Angostura bourbon?

[cowdery]

Angostura didn't aquire any brands with its purchase of either the Lawrenceburg, Indiana, distillery or of the Owensboro, Kentucky, distillery. It looks like they want to produce for the commodity market, i.e., bulk.

[Rughi]

Back in September, Chuck suggested:

I expect one of our agents in Western Kentucky/Southern Indiana to drive over to Medley and give us a report of what, if anything, is happening on the ground. Let's go, people!

Has anyone given Charles Medley a visit yet?

I wonder if he's got his crew together and stills running yet.

I also wonder if he'd be open to receiving a few visitors around, say, the end of April at Sampler time.

Roger

[boss302]

Very interesting. Anyone know much about the history of the Medley distillery? When did it close, and what brands did it produce? I wonder if the still were intact, or if they have built new ones.

I also wonder if Angostura aquired the rights to those brand names, and if they'll market those same brand names or come up with something new?

How does 5 million gallons per year compare to some of the others?

Angostura makes an excellent 12-year rum.

I hope their bourbon venture goes well. I'm just pulling my hair out at the thought of a closed distillery in OHIO getting chosen over the Michter's distillery, where American whiskey pretty much began...

[cowdery]

Angostura makes an excellent 12-year rum.

I hope their bourbon venture goes well. I'm just pulling my hair out at the thought of a closed distillery in OHIO getting chosen over the Michter's distillery, where American whiskey pretty much began...

I assume you mean Indiana, as that's where one of the two plants Angostura bought is located. That plant was in operation, i.e., it wasn't closed. They just took it over.

The other plant Angostura bought is in Owensboro, Kentucky, and has been closed for about the same length of time as Michter's. There is, however, virtually nothing left at Michter's except some falling-down buildings, whereas while Medley (the Owensboro distillery) needs some work (new fermenters, for one thing) the plant overall is in good shape, plus it's in Kentucky, a plus label-wise.

Also, "where American whiskey pretty much began"? Not really. That's mostly marketing fluff.

[nydistiller]

Has anyone heard the latest on restarting of the medley distillery?

[cowdery]

I spoke with a reporter from the Owensboro newspaper last week and she didn't have anything to report. I think they said they expect to have it in operation by year's end.

[nydistiller]

I spoke with Charles, last month because I was interested in the job, and he said he was looking for someone, but a lot of things had to take place before they could get serious, but that they would be making whiskey agian one day. Did they buy the old seagrams plant in indiana too?

[cowdery]

Did they buy the old seagrams plant in indiana too?

Yes, they bought that one first and are now operating it.

[cowdery]

I read today an interesting claim, in an official Angostura press release, about the plant in Lawrenceburg.

They claim it is the single largest spirits distillery in the U.S. and produces 9 percent of the total U.S. domestic spirits consumption. This includes more than 31 percent of the domestic gin demand, 18 percent of the domestic vodka demand and 14 percent of the domestic whiskey demand.

Its catchy new name is Lawrenceburg Distillers Indiana LLC.

[Caradog]

RD = Registered Distillery, an older terminology that Sam Cecil used in his book. The contemporary equivalent is DSP, which stands for Distilled Spirits Producer.

Brown-Forman had another distillery to get whiskey from. Angostura doesn't have that option. I don't expect they're going to develop brands at all, but will sell bulk whiskey to non-distiller producers. They don't have any meaningful brands now and when they bought the Florida company that owned Cruzan rum they kept the production facility but sold off the brands, so building a brand portfolio doesn't seem to be their strategy. Also, sometimes when companies start buying up facilities like this they try to clear the decks and get rid of any business the operation is already doing. Angostura has done the opposite, informing everyone who was doing business with the Lawrenceburg, IN, distillery and Russelville, IN, grain silo that they want to continue to do business with them.

I expect one of our agents in Western Kentucky/Southern Indiana to drive over to Medley and give us a report of what, if anything, is happening on the ground. Let's go, people!

Could it be that they have kept up agreements to lock in grain supplies? I've been delighted that bourbon retail has not shot up in the past year as has, say, beer, esp. in light of what's going on with corn and ethanol...

Clearly they've got capacity to make a lot of spirit - not sure why a label as storied as Angostura wouldn't want to build/relaunch a premium bourbon, even if it was only a small percentage of what they were making in bulk.

(I'm thinking about the nice job that's been done retooling Four Roses for the US market - just picked up a yellow label the other day.)

Plus, if it's Angostura, the labels don't even have to fit! Thanks for you experience and insights, Chuck - priceless in looking at the details and the landscape.

[jburlowski]

An update from the local paper:

http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008802030343

[mozilla]

Great news. Thanks for the updated material.

[cowdery]

Interesting that they are planning a cooperage too. There probably is room for another one, as Bluegrass (Brown-Forman) has essentially taken itself out of the market, as it can only make enough for its own needs, mostly JD.

It says they're going to introduce "a new Charles Medley Kentucky Bourbon label." However, they may not own the name. Medley used to have a Medley Brothers brand, and some others, all of which were sold to Glenmore, which means Diageo may own them now.

The article repeats a common, but false, belief: "While bourbon can be made anywhere in the United States, Kentucky is the only state allowed to put its name on the bottle." It t'aint so. Couple of other small mistakes too but, all in all, a good article.

[mozilla]

From what Mr. Medley has told me in the past...he has a few labels up his sleeve for just such an occasion. I doubt they will have trouble getting any of those started.

[cowdery]

It's possible that, like the distillery, he got some of these labels back when Glenmore was sold to Guinness. No offense to Charlie, but I doubt Guinness put a very high value on them. (I'm referring specifically to the Medley ones, not Mellow Mash).

[nor02lei]

An update from the local paper:

http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008802030343

Good news indeed John!

Leif

[kpendle]

While looking through the who makes Bulleit topic I saw the mention of Owensboro and on a whim did a quick search and saw the article below.

http://edc.owensboro.com/documents/medleya28aug.pdf

Be warned this was discovered with a Google search but does not appear to be a link to an old article. I would not want to start any problems like the recent posting of a link to a 6 year old United Airline bankruptcy article.

It is dated 8/28/2008. So I think it should be recent.

Ken

[Rughi]

$25 million dollar restoration

40 jobs

1800 bushels a day

and free slop!!!

Not the emphasis of many bourbon articles I read.

And hey - 70% corn

- no mention of other grains, but that promises a healthy amount of rye. If barley is 8-12%, then the rye is 18-22%, which is closer to Four Roses territory than AAA.

Of course, the 70% could just be a rounded number to let an eager journalist calculate bushels/day in his head more than be meant as a precise number.

Thanks for the article, Ken.

[cowdery]

The article is current and, for the most part, accurate. I think that plant distilled its last drop before 1992, but I could be wrong about that. They certainly were not running anything like full time in 1992 or for the previous ten or more years, but maybe they were firing it up for a couple of months each year.

I was, however, struck by this statement from the new plant manager. "People are people, parts are parts," Schneider said.

That attitude has led to the downfall of many a proud distillery.

The fact that they chose to hire someone with zero experience at whiskey-making is puzzling. Every recent hire (by which I mean the last 20 years) at every other producer was somebody with some related experience, at least as a brewer.

But maybe this guy isn't going to be the distiller. Sometimes the distiller is the plant manager, but not always. Charlie Medley is in the background but I don't think he's going to be their master distiller. He's not a young man.

There may still be some old hands around Owensboro who know their way around a distillery and barrel house, but they won't be young men either.

[craigthom]

Given this guy's background, I wouldn't be surprised to see him leave after the reconstruction was done. He's there to rebuild, not to make whiskey.

[mozilla]

Mr. Medley will be around to take care of the bourbon making. He will also be using their distillate to fill his label...Wathen's. So, they will probably be aging bourbon alot longer than the four years that was stated. I would guess that they will also build more warehouse capacity. It will only take 4 years to completely fill their warehouses up. So, how will they be able to fill four year bottles and Wathens, at a higher age, with this young distillate? Can you say expansion?

[barturtle]

Mr. Medley will be around to take care of the bourbon making. He will also be using their distillate to fill his label...Wathen's. So, they will probably be aging bourbon alot longer than the four years that was stated. I would guess that they will also build more warehouse capacity. It will only take 4 years to completely fill their warehouses up. So, how will they be able to fill four year bottles and Wathens, at a higher age, with this young distillate? Can you say expansion?

I believe they have warehousing in Lawrenceburg, IN as well. Nothing says they can't age it up there.

Also, the cool thing about warehouses is, you can rotate out stock in one area to sell young, while another area sits there and ages for extended periods of time.

[mozilla]

I thought KSBW had to be aged in Ky for at least the first two years....if not longer, to be called KSBW. Are you referring to being just called bourbon?

[cowdery]

The way to look at it is that it can't be Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey until it's straight whiskey, and that takes two years. If it ages in Kentucky, it becomes Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey on its second birthday and can thereafter go wherever it wants as Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey.

You may well be right about construction management.

Charlie may not see it this way but he's not a long term solution for them because of his age and temperment.

Their stated intention is to produce commodity bourbon for bulk sale in international markets. For that purpose, they may feel two years is sufficient. We'll see what they do, but they have not been a brand-oriented company to this point. That could change, but their strategy in all of their acquisitions seems to be to be a low cost provider of services such as bottling, as well as contract distilling, bulk whiskey, pretty much any place they can find a niche, but as a production company, not as a beverage marketer.

They're definitely going to change the landscape, but don't look for them to be producing, or trying to produce, the next great enthusiast bourbon.

Maybe in ten or fifteen years.

[craigthom]

I could have sworn it had to be aged in Kentucky for a year and a day to have the state on the label, so you could age a year here and a year in Indiana and still have Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey. I'll go find it.