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Are we becoming accustomed to inferior whiskey ?


Cranecreek
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It probably started a decade ago, maybe longer.  When did Wild Turkey lose the 8 year designation ?  When was it that Bookers and Evan Williams slipped from 9 years to seven or even six.  We know when Elijah Craig went NAS along with Knob Creek.  KBD with their Rowans and Noah's did the same.  Countless others went the same route.  We were not supposed to notice, in fact many who have joined the "Bourbon Bubble" have never had the pleasure of sipping on an Ancient Ancient Age from the past.  But even more recently we are losing by the day the taste of what was once good bourbon.  Now we spend north of $50 for what would have been rejected not that many years ago.  Now I understand supply and demand and how aged stocks are now very rare.  My concern is even when we pay a premium for new expressions touted as extra aged or consisting of remaining stocks of some long closed distillery we are falling into a pattern of accepting these as the finest whiskey ever.  This whiskey is not superior, it is barely average when compared with that of the past.  Age by itself is not a guarantee of quality, nor is a brands reputation.  We bourbon lovers still have a long wait ahead of us, but while we wait let's not lose memory of what truly great bourbon should taste like !

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I must respectfully respond that outside of acknowledging some obvious facts that you cite regarding age statements, there is not much else you say that I agree with.  :)

 

There are many fabulous high quality whiskies being released by all of the legacy Distilleries, and at no time has the consistency been higher.  Yes, I long for some of the long departed labels, but that is certainly offset by dozens of what I consider world-class whiskies.

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I see that you joined here in March of this year, I am going to assume your bourbon experience is much older. I joined in 2013, about the same time I started drinking bourbon. I have found that price and quality don't always match. I am probably part of the boom and therefore part of the problem, I really wish I had the opportunity to taste some of the bourbons you refer to, that said I have and still do find some that are very good.

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48 minutes ago, smokinjoe said:

I must respectfully respond that outside of acknowledging some obvious facts that you cite regarding age statements, there is not much else you say that I agree with.  :)

 

There are many fabulous high quality whiskies being released by all of the legacy Distilleries, and at no time has the consistency been higher.  Yes, I long for some of the long departed labels, but that is certainly offset by dozens of what I consider world-class whiskies.

And I respectfully agree with your view.  It is not that there are not great bourbons being produced, but that they are out of the reach for the most part.  It is a symptom of the bubble.  For the vast majority of folks that are buying off the shelf what is available now is nowhere near what the quality was not all that long ago.  My point is that these offerings are becoming the "norm".  Call it the "camels nose" , in effect the quality of the new expressions whether it be Longbranch or Distillers Cut or some other expression is not representative of great bourbon.  In a nutshell what is now offered at $40 a bottle pales in comparison to what $25 bought not all that long ago.  If you remove the price equation, the entire range has taken a hit in quality. 

Edited by Cranecreek
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Since I am a cigar smoker, I’ll compare it to the cigar boom. More and more new cigar smokers brought a golden age of cigars. Cigar quality and availability has never been better even though the factories are cranking out more boxes than ever before. I think bourbon and other whiskies are similar.  Even though the demand is creating a huge supply, the quality is amazing. The competition amongst the distilleries is good for us, the lovers of the product.  

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1 hour ago, Cranecreek said:

the pleasure of sipping on an Ancient Ancient Age from the past.

I've already got too many open bottles, and now you've got me wanting to open an AAA 10yr or maybe an AA BIB :).

 

Yeah, I wish those were still available but there are still plenty of very good whiskies being offered at reasonable prices. We just have to be more selective buyers and do our homework, IMHO. You mention WT, and while I wish like hell I could buy 12yr split label or cheesy gold foil bottles, WT is still doing a great job with their standard 101 product. I've also been a fan of their RR 10yr, but when they started offering RR SB's they knocked it out of the park. WT is also a good example of being selective with your money. I've been able to try some of their $100+ bottles and while they've all been enjoyable, there's no way I'll pay that kind of $$ for any of them. As with anything, the more informed we can be, the better off we are with how to spend our money. There are too many overpriced mediocre whiskies out there taking advantage of the boom, but there are plenty that consistently do a great job at prices accessible to everyone.

 

P.S. let's not forget, not all whiskey from the past was great (or even good)

 

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5 hours ago, Cranecreek said:

In a nutshell what is now offered at $40 a bottle pales in comparison to what $25 bought not all that long ago.  If you remove the price equation, the entire range has taken a hit in quality. 

I'd say that this is not due to quality differences but that the distilleries (and all the Jonny come lately NDP's) know that they can charge whatever they want and the consumers will still buy it.

 

I'm with Joe - there's a LOT of great bourbon out there right now, some of it even at great values. There's also some that are no longer available that I pine for but it's offset by the great stuff available right now.

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I think I read somewhere on this site that Wild Turkey was increasing the age of the 101 to 8 years.

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I understand what Cranecreek is saying. I’m new to the hobby as I only got serious about developing a bourbon palate in 2012. I think we might be getting distracted by subjective (legitimate) observations about taste while contrasting it with objective observations about the loss of age statements and the increase in production and available labels. Note: the two objective observations I gave as examples are intentionally contrary in terms of what we enthusiasts look for as a positive. 

 

My point is that we’ve seen change and are having debates about what conclusions can be drawn while still in the flux of an ever changing market. I’ve seen it in my short time in the hobby. I have trouble drawing broad conclusions from the data points I see. The one thing I feel comfortable saying is that during a time of supply greatly exceeding demand, that for the relatively fewer drinkers in the hobby, you were likely being offered better selected bourbon in the mid shelf and higher labels. Be it because the distillers were being more picky in what they sold or because it sat on the shelf, it was available. And their bad batches were dumped overseas, into the bottom shelf or held back.

 

Now, when demand is greatly outpacing supply you will see problems in availability, pricing, age statements and the like. Yes, those are objective measurements of demand>supply but can we say generally we’re drinking worse bourbon? I’m not sure about that. The distilleries are expanding. I don’t know if supply will ever catch up but I know I can find good bourbon. Besides learning to develop relationships with a few good stores, I also buy the labels that are readily available and taste good. We all have them. And the distilleries each have their own approach to the boom. 

 

Sorry for the ramble. I guess I’m uncomfortable drawing broad conclusions when what I’m seeing is a wide variety of good and bad effects from the boom, of which I’m a part, and very glad to be a part. 

Edited by Charlutz
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I share some of the OP’s sentiment but as the last post put it we may be commingling data and perceptions and folks may talk past each other a bit because of it. I’ve had similar in person debates with a few of you. I think that the simplest way to put it is that lots of things have changed in the 20 years that I’ve been geeking on bourbon both good and bad. Personally, my bads outweigh my goods. As with most things whiskey ymmv. ;)

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Very well put Charlie and Richard ^^^^.  I have the same 20-30 years that I have appreciated fine whiskey.  They say a picture is worth a 1,000 words....

343124854_20181021_095549_Film4(3).thumb.jpg.62950c9e94452138a81d61215200507a.jpg

From left to right is the age stated 12 (laser code A1945 0958)   NAS (code A1936 2345) New NAS (A1947 2334) and the BP C917 (A223 1802)

Since the age statement was dropped January 2016 IIRC then I think that the first 3 are 2015-2016-2017.  If someone knows how to read HH codes please chime in.

The 12 year has great depth and character and a huge dose of oak which some found to be tooo! much! at times.

When the age was dropped the oak remained but in a more consistently seasoned and sweeter manner.  Great depth of flavor.  In fact right around the time the age statement was being dropped I think the best EC I ever had was bottled.

 

Fast forward to the new bottle design and whats currently on the shelf and I find it has more in common with the Evan Williams line.  Last is the barrel proof which has been around longer than many know.  With the barrel proof you can experience what was available just a few short years ago.  But your going to pay for that and the vast majority (SBers excluded) are not going to shell out $65 very often.  I am reminded of a friend that I poured a glass of RR Sib for and when I told him it was about $45 a bottle he said "Well i'm not going to pay that for a bottle of bourbon !"  He said his next glass could be something different so we weren't drinking up the good stuff.  I looked in the cabinet and said "I don't have anything that isn't good."

Edited by Cranecreek
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What I've noticed is that my rotation of relatively inexpensive bottles has shrunk and my rotation of bottles that cost $25-$60 has expanded. So, I don't feel like I'm drinking inferior whiskey, but I'm definitely paying more than I used to on average.

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6 minutes ago, Spade said:

What I've noticed is that my rotation of relatively inexpensive bottles has shrunk and my rotation of bottles that cost $25-$60 has expanded. So, I don't feel like I'm drinking inferior whiskey, but I'm definitely paying more than I used to on average.

This. My 'inexpensive bottles' at this point are ER10 and McKenna 10 bib, though I don't find them cost prohibitive for what they are at all. I also think that, rather than inferior whiskey being bottled at this point (there's tons of great stuff out there), it's much harder to find the things many of us used to find easily and could have as regular drinkers. As a poor college student 15ish years ago I would treat myself twice a year to a PVW, it was incredibly expensive to me at the time, but I could always find it. That's not a thing anymore so that experience is gone for most of us (Havent gotten a bottle of pappy in 8ish years, nor am I likely to anytime soon).

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2 minutes ago, Spade said:

What I've noticed is that my rotation of relatively inexpensive bottles has shrunk and my rotation of bottles that cost $25-$60 has expanded. So, I don't feel like I'm drinking inferior whiskey, but I'm definitely paying more than I used to on average.

Exactly my point @Spade !  Let me see if I can put a different spin on this.  Take yourself back to standing in front of the bourbon shelf of your favorite liquor store say about 7 or 8 years ago.  The bottom shelf made up about 25% of the shelves, the mid layer about 50% of your choices and the top 25%, the "special occasion bunch".  Now when you go back to same said store what has changed ?  Somewhat surprisingly the bottom shelf looks the same as before.  The middle shelf though has expanded all the way to the top !  There is no top shelf.  It has been moved to behind the counter if it exists at all.  From this you have to make your own conclusions.  

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2 hours ago, Cranecreek said:

 There is no top shelf.  It has been moved to behind the counter if it exists at all.  From this you have to make your own conclusions.  

No top shelf?  An expanded Beam Small Batch Collection with a plethora of PS selections nationwide still occupies top shelf regions. Brown-Forman has added the Whiskey Row Series which is new in the last couple of years.  Barton has exploded into the upper shelves with the 1792 series.  BT with the EH Taylor line and Stagg Jr.  HH with an upshelf Pikesville Rye, ECBP (tight supply, yes, but just found 4 on shelf last week), McKenna 10 yr BIB, higher aged Larceny ( hey, don’t blame me that HH sells the last two so cheap... :D  ).  These are all examples of a robust, properly priced, and high quality whiskey top shelf.  But, if you’re saying we’re to rue the undersupply of some old faves, or Pappy, BTAC, OFBB, etc, becoming  victims of the boom and bubble, well, that might be asking a bit too much.  

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Somewhat orthogonal to the discussion, but the dilution of the bourbon ecosystem with tons of crap seems to lead to this perception too. The good stuff is still here, but we have a wall of rip offs occupying the rest of the shelf space.

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Too new to bourbon to comment on quality changes. I can say that I very much enjoy the bourbon I am drinking ona daily basis. I also recall many on here saying the newer WSR have been as good as ever and I imagine we will be saying the same about Antique soon. Yes we lost EC 12, but it does seem like the ECBP production is increasing which was a stated goal of HH if I am not mistaken. 

 

Production is up across the board and that means more barrels to choose from which in my mind means higher quality for many of our staples.  

 

Now if you replace “inferior” with “more expensive” in the title I certainly agree. Prices are up everywhere and I have recognized that my willingness to drop $100 plus on a bottle has increased greatly. 

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37 minutes ago, smokinjoe said:

No top shelf?  An expanded Beam Small Batch Collection with a plethora of PS selections nationwide still occupies top shelf regions. Brown-Forman has added the Whiskey Row Series which is new in the last couple of years.  Barton has exploded into the upper shelves with the 1792 series.  BT with the EH Taylor line and Stagg Jr.  HH with an upshelf Pikesville Rye, ECBP (tight supply, yes, but just found 4 on shelf last week), McKenna 10 yr BIB, higher aged Larceny ( hey, don’t blame me that HH sells the last two so cheap... :D  ).  These are all examples of a robust, properly priced, and high quality whiskey top shelf.  But, if you’re saying we’re to rue the undersupply of some old faves, or Pappy, BTAC, OFBB, etc, becoming  victims of the boom and bubble, well, that might be asking a bit too much.  

I think the region you happen to live in comes into play.  The only 1792 I ever see is the small batch.  Whiskey row only occasionally, no Stagg, and Eh Taylor is only represented by the small batch.

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1 minute ago, Cranecreek said:

I think the region you happen to live in comes into play.  The only 1792 I ever see is the small batch.  Whiskey row only occasionally, no Stagg, and Eh Taylor is only represented by the small batch.

The point is the same, though.  Regional, if not “micro-regional” disparities of selection may exist, but it does not lessen the fact of a multitude of quality top shelf selections being offered from the legacies.  I forgot to mention WT’s RB, KS, RRSiB...  :)

 

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Yes some of the legacies are putting out top quality for reasonable prices.

Back to the OP, great middle shelf brands have diminished: discontinued, loss of age statement, or allocated tight supply.  I've watched it happening dramatically since the early 2000s.

During this same time period many NDP and "craft" brands started wasting shelf space.

Also for me, it became harder to rationalize a day trip across the river into KY.  It used to be a big deal.  Nowadays I can get almost all the same items locally.

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Some great points made here already, but if the OP was referring in whole or part to the oft-romanticized glut years, keep in mind that distilleries were bottling whiskey that they likely thought was too old at the time but had to move somehow. In some cases, they may be now bottling something more in with what they intended all along. 

We may have to be more selective these days, but there's still some great whiskey to be had at reasonable prices if you're willing to spend a little time educating yourself.

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1 hour ago, mosugoji64 said:

Some great points made here already, but if the OP was referring in whole or part to the oft-romanticized glut years, keep in mind that distilleries were bottling whiskey that they likely thought was too old at the time but had to move somehow. In some cases, they may be now bottling something more in with what they intended all along. 

We may have to be more selective these days, but there's still some great whiskey to be had at reasonable prices if you're willing to spend a little time educating yourself.

I absolutely agree with your view.  I think in my original post i should have clarified that "we" referred to the general bourbon buying population, not informed buyers like us here on SB.  Positively there are great bourbons to be had at the over $40 range, ( and even afew below).  Part of my observation is based on economics of supply and demand, but there is also a glut of sub-par products crowding the choices at the mid-upper level.  Even as recently as 5 years ago or so you (anyone) could pick a bourbon off the middle shelf and almost be guaranteed of a quality product.  The major distillers were putting out their best and the NDP folks had ample supplies of well aged premium stocks from the likes af MGP and others.  That is not the case anymore in my opinion.  As noted by others with quality stocks no longer available and major distillers releasing young and questionable quality in new expressions designed to appeal to a the new buyer you can no longer be assured that your purchase is of the same quality than it was, such a short time ago.

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A couple thoughts (now that I've consumed a bit of basic WR with the Kentucky Derby label - for some reason it DOES taste better with that label on it.  Go figure.  ALSO, the pot still tang is absent.  Go figure again.).  As Joe said, there's lots of really good bourbon out there if one knows the offerings.  As CraneCreek said, the bourbon market is such that MANYMANY persons who do NOT know the offerings likely are buying too-young, attractively bottled "stuff" at too-high (IMnotsoHO) a price.  I, for one, don't care that they do so - they are subsidizing my consumption of the rest of the stuff as I am sure that the bottom-line persons inside the producers, like car producers figuring out average fleet mileage for EPA purposes, KNOW how to hit the number they are seeking profitwise.  They are indifferent to me as long as they hit that number.

 

ONE NIT-PICK: ". . . Even as recently as 5 years ago or so you (anyone) could pick a bourbon off the middle shelf and almost be guaranteed of a quality product . . ."  I maintain that such a person STILL would be picking a product of average quality although the price today likely is a few dollars per 750 more than it was back then.  Bottom shelf is hit-or-miss of course.  Recently, I tried to explain to a customer - who asked me - the difference between Seagram's Seven @ $9 a 750 and OGD 80 @ $14 a 750.  MORAL:  You can lead an ass to bourbon, but when their eyes glaze early in the explanation . . .

 

AND, re: price -- A 750 of wine yields about four 7+ oz. pours while a 750 of 80 proof bourbon yields about 12.6 2 oz. pours.  Presuming that the bourbon cost $25, that's about $2 a pour.  A $16 bottle of wine (which is more than some friends of mine spend, I admit), we're talking $4 a pour.  YET, those same friends laugh out loud when I suggest they stop buying Seagram's Seven and step up to OGD 80 and its competitors.

 

What you all think? 

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Harry, I like your "per pour" rationale. It puts the cost of enjoying bourbon in perspective with not only wine, but craft beer, and a lot of other things for that matter. I bought a $3.50 milkshake the other day, and a same cost pour from a $45 bourbon would have been more enjoyable, and come with fewer calories! 

 

As to the overall market, I still have a few of those red Weller Antique drawstring bags around that I use to store stuff, and just about every time I pick them up I chuckle that I used to buy WA107 back in the early 2000s as a $20 bottle (cheaper than my other favorite Knob Creek 9!)... to mix with Coke. ? So yeah, I'm a little sad I can't walk in and get some of the items I took for granted. But around 2007 I went to Kentucky for the first time and did the hard hat tour at BT, and it opened my eyes that bourbon was not just something you drink during college football season with soda. 

 

In the short term, the trade-off is certainly tighter stocks, fewer age statements, and higher costs, but in return more people than ever are able to access quality bourbon and find a wider array of interesting expressions that never existed in the past. Barrel strength MGP, store picks, barrel finishes, interesting blends of bourbons and/or ryes, not to mention all the new product lines and brand extensions mentioned above.

 

All to say: It's hard to appreciate how good a few select items were in the past without the benefit of hindsight, and then it should be weighed against the ability to enjoy so many more quality expressions now than ever before. While we can't go back to the good ol' days, we are living in tomorrow's good ol' days. Changes will most certainly come to brands, master distillers, wood (barrel) quality, aging, and/or industry consolidation that will have us scrambling then mourning for the things that are on the shelf today. (RIP HH6.)  

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How to respond...

 

In 2012 I could go to Binny's and Parker's Heritage POH was sitting on the shelf for 80 bucks.

 

Now Blood Oath costs 80 bucks, and I'd have to beg to get a Parker's Heritage release for 200 bucks.

 

Age statements DID reduce or disappear in a lot of cases. We are paying more money for less age.

 

Is the younger whiskey tasting the same due to technological improvements? Some say yes. I think not. Either way it's a self-serving argument by the producers.

 

An oft stated point on here is that older whiskey batches were less consistent, but that the great ones really stood out with very unique characters. Nowadays we have more consistent product, but that doesn't mean it's consistently knocked out of the park.

 

I've been walking around liquor stores in Houston this month and I have to say that for the most part...

 

...they don't have anything I want to buy...

 

Even of the private barrels that I take chances on, I'd say the success rate (of finding a really special one) is about 15%. 

 

A few releases come out a year like the KC limited rye which are great whiskey for a fair price. But for the most part it's much harder to find whiskey that good for a fair price than it used to be.

 

If you're buying whiskey from the stores I've been in in the last month and you're excited about it, then YES, you're getting used to, maybe not INFERIOR (which can be interpreted as a strong word) whiskey, but certainly not as exciting as what could be bought for the same effort and price 5 years ago. It is not traitorous to the hobby to admit this.

 

This is just what happens when stocks are put under strain.

 

Some distilleries are now almost quintupling in capacity (BT). In the long run, it's going to be FINE.

Edited by The Black Tot
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