Flavored spirits

[bourbonmed]

Why are several KY distillers experimenting with 'flavored' and 'finished' whiskeys?

The article below gives plenty of clues.

Omar

http://money.cnn.com/2003/10/27/news/companies/whisky/

[tdelling]

Thanks for posting a link to the article. It has some rather

interesting information in it.

I will disagree with your conclusion, though.

Creative wood finishes are in interesting trend, but they have nothing

to do with the candy-flavored trends in drinks nowadays.

Your average armchair pop-culture-watcher can tell you that kids

are increasingly being raised on artificial colors and flavors.

The "Skittles" generation is now the 21-30 age group that buys

alcohol and goes to bars. They naturally want overly sweetened

drinks pumped full of flavors that were obviously manufactured in

some lab just off the New Jersey Turnpike.

Sherry-finished bourbon isn't going to compete in this market.

It isn't artificial enough, and isn't over-flavored enough.

If the bourbon people want to compete in this market, their best

bet is through whiskey sours or something similar. Somehow pre-mix

the sour mix with the bourbon... and hope that bartenders use this new

concoction in creative ways.

It would be a little difficult, though. Cognac is already fruity, and

so it's natural to add red food coloring and "red" flavor. ("Red" is now

recognized as a flavor, just like "strawberry" or "bananna".) There's

no obvious "extreme" flavor to add to bourbon. The best you could do would

perhaps be mint? I shudder at the thought of "flavored" bourbons.

Tim Dellinger

[MurphyDawg]

The "Skittles" generation is now the 21-30 age group that buys

alcohol and goes to bars.

Just a refreshing reminder from that demographic that we are not ALL like that (though a depressing majority is).

I figure the best way to compete with these trends similar to the way Jack Daniels does, and promote Downhome Punch/Watermelon Spikes type drinks. I figure the bottled versions are "malternatives" but the drinks can be made with the real deal. Then "the kids" can have their fruity shit, but they dont actually have to change the base product. At least thats what I can hope. . .

Tom (Hell No! To Big Pink Drinks!!) C