Fitz 20 year old?

[dSculptor]

So what really is the reason for offering it in those damn 375's? More profit? More juice to go around? Man, that's a turn off for me, my guess at price...$229.00. I'll pass just because of the 375 thing, just like the Bt experimentals, never bought any of those, was gifted one once by my daughter, which I thanked her, but then told her never to waste her $ on those again.

[smokinjoe]

I'm not sure I understand the pushback to 375ml bottles. Particularly, for ultra-special releases like this would seem to be. If pricing does reach into the very upper levels as surmised, and if it is limited in absolute quantity available, and we also don't know what the whiskey tastes like going in, it would seem to me that the proposed smaller packages are positives for the consumer.

[squire]

I agree, small bottles for those interested in the whisky rather than the label. A 100 mill would be suitable for those who want a taste without first taking out a bank loan.

[Kartofel]

I also like the idea of small bottles. It's less of a gamble in terms of cost and volume if I don't like it, and I'm free to try other new things sooner. If I do like it, I can probably get more. Something along this line would only ever be a very special treat anyway, so there's no need to have a lot.

I personally just like the idea of Old Fitz having a premium expression, and am kind of sad it doesn't have the same style paper labels that the bonded and Prime do. I find them strangely attractive, especially the bonded's.

[Harry in WashDC]

Well do share when you find out Harry, now you've got me wondering.

Now I know where Diageo got their advertising copy. Sally Van Winkle Campbell, in Chapter 13 - 'The Key to Hospitality' in 'But Always Fine Bourbon' (about halfway through the electro book) wrote that a new office was added to the original S-W building in 1949, and the door knocker consisted of a ring of heavy brass keys. "There were five keys, and they stood for the five steps in the making of bourbon [and also] served as the symbol of hospitality -- the Keys to Hospitality. I don't know whose idea the keys were, but they served as a link between Stitzel-Weller and the old Southern traditions of warmth, hospitality and enjoyment of the finer things of life. They appeared often, on bottle labels, on stationery, and on billboards. The symbol was made into a huge, brass bottle opener that graced many a customer's coffee table or bar . . ."

-- Bold in original; Quote is from Kindle ebook Location 1210 of 2137.

[The Black Tot]

Well, the small bottles cost more per unit whiskey. Which makes sense, because it's more glass, probably more shipping hassle, labeling expense, etc, etc.

But in the same sort of argument as not having to take out a bank loan, I don't want my pours to cost more per unit, even if they are high cost pours to begin with.

I've got to disagree with you here, in a friendly way. When the distilleries find out you actually think it's a fine idea to pay big bottle prices for small bottles, that's ushering in a new wave of cost increase per pour.

[luther.r]

I'm much less concerned about the 375ml bottle and more annoyed that they're watering it down to 90 proof.

[smokinjoe]

Well, the small bottles cost more per unit whiskey. Which makes sense, because it's more glass, probably more shipping hassle, labeling expense, etc, etc.

But in the same sort of argument as not having to take out a bank loan, I don't want my pours to cost more per unit, even if they are high cost pours to begin with.

I've got to disagree with you here, in a friendly way. When the distilleries find out you actually think it's a fine idea to pay big bottle prices for small bottles, that's ushering in a new wave of cost increase per pour.

By that reasoning, would you prefer HH only release it only 1.75s? Or, totes?

I still think that based on the specialty of this release and all that cones with that, twice as many available bottles to the market, in individual quantities that limit risk in whether any person will actually like it, at only ~1/2 the total cost, is a good thing for me. Frankly, I don't see any linkage between the idea of small bottles for specialty releases, and any potential general cost increases per pour in general.

[Josh]

I'm not sure I understand the pushback to 375ml bottles. Particularly, for ultra-special releases like this would seem to be. If pricing does reach into the very upper levels as surmised, and if it is limited in absolute quantity available, and we also don't know what the whiskey tastes like going in, it would seem to me that the proposed smaller packages are positives for the consumer.

I completely agree. I would rather dump half a $50 375 ml bottle than 3/4 of a $100 750 ml, if it came to that.

[smokinjoe]

I completely agree. I would rather dump half a $50 375 ml bottle than 3/4 of a $100 750 ml, if it came to that.

Bingo! And, why I think all craft distilled bourbon should only be bottled in airplane minis...

[garbanzobean]

By that reasoning, would you prefer HH only release it only 1.75s? Or, totes?

I still think that based on the specialty of this release and all that cones with that, twice as many available bottles to the market, in individual quantities that limit risk in whether any person will actually like it, at only ~1/2 the total cost, is a good thing for me. Frankly, I don't see any linkage between the idea of small bottles for specialty releases, and any potential general cost increases per pour in general.

[The Black Tot]

By that reasoning, would you prefer HH only release it only 1.75s? Or, totes?

[petrel800]

Count me in on the 375s. I've thought the industry should be moving in that direction for the last several years with how crazy the super limited market has gotten. Sure the price goes up, but lets face it, most of the special releases these days are underpriced. It's why you have to go through a song and dance to get your hands on any of them.

Buffalo Trace would make me a happy man if they would release the BTAC in a 5 pack of 200mls annually.

[Tony Santana]

I wouldn't want to see all limited editions go this route, but this is a situation that seems to warrant it. If the bourbon is really good, with the S-W name attached, this will theoretically be very sought after. They're not going to be making any more of it. Why not sell in .375's to allow more people to get it? If the prices are going to be anywhere near what people are predicting here I won't be buying any, but so be it. We've been advising newbies to buy smaller bottles to try stuff, and as petrel800 points out, something like a BTAC 5 pack would like be a big seller.

Plus, a .357 might be easier to store.

[petrel800]

I wouldn't want to see all limited editions go this route, but this is a situation that seems to warrant it. If the bourbon is really good, with the S-W name attached, this will theoretically be very sought after. They're not going to be making any more of it. Why not sell in .375's to allow more people to get it? If the prices are going to be anywhere near what people are predicting here I won't be buying any, but so be it. We've been advising newbies to buy smaller bottles to try stuff, and as petrel800 points out, something like a BTAC 5 pack would like be a big seller.

Plus, a .357 might be easier to store.

[dSculptor]

I can see both points of view on this, but it still makes me wonder if that is their true intention, ...spreading the juice around, I guess I can't see any other reason in doing it otherwise, On the other hand look what happened with MMCS , they did the same thing only to end up putting it in 750's anyway, granted it's not a limited release or never to be had again juice. I was always an advocate of the sample bottle thing though, just not paying 750 prices for half the juice, I guess that's what t's me off about the whole thing. I remember a ways back , I almost bought some juice called the Last Drop, (I believe it was an Irish, don't know if any of you guys had heard about this stuff),but I think it was intended more for an investment than drinking, they bottled a 50 ml sample along with the 750 just so you wouldn't have to open the bottle for a taste. I think the price was $1k or more, needless to say I passed, but sure would of liked to taste that 50 ml. of it!

[The Black Tot]

It would probably be good for me if they all started doing 375s - it would save me a lot of hassle finding and buying them

But hey, I respect from the comments here that obviously I seem to be the minority opinion.

Me, I like to see a big 750 of great bourbon on my bar. I get offended buying in the UK when the bottles are 700mL - they stole my last pour!!!

[tanstaafl2]

I can see both points of view on this, but it still makes me wonder if that is their true intention, ...spreading the juice around, I guess I can't see any other reason in doing it otherwise, On the other hand look what happened with MMCS , they did the same thing only to end up putting it in 750's anyway, granted it's not a limited release or never to be had again juice. I was always an advocate of the sample bottle thing though, just not paying 750 prices for half the juice, I guess that's what t's me off about the whole thing. I remember a ways back , I almost bought some juice called the Last Drop, (I believe it was an Irish, don't know if any of you guys had heard about this stuff),but I think it was intended more for an investment than drinking, they bottled a 50 ml sample along with the 750 just so you wouldn't have to open the bottle for a taste. I think the price was $1k or more, needless to say I passed, but sure would of liked to taste that 50 ml. of it!

It is fairly old blended Scotch. Apparently they now have a cognac as well.

[smokinjoe]

I was always an advocate of the sample bottle thing though, just not paying 750 prices for half the juice, I guess that's what t's me off about the whole thing.

You're not paying for 750 ml but getting only half that. You're getting, and paying for, 375 ml.

[shoshani]

I'm not sure about the Diageo version, but the Fitzgerald mythology is explained here, and the key generally fits in with that:

http://larcenybourbon.com/our-legacy/

Diageo explains the key in their spiel somewhere, but I am too lazy to go find that.

I've been researching this for years, and late last night I finally hit my head on something I'd never seen. And the more I look into it, the more convinced I am that the Fitzgerald mythology is exactly that. Somewhere Herbst or Bixler pulled the story out of thin air, basing it on two different people with the same name. John E. Fitzgerald was an Internal Revenue gauger. And John E. Fitzgerald was a well-regarded distiller. But they were not the same person.

John E. Fitzgerald the Internal Revenue gauger was indicted in Milwaukee in January 1876, along with fellow gaugers John S. Taft and William H. Roddis, internal revenue storekeeper Louis Bemis, and rectifiers Louis, Samuel, Elias, and Max Rindskopf, and Christian Salontine, on charges of "conspiracy to defraud the government in the manufacture and sale of whiskey" by, among other things, falsifying a government form (known as Form 59) stating the taxable amount of spirit alcohol being kept on hand in warehouses. The entire scandal was known as the Whiskey Ring, and is part of the history of American Distilling.

John E. Fitzgerald the distiller became plant superintendent of the Hammond Distilling Company of Hammond, Indiana, when it opened in 1901. The distillery treasurer was Fitzgerald's father-in-law, Austin O. Sexton. According to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle of December 15, 1901, prior to being involved with Hammond, Fitzgerald had been involved with distilling for some twenty years, the bulk of it running the Henry Shufeldt distillery in Chicago during the time it was being threatened by the whiskey trust.

In Charles Henry Taylor's History of the Board of Trade of the city of Chicago, Volume 3, published in 1917, a glowing entry is found for John E. Fitzgerald the distiller, who was still running the Hammond plant and was credited with using enough grain in his distillery to warrant a seat on the Chicago Board of Trade. It also lists several investments, and his vice-presidency of the First National Bank of Hammond, Indiana. But this article also states that John E. Fitzgerald the distiller was born in New York, NY, on Feb 3, 1865. This would make John E. Fitzgerald the distiller just shy of his eleventh birthday when John E. Fitzgerald the internal revenue gauger was indicted in January, 1876.

Fitzgerald the Chicago area distiller seems to have been quite the impressive figure. It would seem that the story of John E. Fitzgerald distilling a prestigious whiskey has a bigger ring to it than the story of (a completely different) John E. Fitzgerald stealing honey barrels of whiskey. Which, while *that* Fitzgerald was indicted for fraud against the government after a career as a gauger that went back some six years or so, there is no record (other than Herbst's or Bixler's story) that he ever stole whiskey. Besides that, weren't there two warehouse keys, one for the distiller and one for the government agent, both needing to be present to open the warehouses? Fitzgerald was a gauger, which means his job was to determine alcohol content, which he would not have done alone. That he used his position to foster collusion demonstrates that.

With this new discovery I stumbled over last night, I'm inclined to believe that perhaps Herbst (who had offices and warehouse space in Chicago) bought blending whiskey from distiller Fitzgerald and somehow honored him with a brand of straight whiskey that was, ironically, not distilled in Fitzgerald's Chicago-area distillery. (I say "somehow" because one might think there would be a legal issue regarding trading off the fame of another distiller.) It could be that the Hammond Distilling Company only sold to blenders and rectifiers, not marketing a straight whiskey on their own. The pre-pro.com website has a sales calling card (more like a broadsheet) from "Henry H. Shufeldt & Co., Rectifiers", in which Fine Compounds of All Descriptions are offered from their rectifying house, along with double-stamp ryes and bourbons and a branded whiskey called Imperial. As I mentioned before, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle stated that John E. Fitzgerald the distiller spent most of his working life (apparently from the age of 15 or 16) at Shufeldt before helping set up and run Hammond.

And, curiously, the Shufeldt sales calling card states "Distillery Established 1849" It's at about the 8:00 position if you read the ring of indicia around the distillery image like a clock.

1849. A year associated with Old Fitzgerald whiskey. Nominally because that's when W. L. Weller started his business, but that year also being the start of the distillery where John E. Fitzgerald got his start in distilling is very uncanny.

Edit: one other thing I thought worthy of note. Fitzgerald the gauger, in his involvement with the Whiskey Ring, was part of a scheme that siphoned off millions of dollars in federal liquor taxes for the benefit of Republican politicians. Fitzgerald the distiller is noted in the Board of Trade book as a staunch Democrat. (Absolutely no inferences here at all, I only include this to further contrast the two different John E. Fitzgeralds.)

Edited May 27, 2015 by shoshani

[squire]

Thanks for that information Michael. I believe Mr. Herbst, creator and owner of the Old Fitzgerald brand, credited John E. Fitzgerand, whisky gauger and noted pilferer, as inspiration for the brand and the whole story was basically an inside joke. Fitzgerad was indicted but I don't think ever convicted.

Edited May 27, 2015 by squire

[Josh]

Nicely done Michael! Thanks for sharing.

[shoshani]

According to Mr. Herbst, creator and owner of the Old Fitzgerald brand, his inspiration was the whisky gauger/pilferer John Fitzgerald and the whole story was basically an inside joke. Fitzgerad was indicted but I don't think ever convicted.

No, testimony from an otherwise-unnamed Mr. Caswell indicates that Fitzgerald received immunity.

[Harry in WashDC]

Fascinating, and thank you for the links, too.

[dSculptor]

You're not paying for 750 ml but getting only half that. You're getting, and paying for, 375 ml.