Stitzer-Weller making bourbon again

[UncleJohnsBarrel]

What great news to wake up to on a Sunday morning. I'll echo what others have said, that this is exciting news but that ultimately judgement is reserved for the first pour of the new SW juice x years from now.

One question I have now, given the nature of whiskey aging, is whether they are distilling new juice to be aged and released in 2015/2016 and beyond or if they are going to follow what I have heard happened with Jefferson Presidential in the last few years where they took some of the SW stock and mixed it with other wheated bourbon like Bernheim to make up for stock shortages. That said, I don't think if they are going for a wheated profile they would be able to use Bulliet (FR) stock so it begs the questions of where they could get stock to mix in with new SW juice (that is if you assume they keep SW as a wheated bourbon like its famous for and not change the mashbill around).

Either way, exciting news that will start lots of conversations about whiskey in 2013.

[Cigar Dan]

I am going to hope for the best. As for them being able to replicate past products, I am less concerned with possible use of GM corn than if the yeasts from back when are known and available.

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[squire]

I doubt GM corn makes any difference at all but I doubt the chemists will use Pappy's distilling principles.

[jburlowski]

Would be a treat though if they kept the original stills.

When I toured the distillery a while back, we were told (by the security guard) that the original still was in place and in good shape. We didn't get a chance to see for ourselves.

From the outside, the physical plant looked in rough shape (see the pictures I posted here). Given the age of the facility I suspect (as others have also said) that asbestos abatement will be a major issue.

It is good news that a major distillery will be brought back into production.

However, whatever they produce will likely not be comparable to the old SW juice. And, I'm guessing, any aged stock they have in the riskhouses is either: 1) over-aged and awful SW distillate; or 2) Bulleit (e.g., 4R) barrels.

[cowdery]

I agree that this is good news, but caution that we know almost nothing at this point. Will they use any of the original equipment? Will they make wheated bourbon? When will production begin? We have no idea. Remember, Diageo owns none of the brands that used to be made there. They probably can't even use the name Stitzel-Weller as a brand. If they do make wheated bourbon, they'll be starting from scratch with a new brand.

Will they make Bulleit there? Seems reasonable, but we just don't know. Will they bring I. W. Harper back to the U.S.? Maybe, but it was never made at Stitzel-Weller. They have already invested a significant amount to make the old office building The Bulleit Bourbon Expeience. That suggests Bulleit will be the main emphasis of whatever they do there.

So we can speculate, we can guess, but we have almost no facts. And regardless of the plan, it will be years before any bourbon made there is ready to sell.

We do know one thing, though. They have a master distiller. Last year, John Lunn added responsibility for operations as Stitzel-Weller to his job as George Dickel master distiller. He told me in October that they do both maturation and blending there for various Diageo brands. It didn't seem very important at the time, but now?

And speaking of RSS feeds, Aaron Swartz, who wrote an early version of RSS, committed suicide yesterday.

Edited January 14, 2013 by cowdery

[Lazer]

Say what you want about big business cutting corners and ruining things, they also have deep pockets and can get things done that smaller companies can't. Like bring dead distilleries back to life and add age statements (Bulleit10) when others are dropping theirs. GD no.12 is a great product, no reason that they can't make good bourbon here. But yes, its true, the proof is in the first taste which will hopefully not be before 2017.

[cowdery]

Agreed. I just suggest we keep our powder dry until we have a better idea what they actually plan to do.

[mark fleetwood]

Well this otta drive the price of Pappy down. ;-)

[weller_tex]

Well this otta drive the price of Pappy down. ;-)

Given the history of Diageo I can't believe they will reuse anything. They'll modernize everything, and make it as efficient as possible. Try as they might BT does make anything that tastes like SW juice..maybe they aren't trying I don't know, but I see no reason to think that Diageo can. I just hate to see perfectly good buildings falling into ruin..and just for that fact, that it will be in use, it's a good thing.

[qman22]

I'm excited by this news, but I just have a feeling they aren't going to make wheated bourbon there... only Bulleit. My instinct is often wrong though, so hopefully it's wrong again

[squire]

If they want to turn it into Bulleit headquarters that's fine with me, the fact they're sitting on old stock means there may be some other age stated offerings.

[Josh]

Does anybody know for sure that the "mature stocks" are actually S-W wheated bourbon?

[squire]

If so it would be a minimum of 20 years ago.

[cowdery]

Presumably it's more of the stuff Jefferson's tapped into, which is the stuff Diageo had been holding for use in Crown Royal. Why they decided not to use it in Crown we don't know, but it probably wasn't because it tasted too good.

[HP12]

I don't know...bump me in 10 years and we'll see what's up.

[doubleblank]

Does anybody know for sure that the "mature stocks" are actually S-W wheated bourbon?

Depends on what you want to define as S-W wheated bourbon. The stocks I have seen in the past were "Old Fitzgerald", from both DSP 16 and DSP 113. At that time is was being blended into Crown as Chuck stated above. About 5 years ago early conversations with a Diageo Exec were promising regarding getting some of these old stocks released for others to barrel as single barrels. Didn't go anywhere at the time but as we know now, other bottlers have gotten access to some of this stock.

[Josh]

Depends on what you want to define as S-W wheated bourbon. The stocks I have seen in the past were "Old Fitzgerald", from both DSP 16 and DSP 113. At that time is was being blended into Crown as Chuck stated above. About 5 years ago early conversations with a Diageo Exec were promising regarding getting some of these old stocks released for others to barrel as single barrels. Didn't go anywhere at the time but as we know now, other bottlers have gotten access to some of this stock.

That was exactly what I was getting at. Probably Bernheim wheated bourbon there too, and who knows what else Diageo may have sitting around. And even if it is genuine S-W wheater , as Chuck said, there's a good chance it's not all that good.

[cowdery]

I believe Zoeller mentioned, when he did the Jefferson's, that there was "more where that came from." I'm just very wary of any 20+ year old bourbon, especially when it hasn't been babied to get it to that age without over-wooding. I'm much more interested in what Diageo actually plans to do at SW, distilling-wise.