Maker's Mark-eting

[bobbyc]

in some cases just to save money

Or in another case to make money. In order to rotate barrels some section of each rickhouse must be left empty. You could do an academic exercise whereby some barrels are removed to be bottled, some are rotated , then new barrels are brought in , but it doesn't work in a real world situation. If for instance the day you decide you need to drop a few hundred barrels to a lower floor, and nothing is ready to leave to be bottled, you are done right there. Beam and Makers are building houses and At Barton Ken told us they could use a few more there, I imagine everyone else is in the same boat.

I don't have a problem with the basic premise of an " Average Cross Section" of barrels mingled to acheive a profile, amd by the same token, if one wanted every barrel in the mix to be nearly the same then barrel rotation would be nessesary.

[Sweetmeats]

Okay. I watched that part again at least 10 times. He uses a mallet and hits the bung into the barrel. So, any thoughts?

[cowdery]

Bung abuse?

[gr8erdane]

And just be glad he's not your proctologist?

[angelshare]

Bobby, Bettye Jo, Chuck...heck, everybody, thanks for all the interesting insights. As usual, cool pix, Bettye Jo.

Bobby wrote:

Maker's as far as I know are the only ones to include this info and draw from it the inference of a superior product by the practice.

Because Brown-Forman owns Bluegrass Cooperage, you get a lot of this type of chatter from them too. They "believe" no one has more "unique" specifications for their barrels than they do. Again, one usually is too polite to say the obvious, which is "so what?" I have also heard a lot of barrel talk from folks at Buffalo Trace. In the industry worldwide, you hear talk about "wood management," which is a broader subject but does include barrel specifications.

If I'm reading Bobby correctly, I had the same reaction - I've never heard this as part of the marketing talk before. Although there are plenty of people here who have been around the bourbon block more times than us, I thought we had heard most of the "standard practice spun as special" claims before - fine grains, whispers of wheat, new charred oak barrels, aging, TN whiskey maple charcoal, etc. etc. etc. After 10+ years of being the targets of American whiskey marketing, this was new to us.

Therefore, Chuck's comments were quite interesting, too. In what forum does the cooperage chatter go on? Is it something that production people discuss with drinks writers and insiders, yet is largely ignored by the mass marketing folks? Or have we just missed this marketing up until now?

...there is no "legal minimum" for backset since there is no requirement that distilleries use backset at all and, as Bettye Jo mentioned, they can and occasionally do use the sweet mash method, which (by definition) uses no backset.

If your label says "sour mash," can you still use occasional sweet mash in production?

Finally, although I haven't watched it 10 times, my impression was the same - the guy just whacks the bung right into the barrel.

Once again, thanks for the perspectives on this.

[cowdery]

When someone performs the parlor trick of hitting the barrel in such a way that the bung pops out it can appear that the bung is going into the barrel because the bung simply disappears. It flies into the air so quickly you don't see it. I suspect that is what you are seeing, or not seeing. I say this because I have never seen nor heard of anyone forcing a bung into a barrel, which seems impossible and certainly pointless.

I would say that hearing a lot of talk about wood is fairly recent. The commitment of the distilleries to make more and more information available to consumers is an evolving one. I mentioned the Germans before because Europeans, and especially it seems the Germans, tend to be more interested in very esoteric technical information.

It's also a matter of individual personalities. Chris Morris gets into that sort of thing, so you hear a lot of it from Woodford Reserve. So does Dave Pickerell, hence you hear it from Maker's Mark. At Buffalo Trace, it's Mark Brown. Other places not so much because it's not the sort of thing that interests Jimmy Russell or Parker Beam, for example. But every distillery has rigorous specifications for its barrels. I can assure you of that.

[bobbyc]

I say this because I have never seen nor heard of anyone forcing a bung into a barrel

Actually my Grandfather and Carl Beam got into "Bung Knockers" after both of them had retired and would maybe seldom be around Barrels of Bourbon. Picture one of those iron digging tools that you pry rocks with, about 3-4 feet long and with a slightly mushroomed head, they do knock the bung into the barrel, but honestly I think it was for dumping and not to take a sample. I guess it was one of those things, they made them, and probably knew they'd never use them, just something to do.

Amoung some of the other " things" I accumulated over time is a forge and coal grate, and I do plan to do some blacksmithing between now and my exit from the world, it's not real high on the list at present. I only mention that because that is what was used, heat a iron shaft red hot and hammer it out.

[TNbourbon]

Okay. I watched that part again at least 10 times. He uses a mallet and hits the bung into the barrel. So, any thoughts?

Try listening instead -- a second or so after he hits the barrel you can hear the bung hitting the floor.

If you have the capacity to slow down the video and/or view it frame-by-frame, you can see (at time marker 5:08.375) the mallet hitting just to the right of the bung hole, and then hear the bung hitting the wooden warehouse floor. You do not see the bung fly, it happens so quickly.

[Sweetmeats]

If you have the capacity to slow down the video and/or view it frame-by-frame, you can see (at time marker 5:08.375)

I'll buy that. My DVD player cannot even get to that time marker. That's much too precise for my old machine. I did hear the sound you're referring to though. That bung moves at supersonic speed. Anyone ever been hurt by it flying out that fast?

[cowdery]

As I said before, parlor trick. Bungs are really removed by a kind of power corkscrew that essentially destroys the bung to remove it, but it does remove it. I'm not familiar with the "bung knockers" Bobby describes, but it's the same kind of idea, a way to make short work of the bung. Remember, they're dumping dozens of barrels at a time, one after another, and they move it along quickly.

But what about removing the bung to take a sample, then rebunging the barrel? Again, a parlor trick. The real way whiskey is extracted from barrels for testing is by drilling a hole in the head, whiskey shoots out, you fill a bottle (or whatever) then plug the hole with a wooden plug. A few taps with a mallet and the barrel is sealed. About the only thing fancy about it is that the cordless drill has to be one that doesn't produce sparks.

[angelshare]

I would say that hearing a lot of talk about wood is fairly recent. The commitment of the distilleries to make more and more information available to consumers is an evolving one. I mentioned the Germans before because Europeans, and especially it seems the Germans, tend to be more interested in very esoteric technical information.

It's also a matter of individual personalities. Chris Morris gets into that sort of thing, so you hear a lot of it from Woodford Reserve. So does Dave Pickerell, hence you hear it from Maker's Mark. At Buffalo Trace, it's Mark Brown. Other places not so much because it's not the sort of thing that interests Jimmy Russell or Parker Beam, for example.

The question that this begs (at least to me) is, in the grand scheme, how much difference this really makes in the end product? From Bettye Jo's pictures, it looks like all of the wood is seasoned to some extent. Intuitively, the varying charring would seem much more likely to make an appreciable difference in the end product than varying the seasoning by a few months. Also, intuitively, if Jimmy Russell or Parker Beam aren't interested, how important can minor variations really be?

Still, it's kind of cool to be hearing something different and about which it's worth learning a little more; it seems like a lot of the marketing stuff has just been recycling the same old themes over the last several years.

[NeoTexan]

Ok, to settle this for you guys, I just got off the phone with Kevin Smith (the mallet swinger). He told me he hit the stave and the bung flew. The bung never goes into the barrel.

[Sweetmeats]

Ok, to settle this for you guys, I just got off the phone with Kevin Smith (the mallet swinger). He told me he hit the stave and the bung flew. The bung never goes into the barrel.

D'OH! Thanks!

[OneCubeOnly]

I snapped lots of photos of this "parlor trick" when we were sampling barrels for the 2004 BT bottling. You smack the stave adjacent to the bung and it goes flying. I happened to catch one in midair:

[angelshare]

Ok, to settle this for you guys, I just got off the phone with Kevin Smith (the mallet swinger). He told me he hit the stave and the bung flew. The bung never goes into the barrel.

Should have known Dale would have the INSIDE inside MM scoop! Actually, I was looking for Dale in the video itself! Were you there, NeoTexan?

[NeoTexan]

Recovering from surgery (nothing major, just enough to put me out of action). It also made me miss this years Bourbon Festival. The "Whiskey Chicks" did send me a care package though.

[barturtle]

It's funny I came home and was going through my mail and my uncle had sent me a copy of this DVD. First thing I thought was "I gotta see this bit with the bung"

[NeoTexan]

If you catch the show GOOD EATS on Egg Nog (Dec 16th, 2005 - 7:00pm EST), Dave Pickeral demonstrates the bung removal for the audience.

[Sweetmeats]

If you catch the show GOOD EATS on Egg Nog (Dec 16th, 2005 - 7:00pm EST), Dave Pickeral demonstrates the bung removal for the audience.

Yeah. I saw that. That makes it very clear exactly what happens. I feel kinda foolish even questioning it in the first place but hey, that's how you learn.