What will happen to SW prices when the last barrels are dry?

[IronHead]

As far as achieving taste then aging is at the top of the list.

All mashbills are similar but yeast plays a major role.

Maker's still was built by the S-W Master Distiller with the same design as the S-W still.

Also didn't Pappy Van Winkle give Samuels Sr his recipe?

[cowdery]

The "Pappy gave Bill Sr. the SW recipe" story came to me many years ago from a guy who worked for Stitzel-Weller when Pappy was still alive and the Van Winkle family still owned the distillery, and it apparently was common knowledge among insiders at the time. I've talked to Bill Jr. about it and he more-or-less confirms it, saying his father sought and received input from many of his friends in the industry. He mentioned, for example, that Pappy told Bill Sr. that you can't cook a wheated mash under pressure.

As for the still, Vendome built both of them and the Maker's still has some unique characteristics that are shared by the still at Stitzel-Weller. BourbonGeek can explain that much better than I can.

Joe Beam and his sons worked at Stitzel-Weller at various times and Will McGill, the longtime Master Distiller at Stitzel-Weller, was married to Joe Beam's sister. One of the sons, Elmo Beam, was the first Master Distiller at Maker's Mark. How much he had to do with building the distillery, I can't really say, but he would have had easy access to just about any information he would have wanted about Stitzel-Weller.

It's very difficult, if not impossible, to exactly duplicate the whiskey made at one place someplace else. There are just too many variables. If Maker's has the best possibility, then you get to the fact that Maker's follows practices that would inevitably make their whiskey less like Stitzel-Weller rather than more. Although it is interesting to note that some percentage of Maker's whiskey is actually aged at Stitzel-Weller.

According to press releases issued at the time, Julian Van Winkle has since joining Buffalo Trace provided guidance to help BT's wheated juice more closely ressemble SW whiskey, but of course the distillery itself is very different. The proof, I think, is in the excellence of the Van Winkle bottlings, where I no longer care if, in fact, there is SW whiskey in there or not, because the quality is there (e.g., Lot .

As for Finch and Clay, definitely not SW. At the time, United (now Diageo) had a large inventory of whiskey from closed distilleries. You can read the whole story beginning on page 201 of my book. It's tragic that, in the course of the final merger that created Diageo, the company lost interest in that project, as quite a few very interesting whiskeys never saw the light of day.

Finally, I tasted some of the Jefferson's yesterday at Binny's and I agree with what others have said. It's definitely SW whiskey and is very good, although it's not the best SW whiskey I've had by a long shot. It reminds me of that Everett's bottling of Weller 12 from a few years ago, that contained 16- and 14-year-old SW whiskey.

For the money, I prefer Lot B.

[ggilbertva]

Thanks Chuck for clearing up the Finch/Clay provenance.

[DeanSheen]

"For the money, I prefer Lot B."

Yep, though I hate admitting it. I like it better as a secret.

[tommyboy38]

Who knows what will happen to the "prices" of the whiskey but I'll be enjoying the few bottles I have in the bunker.

[jburlowski]

"For the money, I prefer Lot B."

Yep, though I hate admitting it. I like it better as a secret.

What he said....

[bigtoys]

I have a few Jefferson Pres Selects unopened that I'm gonna do a blind side by side with some of the Pappy 15, 20 and Lot B. Maybe I'll give a couple of the Jeffersons away.

Guess I better pick up some Lot B's and PvW's if I can find them.