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What I Recently Learned About American Whiskey


FacePlant
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Well a lot. Just finished Fred Minnick's new book last night. I think it would be hard to read this without a good pour at hand. Fascinating history of American Whiskey-from the late 1700's through 2016. If I'm not mistaken it came of the presses in October.

The only thing I'll quote (and that's from memory) is that in 1936, several years after prohibition, over $500,000,000 in federal taxes came from the whiskey industry. That was 13% of the entire Federal Tax haul for the year! And that figure doesn't include any state and local tax.

The book was very informative, interesting, and broad enough to discuss the entire spirits business over the past few centuries. Both historic and modern research at it's best. Congratulations on a fine read Fred. 

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What's the name of the book? I've been looking for something like this to give myself some historical context of whiskey. 

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6 hours ago, FacePlant said:

Well a lot. Just finished Fred Minnick's new book last night. I think it would be hard to read this without a good pour at hand. Fascinating history of American Whiskey-from the late 1700's through 2016. If I'm not mistaken it came of the presses in October.

The only thing I'll quote (and that's from memory) is that in 1936, several years after prohibition, over $500,000,000 in federal taxes came from the whiskey industry. That was 13% of the entire Federal Tax haul for the year! And that figure doesn't include any state and local tax.

The book was very informative, interesting, and broad enough to discuss the entire spirits business over the past few centuries. Both historic and modern research at it's best. Congratulations on a fine read Fred. 

I bought the book when it came out a few months ago - a very good read!

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Also checkout "Kentucky Bourbon Whishkey", by Michael R. Veach, another good read.

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Thank you for the kind words. In addition to mine and Mike's, I highly recommend Chuck's works, Reid Mitenbuler, Susan Reigler and Clay Risen, as well as the upcoming title from Carla Carlton, whose works I've not read but I admire her. We all take different angles and dig deep in our own way to history. I truly believe American whiskey research is just beginning. With all this interest, colleges are taking interest and students are studying the spirit we all love. That's a good thing, right?  

 

Bourbon was my effort to study the spirit's political and taxation impacts. I really wanted to try to answer the why and how of subjects such as medicinal whiskey and the 1964 Congressional Resolution.

 

Again, thank you for the kind words. I hope to share a dram with you all at next year's Bourbon Festival.  

 

 

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32 minutes ago, fminnick said:

 

32 minutes ago, fminnick said:

 

Again, thank you for the kind words. I hope to share a dram with you all at next year's Bourbon Festival.  

 

 

 Don't forget about the Sampler Fred.;)

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11 hours ago, fminnick said:

... students are studying the spirit we all love. That's a good thing, right?  

 

 

 

 

Don't know about "studying" but apparently they are busy consuming in mass quantities. But this is nothing new.

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4 minutes ago, Flyfish said:

Don't know about "studying" but apparently they are busy consuming in mass quantities. But this is nothing new.

 

There are actual academic programs and even degrees with bourbon focuses right now. Midway University launched a tourism-focused MBA with a concentration on bourbon and UK is studying bourbon in its food science courses, while other schools are beginning to mention whiskey in their history classes instead of ignoring its value. I've even had high school teachers tell me they discuss bourbon in history.

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What a world we live in.  We are now grown up enough to discuss and study the value of whiskey in our universities and high schools, while at the same time removing vending machines, and generally shunning and demonizing soft drinks and their producers in the same institutions!  :lol:

 

Congrats on your continued success as a fine writer.

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