What If...?

[ErichPryde]

And how about more fables? Who will take on 2060?

Gary

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[pepcycle]

There are no stores.
The chip that connects me to the network searches the virtual archive for sensory aps for American Whiskey.
Oooh. Look they recently created a 1893 Belmont ap.
Let's see, merge that file with a roaring 20's manhattan with orange bitters.

Activate sensation

Wow.

Reminds a little of that Nano Distilled Stuff from Uranus.

Let's see, run Gillmanize Ap. to achieve 102.6 proof, 6.4 yr aging, hillside, Clermont, Romanian Oak char #2.

Very nice. Add Euphoric effect equal to BAC 0.73.

I can almost taste it.

[Gillman]

Very good gents! As it happens I have some Romanian ancestry, Ed, so it all ties together.


Gary

[jburlowski]

I think the industry will be remarkably similar to what it is now --- highly concentrated. Ownership of companies and certainly brands will change back and forth as they have in the past. Certainly there will be fewer brands and expressions produced; a trend that has already begun.

I'd like to believe that micro or regional distillers will become a significant factor in the market, but I doubt it. The economics are just too tough.

The "flavored" segment will grow --- it's cheap way to expand sales of lower quality product to those that are looking primarily for an alchohol-delivery mechanism (a la flavored vodkas).

Sadly, I think the three-tiered delivery system will remain, at least in most locations --- the economic / political interests involved will be too hard to change. I do think there will be (in most locations) the end of direct goverment control / operation of distribution and sales --- they'll continue to get their cut in taxes without the hassle / expense of hands-on operations.

[Ultra]

Micro distillers will begin to chip away at market shares of the big boys and brands will become more and more geographic and age demographic in the marketing and appeal. Transportation costs and the power of local communities pushing their own products will be the driving force behind the aforementioned changes. Frontier associations of Bourbon will be an asset in the marketplace in a time when government bankruptcies, currency devaluations and societal hardships encourage people to recall our history in a romanticized light. This will bring back many labels and ads designed to conjure up images from the decades of Bourbon's youth. Old brands, currently extinct, will be revived, packaged in a manner designed to recall them in their heyday and marketed to a new generation in an attempt to link the modern product in the bottle to a bygone era. Bottle shapes themselves will become ever more varied and intricate as the machines that craft them become cheaper to buy and operate.

[Dramiel McHinson]

And how about more fables? Who will take on 2060?

Gary

I'll see if my overactive imagination can take this challenge.


In the year 2060 the tribal descendants of Chief Thirsty Friend have been operating a distillery for religious purposes in the splinter Republic of Death Valley, California just south of Furnace Creek for 29 years.

They use a long lost mash bill kept hidden in a monastery on Easter Island. A descendant of Chief Thirsty Friend found it there next to an abandoned pot still. The inhabitants of the monastery had long abandoned it after lawyers invaded and brought with them a mysterious illness called ass pain.

The mash bill is framed next to a working replica of the pot still on Easter Island. It's called lovingly, "Ole Cowbell." Some believe the name came from the sound the pot still makes when the temperature reaches 160 degrees on the pot still and the magic elixer begins to pulse upward and through the worm tube ringing an old bell attached to the small arm of the Lyne arm. Still others think it is named for an ancient whiskey guru and beloved blogger.

The tribe worships the angels that live in the barrels. When the angels have taken half the barrel's whiskey, they dump it into a large wooden vat of juniper cedar and there let it rest until it is ready for the feast of ancestors. This feast is every Friday night and lasts until Sunday evening. One must gulp the whiskey with every bite of food to nourish their spirit, give thanks to their ancestors and ward off parasites and no see-ums that live in the shaded areas of the reservation.

The remainder of the whiskey is bottled in old polyethelene bottles stored on the reservation from when the tribesmen first settled the area. The now defunct Burns and Dithers labels are soaked off and new labels printed to Federation standards on the tribal printing press are placed on the bottles. The whiskey is sold tax free to tourists who come from all over the Federation to visit the reservation and buy the whiskey which is reported to have medicinal properties.

Some tourist come in hopes of seeing the elaborate ritual burial of a deceased tribesman which rarely occurs thanks to the medicinal properties of their whiskey. When a tribesman dies he is deboned and ground with a mixture of pot ale and catnip. The mixture is fed to the large population of holy cats that live in the tribal area. When the cats have consumed the spiritual offering of their tribesman they go to the wild wheat fields and bury small portions of the tribesman around the wheat stalks.

Their belief is that the tribesman's spirit will be pulled into the wheat to give it strength and make it grow. The tribesman is ultimately taken to heaven when he is distilled and placed in the barrel for the angels to take home.

The tourists find this laughable but don't really care because the only source of high grade whiskey is right there in Death Valley in the hands of whacky natives that pay the Federation protection money so they can freely practice their religion.

[Stu]

Chuck,
I concur with Kickert. (See Ben, we do agree on some things!)

However, like micro breweries, micro distilleries will come and go. A few might last, but certainly not all. I further believe that malt whisky will not taste the same if aged in a place other than Scotland, and bourbon will not taste the same if aged in a place other than KY. Even the finest Japanese malts are readily identified as not being Scotch, just as JD could never be confused with bourbon. (George Dickel is another story). The one exception I can think of is J W Dant that was distilled in Lawrenceburg, IN) but that's just across the river from KY. All this is opinion by a self styled "kind of sewer", so take it for what it is worth (not much).

[cowdery]

I respectfully disagree. I don't believe there is any unmistakable 'scotch-ness,' or Kentucky-ness, for that matter. Certain distilleries have an unmistakable flavor. I have tasted malt whiskies made outside of Scotland that said 'scotch' to me, but you drink a lot more scotch than I do.

[ThomasH]

I'm glad my current bunker will stretch that far, that way the good old days will be just a glassfull away!

Thomas