi-famous example of this phenomenon appeared in the blind taste-test challenge Pepsi marketed vs Coke.
Pepsi, being slightly sweeter, was preferred when participants took a single small sip for a taste test. However, when drinking an entire can, people were more likely to prefer the less-sweet Coke.
I've never understood this one. To me Pepsi always tasted like a diet product. Sure it is sweeter, but never the right kind of sweet. And I can't comprehend the people who can't tell the difference between Pepsi and Coke.
I think the canned varieties of both taste pretty metallic, but especially Pepsi.
I've taken to opting for the glass-bottle varieties of both; whether it's the lack of aluminium traces in the soda, the use of sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup, or me having opportunities to collect bottle caps as if I'm trying to make a living in a post-apocalyptic nuclear wasteland, I've found that to be much more enjoyable for whatever reason.
That all said, RC Cola is the superior beverage. ;)
Let's be honest: did anyone actually think that a brand like Bulleit, which is available by the hundreds of gallons at every Costco and liquor store around, was a "craft" brand in the way that's commonly understood? Is this news a shock to anyone who's paying attention?
I don't buy Bulleit expecting hand-crafted small-batch stuff; I buy it because it's a good product that's worth the price.
"Four Roses only recently began bringing their Bourbon back to the US. Aside from the Four Roses label, the distillery makes Bulleit Bourbon for Diageo." [1]
Four Roses has a standard Bourbon, Small Batch Bourbon, Single Barrel, and possibly one more. I was just wondering which one it was (Bulleit brags about "small batch" so it may be that one, in which case BevMo sells the Four Roses for more than the Bulleit re-brand).
It's almost certainly none of those exactly. There's many many ways for a bottled spirit to taste different even if it came from the same distillery.
Four Roses uses two different mash bills (i.e. proportion of grains) and five types of yeast to create ten different new make spirits, which they combine in different proportions for each of their products. Bulleit is probably a distinct combination. It may also be aged in a different warehouse or a different part of the same warehouse (which can have a surprisingly large effect). It may be aged in casks with more or less char than the casks used for the Four Roses products. It may be bottled at a different age. The blender also gets to taste all the mature casks and pick and choose which ones get combined to make the final product, and can create a different flavor profile just with that choice.
So rest assured, it's not just a "re-brand", even if it came from the same stills.
I doubt that the alcohol out of the big factory with the big industrial process has anything wrong with it whereas I am not sure I really would want to drink that 'prohibition era' recipe stuff made in small batches. Who knows what polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, methanol and whatever other hangover inducing chemicals get made by the 'twee' process alluded too?
Sounds to me that these faux whiskeys are a great product with a plausible legend (that beats a white label saying industrial alcohol) and, scratch beneath the surface, but isn't fake really part of what America is?
MGP has been an open secret in the whiskey business for a while now - but it's good that the story is finally getting some press. I've had a couple of known MGP ryes (Bulleit and Dickel) and they're good - but they're not craft products. I think a distiller statement would go a long way to ending the deception.
I'm surprised MGP hasn't created its own brands or bought some existing ones, since their rye is a good product in its own right. They're missing an opportunity, though maybe they feel it's too much trouble to go into the retail side.
During the gold rush, sell picks and shovels. Lots of tech companies have the same model. With that model, MGP have production personnel and a few account managers. They don't have to pay for any marketing themselves, while they benefit from the full range of creative output of the American liquor industry. Some people want to buy whiskey that was made in New Mexico by hipsters like "Simeon Turley" and "Thomas Tate Tobin", while others want to buy whiskey made in Iowa by "small townsfolk".
Why should they? They are a platform. Sure, they might be able to secure shelf space, market their own wares, make a slightly higher margin, etc., but these activities would compete head to head with all the "craft" distillers MGP supplies. They'd also be entering a market that, from the looks of things, is going to reach saturation pretty soon (if it hasn't already). There are only so many spirits that stores can shelve, and so many that consumers can keep track of (or drink). (Frankly, I'm amazed that threshold hasn't been crossed yet. Sure, the craft beer market seems to support a gazillion beer labels. But consumers can drink beer by the gallon and keep replenishing every week. I doubt they do the same with expensive bottles of distilled spirits.)
By all accounts, MGP is doing just fine and dandy being a B2B seller, and supplying the current craft-distillery boom. They can do that with very little supply-chain risk and expense.
Their current position only becomes challenging if one or both of the following happen: 1) More industrial, B2B distillers enter the market, or more big-batch distillers devote resources to supplying the craft market; 2) the craft market goes bust, forcing a major demand shock onto MGP's supply. If #2 materializes, then MGP can sit on the excess inventory, and eventually bottle it as premium liquor.
> I'm surprised MGP hasn't created its own brands or bought some existing ones, since their rye is a good product in its own right. They're missing an opportunity, though maybe they feel it's too much trouble to go into the retail side.
(Fortunate?) Mismanagement. They wanted to make their own brand but contracted out all their old stock so the only thing they could sell now is very young ones unless one of the existing customers jumps ship.
"I'm surprised MGP hasn't created its own brands or bought some existing ones, since their rye is a good product in its own right. They're missing an opportunity, though maybe they feel it's too much trouble to go into the retail side."
I wonder whether their existing contracts prohibit that.
Leopold Bros. is a great local (to me) distiller. I'd highly recommend any of their spirits if you can get your hands on them. Their "American Small Batch Gin" is my favorite, but their rye whiskey is also quite nice.
'Bernasconi says that purchasing whiskey from MGP and bottling it is “a means to develop a brand and help fund the next step” of actually distilling a unique product.'
This sounds similar to how Reddit grew. It created a bunch of fake accounts until it didn't need to no more. Though there has been little outcry about that practice around here.
I don't condone the mislabeling, where that's occurring, but I'm actually somewhat sympathetic to the outsourcing of the actual distillation process. It's basically chemistry, well suited to industrial process control, and heavily regulated for tax reasons. It sounds like MGP is typically doing quite a bit more than that, though.
The whiskey club I belong to (Single Cask Nation) just bottled a cask of their stuff. Specifically, what's called an American Light Whiskey; Distilled almost to the point of vodka before being casked. Surprisingly delicious; unsurprisingly interesting, as its usually used as an ingredient in a blend, never bottled on its own.
I was hoping that the article would tell which of the re-branded ryes from MGP is the best value. If a bunch of "distilleries" are just packaging up the same stuff, which is the cheapest?
It's not the same (tasting) stuff in each bottle; everyone adds their little touch to it - a different mash bill, different wood for aging, different types of woods, different blends, etc.
There is some labor & R&D here that can't strictly be - ahem - distilled to dollars and cents.
I'm not sure MGP resellers control the mash bill; rather, MGP sells a variety of different whiskeys, so they presumably get to pick from a menu.
The aging process however makes a huge difference; it accounts for probably most of the flavor of the whiskey. So there's definitely potential for bottlers to add value. Unfortunately, most of them probably don't, because the things that add value --- sourcing quality large barrels instead of small casks, aging carefully for a long time --- add cost and delay time to market.
Don't forget blending. Most "famous" names in whiskey are there because they know which barrels to blend together. MGP sells quality distillates in a wide variety of mash bills. There is no reason a good reseller couldn't create great whiskey blending and aging their product. Do any of their current resellers? Hard to say, but contract distilling is not new or rare so I'm not sure what the fuss is about.
I am much less worried about contract distilling at MGP than I am about the recent trend of obscuring the age statement on previously well aged products. Both VOB and Ancient Ancient Age have recently removed their age statements. In the case of VOB those cheeky bastards left the big "6" on the bottle label, but removed the words "aged" and "years". Pretty skeezy bait and switch.
We can all just hope that whiskey gets less popular and the prices come back down to sane levels.
I wonder if this is the market reacting to a difficult regulatory environment. When you consider the laws pertaining to production, distribution, and sales of spirits, It seems like it would be darn near impossible to bootstrap such a business without significant outside investment. And who would invest in a company that has no intention to take a single dollar of revenue for years to come?
You might think that, but practically the entire Scotch whiskey industry also rolls up into Diageo, Bacardi, and Pernod, and it might be hard to argue that the regulatory environment in Scotland disfavors distilleries.
To be clear, most of these (Aberlour, Glenlivet, Longmorn, Laphroig, &c) are totally separate distilleries run in some cases by people who were involved in the process since before Chivas bought them out. There are also several distilleries operated by Pernod that don't sell direct to the public, but instead contribute to Chivas blends (the Craigellachie distillery grounds were literally our backyard on vacation a few weeks ago, and despite it being essentially an industrial distillery, you wouldn't really have been able to tell it apart from Benromach by the exterior).
So this is a situation not at all like the MGP product situation. Aberlour and Longmorn aren't selling the same distillate (although they probably source the same malt).
It's maybe a little tricky to see the entrepreneurial activity in Scotch whiskey at a distance, because there are so many silent distillery sites throughout the country. People gut and rehab mothballed distilleries rather than build new ones. But the Benromach distillery, for instance, is entirely new on the inside; and it was started by a Scotch retailer.
I had a feeling this was going on after looking into starting a liquor company with some friends. There are several large manufacturers producing all types of alcohol (whiskey, gin, vodka, etc.) and selling in bulk to bottlers. This is likely how some of the lower end alcohol producers operate, but I'm sure there are plenty who use fancier packaging to upsell their product.
A good half of your vodka brands are just repackaging ADM or the local equivalent farm waste ethanol with water local to the bottling location (and maybe extra distillation or filtering passes if you're lucky).
It's the bottled water business model, but swankier.
Even Hangar One, a favorite of mine, is at least half neutral grain spirit from industrial farms. Thankfully they re-distill it with pot-distilled grape vodka, which rounds it out (no rubbing alcohol flavor).
Dave Arnold on Cooking Issues tells a story from when he ran the tech program at the French Culinary about buying pure potable lab ethanol and diluting it down himself for "perfect" vodka at a tiny fraction of the price.
Whiskey is not alone in this. A good chunk of American vodka is apparently actually made from ethanol purchased from Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), the same company that distills ethanol for use as a motor fuel.
Seems fine with me; if the distillation is done well, then ethanol is ethanol.
The important part of vodka is what water they are adding to that ethanol. It's not "just water" in that case, though it may very well be tap water (which is fine if they have good tap water).
Production practice of Vodka matters less, because the point of vodka is "a flavorless spirit". If you're dealing with flavor vodka, your no longer dealing with a craft/artisan spirit anyway.
I've been looking and hoping someone takes up this mantle. A "vodka" in a plastic or metla motor oil-like bottle, dressed up to look like a fuel additive and labeled NGS or something vaguely technical. Made straight from ADM (or an equivalent) farm waste and distilled an extra time or two to remove the nastier volatiles.
Priced cheap, maybe at 80 and 160 proof options (normal and hi-test). Filtered tap water added at the bottling plant, and proud of it!
I've know that Bullit Rye comes from and Indiana factory for some time now, but I still drinking because it's good and not too pricey. As long as they don't try to charge a "craft" price for it, I don't mind as long as the end product is good.
I knew this would be about Lawrenceburg. Back in the day Lawrenceburg and Aurora (twin towns that basically run together) used to stink terribly from the old Seagrams factory.
I think he meant that the "brand" costs more, with no added value.
A better example is hotdog rolls. The supermarket brand is usually 20% less and literally sits next to the "name" brand in your area. The Bimbo/Weston/Freihoffers/etc hotdog rolls are literally the same thing, deliveried by the same guy and baked in the same place!
From the Green Giant website, "Premium Le Sueur® brand vegetables come from the birthplace of the Green Giant® brand—Le Sueur, Minnesota—where they’re grown in the rich, fertile soil of the Minnesota River Valley."
So, is Green Giant doing the same thing if the same farmer/field/canning facility supplies peas to generic/supermarket brands?
What MGP/Green Giant are doing is just fine. I've no objection to that. The issue is the "craft distillers" passing off MGP's stuff as their own, claiming it's done with their own proprietary yeast blends and family recipes and whatnot.
This is a known practice, and one that a lot of people are unhappy about. We suspect that the TTB will be cracking down quite harshly on this in the near future; forcing a named distiller statement on the label.
That said... not all of the whiskey, rye, or bourbon that MGP produces is bad - some of its aged production is quite good, and companies like Angels Envy which further age it (basically double oak or quarter casking) can produce a unique and high quality product.
My problem with this is from the deception; imagine if it turned out that Dogfish Head and Stone brewing were actually buying their beer from MillerCoors! This is an unfair practice that puts actual craft distillers (some of my clients!) at a huge disadvantage. A named distillery requirement would go a long way to correcting this.
[1] www.Gastrograph.com