Deception at the Willett Distillery: An Integrity Problem

[squire]

But do they "contract" out the distilling, or do they buy barrels in bulk?

Bulk purchases are just that, you get the whisky the other guy makes according to his recipe.

[squire]

On point here, Willett "hand selecting" barrels is not a "myth".

It most certainly is a myth Joe, and what's worse it's a lie. Willett is not allowed to go into producing distillery warehouses and "hand select" barrels which is the impression they have been conveying for years. They will of course sort through the barrels they buy but that's a different thing entirely.

[sob0728]

You can't really say that either as several of those WFEs and KBD products are widely regarded as some of the best whiskies ever.

You mean that bottles that are being sold all over the internet. If they were really that good don't you think people would be drinking them?

[Flyfish]

A fellow once told me that although Farewell to Arms is by all reports a great novel, he refused to read it because Hemingway was not a nice man. It sounds like some SBers are saying that Willett is great bourbon but it was "plagiarized" from some other distiller without appropriate attribution.

Integrity is a wonderful and desirable ethical quality. (Here comes the "but.") If I restricted my bourbon consumption to products of distillers without blemish, I would be forced to give it up altogether. I tend to ask three key questions when buying bourbon: Does it taste good? Can I afford it? Does it taste good? (Sometimes I ignore question 2.)

[Gillman]

I thought one of the e-mails quoted in the first postings here suggested a contracting out. And no doubt, more in the past I think, some barreled stuff was brought in, but a lot of that was mingled, which is an important part of the equation.

I always think (anyway) of Mike Veach saying here once that he had heard that distilleries sometimes tanked white dog in to age and it went out as identified to that distillery. Whether that was strictly valid or not at the time, I don't know, but the point is, the character of the drink is largely from the onsite aging, not the dog.

At one time, distillers made the corn they distilled, then they bought it from others. Should they have told anyone? Did it make it any less theirs? It is theirs because their name is on it.

But once again, no, I don't agree if some guides are saying, we distill it here. They shouldn't say that IMO if it isn't.

Gary

[mbroo5880i]

OK, Willett may buy in bulk. But, they then hand select certain, "highest quality" barrels to be bottled under their most premium labels. Others, which may be of lesser quality are mingled and bottled under mid shelf labels. Point being, Willett has shown a penchant for hand selecting extraordinary barrels for bottling into world class whiskies. Based on some reviews that I have read and heard, they continue to do this today.

This is how I have always viewed their products. The majority may be HH distillate which is fine. I believe the value added is providing the aged product both NCF and at BP. When it sold for $49 a bottle, there was great value. Now, when it sells for $89 a bottle, not so much. I have never had a WFE product that I did not like. However, I find most of the standard KBD offerings (Pot Still, Rowan's Creek, Johnny Drum, etc.) to be average at best and less preferred to lower priced alternatives available directly from HH.

Other than PHC and EWSB, and gift shop offerings, I don't know of any current HH products that match the WFE profile (which granted is NCF and BP). I recall Chuck once writing that producers occasionally sell older (and presumably, some better stocks) as they balance their inventories. Not that this happens much today, but I can see where Willett might have purchased such whiskies in the past.

[mbroo5880i]

You mean that bottles that are being sold all over the internet. If they were really that good don't you think people would be drinking them?

Unfortunately, there are a fair number of people who buy and sell whiskey as an investment. Name and scarcity mean more than quality and provenance.

[smokinjoe]

It most certainly is a myth Joe, and what's worse it's a lie. Willett is not allowed to go into producing distillery warehouses and "hand select" barrels which is the impression they have been conveying for years. They will of course sort through the barrels they buy but that's a different thing entirely.

Squire, I stated that they buy in bulk, then hand select the barrels for bottling. Clearly, that is done on Willett's premises.

There is one thing that you and I can not be certain of, and that's whether or not, Willett has or has ever had any say on what barrels they want...from which rickhouse, floor, mashbill, etc...My guess is that they probably have at some point or another. I would also suggest that Willett is not buying the barrels "sight unseen". Certainly, they are permitted samplings of the Lot(s), and may then determine to submit an offer of purchase based on that determination.

Clearly, if your assertion is that a Willett representative does not roam the rickhouses of the producers randomly opening and selecting individual barrels, then I would agree with you on that. Heck, I'm not even sure Parker Beam is allowed to do that at HH!

[MyOldKyDram]

You mean that bottles that are being sold all over the internet. If they were really that good don't you think people would be drinking them?

When you can make 50x what they cost you? Why. Make no mistake though, plenty have been and still are consumed.

[Gillman]

I looked back and the e-mails speak of the brands being a "private label" and being brought in to Willett's to age. I read private label as suggesting a contracting out, i.e., a manufacture of white dog to Willett's requirements. But even if it isn't that, even if it is just part of the regular run of HH rye-recipe whiskey, say, clearly what is stated is, it is brought to age - some of it anyway - at the Willett property. That aging environment will give it most of its character. Added to which, selecting, mingling and maybe blending with aged make from other private label distillers completes the picture. The white dog has become a Willett bourbon, truly. I think what may be happening is some guides may be using imprecise language but guides tend to do that and I've heard many incorrect statements from guides at large distillers. It happens, and is not the end of the world. At the end of the day, as Chuck said, anyone interested in bourbon is behooved to find out as much as he can on his own. It is rewarding and then the stuff you wish was different is just noise. That is how I look at it anyway.

Gary

[Gillman]

I agree with what Smokin' said as far as that part of what Willett bottles is concerned, i.e., fully-aged stuff brought in. But I believe, and those e-mails suggested, that a lot of it is coming in as white dog to be aged onsite. The character will be different than from the HH warehouses. Add to this that some of that pre-aged stuff is mingled with other stuff, either pre-aged sourced from other distillers, or aged onsite, or a bit of both. Given all this complexity of sourcing, a Willett house flavor, or house characteristics at least, have developed IMO. I think part of the umbrage taken by those who consider there should be a still onsite - well there is but its output is too young as yet for release - is that that still "determines" who made the bourbon. It doesn't though unless the bourbon was bought fully aged and is bottled without mingling. I think there is enough evidence that that is not the business model today at Willett, or not the dominant one. That is my read and interpretation, at any event.

Consider too, given the bourbon shortage we hear of, a distiller is less likely today than at any time in the last 20 years, long-term contracts aside, to sell fully-aged bourbon to a NDP. It will sell, possibly, new make, but want to keep the aged bourbon for its own needs. This lends credence to the idea that for some time Willett has aged new make on its premises sourced on the open market.

Gary

Edited May 23, 2014 by Gillman

[Gillman]

Here is another thing: even assuming a run of, say, 10 barrels of bourbon are dumped for bottling and they just came in fully-aged from ABC Distillery somewhere else in the state, let's say Willett then dumps in a barrel of bourbon aged on its site exclusively since it was white dog. Or, dumps in a barrel or half barrel of very old bourbon of the type Willett was known for years to have in inventory of whatever provenance, 26 year old bourbon, say. Will that bottled bourbon taste like 4 year old ABC brand? Darn straight it won't. This is the kind of thing I have understood for years Willett's does, or something along those lines. It's doing something right and distinguishing itself in the market one way or another. It's doing it by selling Willett bourbon, at the end of fhe day (IMO).

Gary

[squire]

Joe the way I understand these auctions work is the bidders are not permitted samples because the distillery only intends to pull the barrels once and that after a firm sale has taken place.

[Josh]

I don't know if it's been posted, but this cluster-um-bomb of a thread is on a related topic, and features an appearance from Drew himself.

http://www.straightbourbon.com/forums/showthread.php?13585-Whiskey-Trails-17-Year-Old-Bourbon&highlight=Whiskey+trails

[cowdery]

Willett buys bulk like the others. The contract distilling angle is fable.

Contract distilling is real and, these days, you can't do the volume of business that Willett/KBD does without long term contracts. That said, I suspect the contract stuff goes into the Old Bardstown and Johnny Drum, and some of the young Willetts maybe, but the old stuff is most certainly bulk. Contract, by the way, doesn't necessarily mean custom, although it might. More typically it just means that they have a contract with one or more producers to supply them with x-amount of whiskey at specified ages every year for a pre-determined price.

[callmeox]

Contract vs custom...got it. Language is a tricky thing.

[squire]

Chuck if the contract is for a certain amount of whisky at a specified age will it be delivered in barrels or totes?

[cowdery]

Contract vs custom...got it. Language is a tricky thing.

Put another way, all custom is contract but not all contract is custom.

[callmeox]

Put another way, all custom is contract but not all contract is custom.

Fully understood. My mind went toward custom when I heard contract but the difference is important.

[HP12]

Put another way, all custom is contract but not all contract is custom.

Similar to all Scotch is whisk(e)y but not all whisk(e)y is Scotch.

[s8ist]

Re: Contract Distilling

Rittenhouse anyone? If I'm not mistaken, contract distilling at it's finest. I would guess that the "recipe" is the same, but there is a definite difference between 354 and 1. Is it the distiller, the still, the rickhouses? I don't know, but I can taste the difference.

I have done the Willett tour and been given the same line that they don't do the distilling but that it is distilled by others to their exacting recipe. If I can extrapolate this onto the Rittenhouse scenario, then this statement only implies that it might make a huge difference as to WHO is doing the contract distilling of said recipe. If HH is distilling the recipe, then there could definitely be some HH-idness to the final product. Same if BF distills it, or 4 Roses, etc.

I have had some KBD products that are bang on HH distillate, and by that I mean a very, very specific HH brand. But I didn't experience that with either of the WPSR or WFE bourbons I've had. Neither one reminded me of any particular house style. But I'm not an expert in this arena. I haven't tasted every HH brand they offer (or everything that any other houses offer - I can only drink so much, but I'm trying!).

Of the HH offerings I have had, I can only state that the variances in single barrel offerings are often so huge that it's quite possible that everything that KBD does comes from HH (with the exception of the young ryes) and we'd likely not be able to tell except when it does match up to some particular HH offering.

The irony here (to me) is that if you drink wine, most wineries don't own the vineyards that they get their grapes from to make their wine. Yet nobody seems to have such a huge problem with that. I was recently at a winemaker's dinner in Lodi, CA and luckily got seated right next to the winemaker. So I started asking questions about their various wines, in particular about their Barbera wine which stands up to the best Italian versions I've had. Come to find out that they don't grow Barbera at all in Lodi at all, instead it comes from up state in Amador county.

As chance would happen, I got to stop in Amador for a day and went to sample as many local Barbera wines as I could. Guess what? Every one I tried was terrible! None tasted as lush and full as the one I buy from Lodi. What's the difference? Is it the vineyard? Is it the vintner? Is it the fermenting and aging in a different region? The answer is: Yes.

Same thing applies to whiskey. I trust the winemaker in Lodi to make a product that I enjoy. I trust KBD to deliver a product in Willett that I will enjoy. The guessing game? Well that's part of the fun and the mystique. It's the guessing that keeps me entertained and eager to try whiskeys of various houses and styles. If I like it, I don't question it, I just buy a few more bottles.

Edited May 28, 2014 by s8ist

[squire]

I have done the Willett tour and been given the same line that they don't do the distilling but that it is distilled by others to their exacting recipe.

This from people who are the subject of the integrity thread.

[Phil T]

There has been label approval of Family Estate Small Batch Rye. Cask strength, 108.2 proof, 2yr old straight rye whiskey.

Distilled, aged, and bottled by the Willett Distillery

[GaryT]

There has been label approval of Family Estate Small Batch Rye. Cask strength, 108.2 proof, 2yr old straight rye whiskey.

Distilled, aged, and bottled by the Willett Distillery

I'd like to try it (as young rye thus far has been pretty good), but I hope they don't price it where their 4 yr is today. And I hope they don't bottle a ton of it as I'm really looking forward to some more mature rye from them in the future!

[PaulO]

A number of years ago, when I started to see the WFE distilled in Indiana rye, some of the earliest I saw were 2 years old. It was bottled at I believe 114 proof. I was able to save one. I don't know if they just managed to find a spectacular barrel, but to me, it was some of the best of the juice from IN.