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WT Rye 81 proof?!


Josh
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As a matter of personal policy, I don't believe any age claims that aren't on the label and I will no longer carry that water for the producers. Can I get a hear hear?
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:cool: ...but......this forum is the internets too...so I clearly can't trust what's said here either. :grin:

Fair enough, but I really don't think it was completely justified. :rolleyes: Besides, that blend was created and discontinued in 2007; maybe it was 6 years at that time? But I digress....:deadhorse:

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As a matter of personal policy, I don't believe any age claims that aren't on the label and I will no longer carry that water for the producers. Can I get a hear hear?
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Maybe I'm missing something, daylight savings time has me a little foggy:grin:. So they're saying that the rye that went into the blend was 6 years old. Fine. What makes you think that has any bearing on what goes into Baby Saz?
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It's ok, the sun is coming out to remove the fog:cool:. It doesn't necessarily suggest that all Baby Saz produced in 2012 or even 2011 is/was 6 years old. It confirms the strongest possibility that Baby Saz was 6yrs old in 2007. So maybe go find a 2007 dusty and compare to current?

So, let's take a quick look at what facts (assumed or otherwise) we do have:

1) We have a brand manager from BT stating Baby Saz was 6yrs old when used in a discontinued blend from 2007.

2) There is no age statement on the bottle. (to my knowledge it never had an age statement on the bottle.)

3) Several sites on the web that sell alcoholic beverages lists Baby Saz as 6yrs old.

4) Wikipedia has this to say: "Sazerac is also a brand of Rye Whiskey owned by the Sazerac Company and produced at the Buffalo Trace Distillery. There are two current expressions of the brand; an 18 year whiskey and a younger, 6 year-old. Both are bottled at 90 proof."

5) Individuals in this thread have suggested or stated that Baby Saz is in no way 6yrs old and is likely a blend of young and old.

6) Bottle says it's "straight whiskey" so it can't be blended with any other whiskey. So it's not likely it has young/old blends.

Basically, it's like saying Old Weller Antique is no longer 7 years old because the age statement dropped, but it's been 7 years through it's entire production. (shrug):rolleyes: As a general rule I lean towards an 80/20 view with discernment. So, 80% of whats out there says 6yr, whom am I to argue?

So...without further adieu I will conclude my argument on Baby Saz. It really doesn't matter if I am right, BT is wrong or if people on this thread are right/wrong. Cowdery said it best anyway.

Also, I suppose we shouldn't hi-jack a thread on WT rye talking about Baby Saz. ;)

Okay, I see where the confusion lies. I think we all (as in everybody but you) takes what the brand manager said to mean "the Sazerac rye that we put in that blend was 6 years old." We don't take that as a statement about the Sazerac rye line in general.

A couple other points: Wikipedia doesn't count, sorry... and regarding straight whiskeys, you're absolutely wrong. "Straight" simply means that it has aged at least 2 years in new, charred oak barrels, and that it is the product of one state. That's it.

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I'll give you a "hear hear" for that.

Do you think the switch to NAS is so that the producers can be as ambiguous with the age per batch?

That's one way to put it. They want the flexibility and figure that as long as the taste doesn't change significantly, they won't lose their regular drinkers.

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A couple other points: Wikipedia doesn't count, sorry... and regarding straight whiskeys, you're absolutely wrong. "Straight" simply means that it has aged at least 2 years in new, charred oak barrels, and that it is the product of one state. That's it.

I think the bottle must state the age if it is less than four years, but I may be wrong.

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It doesn't necessarily suggest that all Baby Saz produced in 2012 or even 2011 is/was 6 years old. It confirms the strongest possibility that Baby Saz was 6yrs old in 2007.

It most certainly does no such thing. You're thinking about this the wrong way. At any given moment, Buffalo Trace has barrels of rye aging that are one month old, and it has barrels that are ten years (or more) old, and every age in between. If they go to sell a customer some rye, it can be any of those ages, and that bears no relationship to what they choose to bottle as Baby Saz or anything else.

The prolem with distilleries telling us ages when it's not on the label is:

They can lie (though they usually don't).

The age can change (this is more common).

Those claims can be misreported, since it's always somebody-told-somebody who posted it someplace.

It confuses people who want to interpret it the same as a label statement. I'm glad when the distilleries will tell me about how old an NAS product is, that's information I'm glad to have, but I'm not going to give it the same weight as an label statement.

I suggest that we should quote ages of NAS products with the full source disclaimer or not quote them at all. I haven't always felt that way but I have seen the confusion it can cause, as people try to find a definitive answer to something that cannot be answered definitively.

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Here here. If you want to be taken seriously about age statement's, put em on the label and remove all doubt. It's like believing a woman about her age or a man about his "shoe" size.

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Here here. If you want to be taken seriously about age statement's, put em on the label and remove all doubt. It's like believing a woman about her age or a man about his "shoe" size.
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FWIW, my response from WT/Campari:

"Dear Ethan,

Thank you for taking the time to e-mail us about Wild Turkey 101 RYE.

There is no Wild Turkey 101 Rye in current production or scheduled for the next months, as there is a shortage of Rye. Wild Turkey 81 Rye was already in the pipeline and is out there. We have allocated what we have available of 101 Rye across the country. As the shortage improves, 101 Rye will be back, but probably not for 2012. We don’t have any shortage of Bourbon, so this allocation doesn't affect Wild Turkey 101 or 81 Bourbon. As an FYI, Russell's Reserve Bourbon and Rye are both in good supply.

Thank you again for contacting Campari America"

This is consistent with what Chuck has already posted on here, along with a few others. Looks like we just have to weather a shortage for a while!

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FWIW, my response from WT/Campari:

"Dear Ethan,

Thank you for taking the time to e-mail us about Wild Turkey 101 RYE.

There is no Wild Turkey 101 Rye in current production or scheduled for the next months, as there is a shortage of Rye. Wild Turkey 81 Rye was already in the pipeline and is out there. We have allocated what we have available of 101 Rye across the country. As the shortage improves, 101 Rye will be back, but probably not for 2012. We don’t have any shortage of Bourbon, so this allocation doesn't affect Wild Turkey 101 or 81 Bourbon. As an FYI, Russell's Reserve Bourbon and Rye are both in good supply.

Thank you again for contacting Campari America"

This is consistent with what Chuck has already posted on here, along with a few others. Looks like we just have to weather a shortage for a while!

The big question is, was it Jodi who wrote you that email?

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Jodi had been...reassigned...

"We are happy to..."---Dingbat...

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"As the shortage improves, 101 Rye will be back, but probably not for 2012."

2 of those 3 clauses bother me and the other clause ("will be back") is not very comforting.

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I'm having a hard time understanding "shortages." If they run a standard production schedule they should be producing a relative "set" amount (in gallons) of new make a year. Those barrels age and then the next round gets barreled, and so on, and so on.

Unless they stopped production altogether or decided to sell barrels to independent bottlers, there should be a reasonable amount that gets shipped each year.

Can any sage or guru shed some light on this enigma for me? :)

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They probably run rye less than one week a year. More than likely they only dump and bottle once a year, too. That's one aspect.

The other is this: if, following projections they laid down (for sake of argument) 100 barrels of rye in 2008, they could dump those and bottle in 2012. But what if, as they say, demand goes up 20% over the course 2009-2012? They can adjust production upward annually but they still are only going to have their 100 barrels ready to go 2012.

That's why everything they have is already bottled and shipped for the year.

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I'm having a hard time understanding "shortages." If they run a standard production schedule they should be producing a relative "set" amount (in gallons) of new make a year. Those barrels age and then the next round gets barreled, and so on, and so on.

Unless they stopped production altogether or decided to sell barrels to independent bottlers, there should be a reasonable amount that gets shipped each year.

Can any sage or guru shed some light on this enigma for me? :)

The only reason I have Guru under my name is b/c I was unemployed for a while, but I'll give it a shot...

The answer is that demand has shot up very quickly by whiskey standards. To keep up with demand, they had to have anticipated this spike at least 4 yrs. ago. They didn't. They may not have even had enough warehouse space to increase production if they had. As I understand it, every rickhouse in Kentucky is bursting at the seams currently. They have probably been increasing production for a couple years now, but there's a gap between when that stuff is distilled and when it becomes ready to bottle and ship. That's how I understand it.

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Thanks Josh and Brisko, that makes sense.

I suppose I was a thinking too black and white about production and not thinking in terms of dynamic variables like forecasts and predictions. I'm used to the concept that once you start a product you continue production until you decide it isn't making money and shut it down.

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Rye was a very small (and despite the recent growth, still is) and stagnant market. The distilleries made "just enough" because there was no outlet for excess stocks. So with the aging requirements and little slack in the supply chain, we have the current shortages / outages.

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Two things.

One, Janice's message, as compared to Jodi's, shows how this board directly affects the industry. I'm sure there was a bit of a flurry at Campari America this week as the directive went out to answer all WT 101 rye inquiries thusly. Congratulations! You all are players.

Second, although they spin it differently ("81 was in the pipeline"), there is some robbing of Peter to pay Paul, much as the Dickel shortage affected No. 8 but not No. 12 or Single Barrel, even though they all draw from the same pool.

"Shortage of rye" is a poor choice of words, because it suggests there is a shortage of rye grain, which is not the case. It means they don't have enough fully-aged rye whiskey to meet demand.

The best example of how this works is Maker's Mark, which has been on allocation for something like 25 years. All it means is that they have more demand than they have product available to meet it and even though they keep making more, demand keeps growing ahead of supply.

Production planning for whiskey distilleries is very complicated, as you can imagine. Jack Daniel's, for example, just plans for success and increases production (i.e., distilling) about five percent per year. I once asked Jeff Conder, who at that time was in charge of all production for Jim Beam, how they plan for 10 or 15-year thresholds. He said they really don't. "We just try to get the next five years right," was his answer.

Rye has been growing very rapidly from a very small base and who knows how long it will last? Be glad you don't have those kinds of problems.

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Chuck - that MM has been on allocation for the past 25 years is interesting given that it seems plentiful. Have they just been very good with the logistics?

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