Seagram's Lawrenceburg,IN plant to close by 2008

[ThomasH]

From the people who brought you the new and improved Wild Turkey 90 proof Russells Reserve, get a load of their latest brilliant idea. In a posting today on Whiskyportal.com, Pernod Ricard announced that it will close its Lawrenceburg,IN distillery by 2008. This company really makes a lot of sense. Last fall Pernod announced that it would move its bottling to the Lawrenceburg,IN plant in spring 2006. I just visited WT on April 13th and was told the botlling line moved to Indiana at the end of March. It reasoned that the Indiana plant had a faster bottling line. Now they say they are shutting the Indiana bottling line down in the middle of 2007. What will they do next, bottle Wild Turkey in India? If WT bourbon wasn't so good and the folks at Lwarenceburg weren't such a nice, great bunch of people, I would boycott the brand due to their stupid French owners. Its a shame another American company couldn't swallow up Pernod and put ownership of WT back where it belongs. I think that the people in Paris are to far detached from the American whiskey industry to know what day it is. The only thing they could possibly do to make amends is put bottling of WT back in Kentucky where it belongs. The Indiana plant also makes whiskey that becomes the Cougar bourbon brand sold in Australia as well as other various whiskies that go into the & Crown blended whiskey. Another sad day in the American whiskey industry!

Thomas

[fogfrog]

Indiana is next door to KY. I don't see whats the big deal about bottling there. for example, Ezra Brooks is bottled in St. Louis MO.

[camduncan]

The Indiana plant also makes whiskey that becomes the Cougar bourbon brand sold in Australia as well as other various whiskies that go into the & Crown blended whiskey.

Really? I've always wondered where they bottled Cougar
Does that mean the bourbon in the bottle is really Wild Turkey?
So if the plant shuts down, will the brand ceast to exist, or will they just bottle elsewhere?

[CrispyCritter]

Whiskey can be tanked and sent elsewhere for bottling. For instance, George Dickel was, for a time, bottled in Canada; a recent bottle that I bought implies (since it doesn't have "Bottled in Canada" on the label) that it was bottled in Stamford, Connecticut.

I've seen a Canadian whisky (Pendleton) that's bottled in Oregon, and the only bottling operation on the Scottish island of Islay is owned by Bruichladdich; the other Islays are bottled on the Scottish mainland.

[barturtle]

I have an older copy of a book written by Jim Murray that says that one of the whiskies(technically a bourbon) that goes into the Crown blend from this distillery, is really good, wonder if that's what is used for the Cougar?

[ProofPositive]

From the people who brought you the new and improved Wild Turkey 90 proof Russells Reserve, get a load of their latest brilliant idea. In a posting today on Whiskyportal.com, Pernod Ricard announced that it will close its Lawrenceburg,IN distillery by 2008. This company really makes a lot of sense. Last fall Pernod announced that it would move its bottling to the Lawrenceburg,IN plant in spring 2006. I just visited WT on April 13th and was told the botlling line moved to Indiana at the end of March. It reasoned that the Indiana plant had a faster bottling line. Now they say they are shutting the Indiana bottling line down in the middle of 2007. What will they do next, bottle Wild Turkey in India? If WT bourbon wasn't so good and the folks at Lwarenceburg weren't such a nice, great bunch of people, I would boycott the brand due to their stupid French owners. Its a shame another American company couldn't swallow up Pernod and put ownership of WT back where it belongs. I think that the people in Paris are to far detached from the American whiskey industry to know what day it is. The only thing they could possibly do to make amends is put bottling of WT back in Kentucky where it belongs. The Indiana plant also makes whiskey that becomes the Cougar bourbon brand sold in Australia as well as other various whiskies that go into the & Crown blended whiskey. Another sad day in the American whiskey industry!
Thomas

Not good news. I agree with you, WT should be bottled in Kentucky. It is the right thing to do. If it were not for the popularity of WT, this would really hurt them. However, life just goes on in most people's minds. Damn the French. What have they done for us since 1781? Their very existence today is due to our intervention in 1917-18 and 1942-45. That's right, not once but twice!

In a couple of years there will only be a handful of us who are still pissed off at the dillution of RR. For the last 30-40 years, it has become the American way to become desensitized to harmful change and just 'rock on'. IMHO, the bottom line is that we became drunk on the success of our fathers & grandfathers and have lost our way. Well, I better cut it here. I am drifting towards a post that belongs in the Politics thread. Anyhow, your news is indeed another sad day......all too common any more.

[Hedmans Brorsa]

Really? I've always wondered where they bottled Cougar
Does that mean the bourbon in the bottle is really Wild Turkey?

On the only bottle of Cougar that I´ve had, it says "Kentucky style Bourbon" on the label. If the contents of the bottle had been produced in KY, then I´m pretty sure that they would state that on the label.

But maybe the label has changed? My bottle is several years old.

[BourbonJoe]

What will they do next, bottle Wild Turkey in India?
Thomas

Damn it Tom, don't give them fools any ideas!!!
Joe

[cowdery]

This article in the Cincinnati Post provides a little bit more detail.

I'm not sure what other U.S. facilities Pernod may have acquired in the Allied deal, but presumably one of them has a big bottling line. I'm not sure if this "distillery" actually distilled anything, although it may have made corn whiskey for use in blends. Most people don't make their own grain neutral spirit (GNS), i.e., vodka, but rather buy it from ADM or one of the other big producers. You, technically, can make vodka at a whiskey distillery (Buffalo Trace does it with Rain) but it's more costly. Even a company like Heaven Hill buys its GNS. If they distilled anything at Lawrenceburg it would be either corn whiskey or GNS.

Every American blended whiskey has to contain at least 20% straight whiskey, i.e., bourbon. The bourbon in the Seagrams blends such as Seagrams Seven is made at Four Roses. It's possible that is also what is in Cougar.

There were two distilleries at Lawrenceburg, one owned by Seagrams and the other by Schenley. John Anderson, who used to run Stitzel-Weller for United (i.e., Diageo), bought the Schenley plant for its bottling operation and strictly does contract bottling there, so possibly the bottling business is going to go down the road.

Heaven Hill has a very large bottling operation, which our own Bettye Jo Boone keeps operating, and they do contract bottling. I guess my point is that there is a lot of bottling capacity around. Jim Beam has a bottling plant in Cincinnati and one in Frankfort, as well as at the distillery in Clermont, though I suspect they don't do contract, having enough of their own products to bottle.

While it's always sad to see another distillery close, and I'm fine with any excuse to trash the French, we've lost so many distilleries that I am pretty much cried out. Although there supposedly has been a distillery on that site for 158 years I don't know how much there is to see. I've never been there.

[ThomasH]

According to jim Murray's 1997 book "Complete guide to Whiskey", The Lawrenceburg, IN plant distills vodka and gin for the Seagrams brands as well as several types of bourbon, barley and rye whiskey which are blended into seagrams 7. They do produce and bottle a straight bourbon called Cougar which is primarily sold in Australia and New Zealand. My question is: why would you move your bottling to a plant that is going to be shut down in a year? How many times have any of you ever gone into a liquor store that didn't have Wild Turkey? A liquor store without Wild Turkey is like a car without wheels. This whole thing boils down to money, without any regard to the people affected. All of these jobs that will be lost are good paying jobs with benefits, that is why Pernod Ricard is getting rid of them. If keeping these people in a good job added a dollar to a bottle of Wild Turkey, would you quite drinking it? I certainly wouldn't. The price of Wild Turkey goes up and down more than that every Christmas in Ohio and it has never stopped me from buying a bottle. What is different today from 2 days ago? Absolutely nothing except the level of greed on the part of Pernod Ricard! Regardless of how much bottling capacity there is around, moving the bottling of WT from Kentucky to Indiana and now to who knows where shows that Pernod Ricard has more money than brains. I guess they must need the extra write off the taxes!

thomas