templeton rye

[ILLfarmboy]

.... so while it may not be on the label, it's not like pulling teeth to get to the truth, like it is with the Templetons and High Wests of the world.

Point well taken, Chuck. There's nothing like having someone give you the run around or dancing around a direct question to get the 'ol Irish up!

[cowdery]

Okay, so everyone wants to moan about the fact that this is whiskey from the usual suspects in a fancy bottle at a mark up...so what?

While it may be sourced from the usual suspects, we don't know whom that is, nor if it has been aged slightly longer or is presented at a different proof (lower is a different proof), or even selected for a different profile than you would get otherwise. You don't know until you taste it.

The main reason for buying more of the usual suspects? Because that's the only way to support these upstarts who will one day be putting out a unique product. If they couldn't buy whiskey from the usual suspects to see them through until their stock comes online, they are unlikely to bankroll the investment to get going in the first place...and then we'd be stuck with another boutique vodka...

No disagreement except for one thing. I don't want to do business with somebody who inaugurates the relationship by trying to mislead me, and who won't really tell me what it is he's trying to sell me. When somebody plays me like that, I lose interest in their future efforts. Woodford Reserve, for example, while they didn't exactly trumpet where the whiskey was made in the early days (i.e., the same problem a Templeton or a High West faces), the information was always there and if you asked them, they told you. I see no reason why Templeton, High West and the rest of these start-ups can't do the same thing. If we overlook their lying to us now, what will they do to us in the future?

[barturtle]

No disagreement except for one thing. I don't want to do business with somebody who inaugurates the relationship by trying to mislead me, and who won't really tell me what it is he's trying to sell me. When somebody plays me like that, I lose interest in their future efforts. Woodford Reserve, for example, while they didn't exactly trumpet where the whiskey was made in the early days (i.e., the same problem a Templeton or a High West faces), the information was always there and if you asked them, they told you. I see no reason why Templeton, High West and the rest of these start-ups can't do the same thing. If we overlook their lying to us now, what will they do to us in the future?

While this is true, we have forgiven others for not telling us sources:

Julian with the original Pappy 23 and Rye
Ezra Brooks

They may even be under contractual obligation to not say...I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. I look forward to trying their juice.

[tmoreau]

So if Templeton is practically a re-bottling of something else on the market, what? Or what did they do to make it unique? I'm curious about how that works. I guess the timeline prohibits it from being contract distilled, right?

[cowdery]

Timothy, different standards for old friends than for people we've just met, I guess, and there's nothing wrong with that. But your point is taken.

tmoreau, the problem is, we don't really know because they won't tell us, but if they had a great and true story to tell, don't you think they would?

Yeah, the timeline rules out contract distilling.

[Rughi]

it becomes easy to say, "Oh, that's Heaven Hill's rye?" Well, you can pay $35 for it in a bottle that says 'Templeton,' or you can pay $12 for it in a bottle that says 'Rittenhouse,' which would you prefer?

Indeed, it is easy.

Both

As long as I think that a particularly good barrel or vatting is on offer, then I'm in. It's the skillful crafting of a final product that I'm buying, not a commodity calculation of what it "should" cost.

To take your example, I'm interested in the variety of flavors hidden away in the vast storage of the HH rickhouses that are usually blended out to just one or a few profiles. If Parker Beam puts out a high end selected profile then I'm in. If HH delivers a good set of barrels to a startup with which they can create their own profile then I'm also in.

Now, if the juice in the bottle is lackluster or an identical profile to the mothership, then I'm disappointed...

Roger

[cowdery]

Exactly right, which is why they shouldn't be scared to tell us what it is. If they won't, then it's a pretty good bet that it's undistinguished commodity whiskey in a fancy bottle at an inflated price.

As for being contractually bound not to disclose the source, while possible I don't think that's really the issue. One reason I say that is because I've never heard of any producer making such a demand, and there's really no reason why they should.