Effects of Inflation: Maker’s Mark Whisky

Say what? If you don’t have capital, go down to your local bank. They have plenty of capital. There is plenty of capital.

Because to do so would be to degrade the currency, Zimbabwe style, and that is why neither we nor any other developed nation is doing so. That is why we have an income tax.

I am sort of curious how much actual consideration you have put into the matter. It seems you mostly ignore evidence and repeat the Libertarian manta over and over again.

You are ignoring the lessons about brand management. No one ever questioned the law of supply and demand. You are ignoring reality and focusing all your effort on the creation and promulgation of this straw man.

No I am not working at Beam, Inc. But I have a good friend who is a brand manager at Anheuser-Busch. Maker’s Mark made a bet that they could get by with reducing the alcohol content by 3 percent without noticeably affecting the quality of the product in order to solve a temporary supply problem.

Pricing and product quality and other brand management decisions at Maker’s Mark have nothing to do with secret cabals and conspiracies to mask inflation. These brand management decisions are not harbingers of doom and economic collapse. They are just brand management decisions, as has been repeatedly pointed out to you.

 

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I don´t intend and hope this is not too sexist an observation, but women are increasingly important buyers of many products. In addition to the "supply problem", (if real) slightly lower alcohol content, may expand their market share if women like smoother "hard liquor."

What is the nature of the "supply problem"?

 

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In the hands of consumers, about to be in the hands of Maker's Mark.

(By the way, as a heads up from here on out I'm going to ignore the repetitive anarchist rant part of your posts.)

To a capitalist, that is genius. Market it as "Milk LITE" and say "half the calories, all the health benefits!" Your costs down down and your revenue stays the same - or even goes up.

(To see this in action - google "vitamin water.")

Cool! We have far more oil than Finland, so we're even better off.

Again, it's great that you've become supportive of progressive socialist countries - especially one that has the fourth highest tax burden (as a percentage of GDP) in the world.

Hmm. Their economy is predicted to grow 1.7% this year, and they are having far fewer financial troubles than their EU counterparts. While no one is doing well right now, it sounds like they're doing better than most.

No. See, this is where you go into the weeds. Following the model for a good government educational system does not mean "going to the communist model." You can improve education without becoming a communist, and without ending private education. You can save gas without giving up your car and living in a cave. You can protect the Constitution without allowing people to own nuclear weapons and antiaircraft batteries. There is generally a middle ground that gives you much better results than the extremist options that the ideologues prefer.

 

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It's actually just the first week or so of a good intro elementary econ course. It's the equivalent of those introductory physics lessons, where air resistance and friction and elasticity and inertia and magnetism and temperature changes and so forth are temporarily excluded to focus on the basic equation of force, mass, and acceleration - a temporary act of imagination, a fantasy situation created to instruct and enlighten.

If you want to analyze real world situations, it's best to include the more advanced stuff.

No real world physical situation can be analyzed in that way, and be admitted to public discussion and policy consideration. There is no Ayn Rand of physics - although historically there have been some wannabes, such as the theological physicists of Medieval Christianity, or when the amoral and politically dominated Jewish physics of Relativity threatened the purity and integrity of Third Reich metaphysics.

An industrial scale blended whiskey manufacturer may or may not respond to sudden increases in demand by raising prices until the demand is reduced, and pocketing the difference. It can (due to its circumstances), and may, instead choose a smaller price increase coupled with reducing the cost and increasing the rate of manufacture, matching rather than reducing some of the extra demand and increasing its market share - while pocketing an even larger difference, total.

I may have seen this kind of decision made the other way, actually, a couple of years ago: I used to buy this one brand of bourbon because it was good at its lower price - quality equivalent in my assessments (maybe even a little better) to Jim Beam and Jack Daniels middle shelf, at less than 2/3 the price. Apparently I was not alone - the price started to rise. Then it rose some more. Then it started to be hard to find. Then it disappeared from the places I shop altogether for a bit - no place for a new upper shelf brand, the bargain shelf filled by other whiskeys. Now it's back in some places, somewhat cheaper still - but I no longer buy it. When it disappeared I was forced to look around if I wanted to drink whiskey, and I found another brand that filled its niche. It apparently competes now more or less on taste alone, a newcomer splitting the long established market of mid-price bourbons, and is not even on the shelves in many stores.

I don't know what happened, and I don't know whether the net change was good or bad for the manufacturer - but obviously decisions like this can be made in a variety of ways all consistent with the tenets of free market capitalism.

 

There's no argument from me there. It's no full-cream milk then. It's a totally different market. I'm not going to buy 2% white sugar water when I want milk. But, yes, there's obviously plenty of people who think calcium fortified water + sugar and 2% full cream is acceptable.

What do you mean 'We'? If YOU happen to find oil deposits on YOUR land, then YOU are rich. I don't have the right to stick a gun in your face and say me me me mine mine mine. Oh, I forgot, we're born in the "Nation" and so I can.

That aside, the USA has 300 million, Finland has 5 million. The USA is indeed a rich country, but, we also have a MASSIVE government to support. WAY MORE than the Finish. Lastly, we're generally a net importer of oil (although now that our economy is stuffed we have become a net exporter). When our economy is actually functioning, say 20 years from now, and we're a producer again - just HOW is it you think taxing an oil producer "helps" Americans.


Stop and think about this example:
You pay $5 at the pump when the oil producer isn't taxed. Or the oil producer is taxed and you pay $10 at the pump. In the first scenario the citizen keeps his and her's 'money' and can use that to engage in the economy - trading with other citizens. In the second scenario the consumer is out of pocket $5 per gallon, that money is transferred to a Government bureaucrat where it's wasted on digging holes and filling them in; generally the bureaucrat owns stock in a hole digging company. We see the revolving door in and out of the finance sector all the time.

It's simple economics, if you tax the oil produce then the price of gasoline goes up as the cost is passed on through to the product (where's it's taxed another time - because, you know: You use the roads). Why do that? All that happens is one group of humans (public servants) take and administer that money. Why not leave that money with the consumer and let them decide what it is THEY want to do with THEIR money? Why pay an administrator a few hundred thousand dollars a year, plus pension, plus bonuses, plus medical, plus vacation. Why do that? Don't you think IF you left the money in the hands of the people - they can see to their needs? They can put their money into the sorts of things they want?



If you are even noticed it's only to be taxed/worked like a dumb farm animal. I have worked with plenty of bureaucrats, I can promise you, YOU are the last thing from their mind. Many are so disconnected they have no idea where their actual money comes from - your labour. Some have told me point blank their job isn't to do "their job". That's not uncommon at all. Unless you're on half a million a year, your entire income tax wouldn't cover the travel expense of just one middle high end 'public servant'.

I was just following your train of through to it's logical conclusion. You stated Finland's educational model placed them in the top of the world and made it sound like therefore the Finish are doing something good due to their ranking as the top. I simply state the Chinese rank above them. Therefore, according to your logic, they must be doing something even better.

 

So now fiat currency counts as 'capital'? Is that correct? According to this logic, Zimbabwe has a lot of "Capital". Just walk yourself down to the good ole' Zimbabwe bank and there's all the Capital you need!

I'm not suggesting a Bank can't have "Capital", but I am saying fiat currency is NOT in and of itself "Capital". Debt would be a better description.

No Joe, I specifically stated all the money that is "NEEDED" to fund public service. If the amount of money is the EXACT SAME amount as would have been created by the Federal Reserve banking system, only no interest and no 'handlers fees' were charged, that isn't going to cause the currency to 'Degrade' any more than it would have otherwise.

So, again, why the State Forced Income Tax? Why do the laborers have to live with a Gun pointed at the temple and told to pay upwards to 50% of their income? If we can create the exact SAME amount of money that we are creating now - and spend it directly debt-free and without interest on public services, why not do that instead? One more time: SAME AMOUNT. Do tell Joe, I'm curious what your answer is.


It should be noted: A little Historical FACT, the late 1800s saw the greatest increases in standards of living in the USA - ever. Period. And we did NOT have a central bank and we did NOT have income tax. As a matter of fact, the TINY post-WWI depression we had was over in 18 months!

 

Precisely. And a capitalist takes full advantage of them.

I'll ignore the usual rants here.

Taxation per person as a percentage of GDP is much higher in Finland. Per person they have over THREE TIMES the taxation.

No, and again, that's where you fail. Extremism never works. It's akin to claiming that if drinking water is good for you then drinking 5 gallons a day must be great. It's not. (Do not try this if you don't believe me; just trust me.)

 

As far as the second part of that: WWI ended in 1918, and the US had both a central bank and an income tax at that time.

As far as the first part, very few if any assertions of historical fact, or FACT, made by you on this forum have proven accurate (actually none that I know of, but I may have overlooked a couple) - I'm going to go way out on a limb and just call that wrong without even checking. You're almost certainly wrong just on common observation: We know that GDP per capita increased much faster in the last half of the 20th century than in the last half of the 19th, for example; we know that significant living standard boosts like rural electrification and modern sewer systems came in after WWI, we know that many of the great benefits of the Columbian Exchange had kicked in back in the 1700s and early 1800s (so comparative improvement of the late 1800s would not have been spectacular, but continuation of a trend). We know about the continual run of panics and bank failures all through that time, the growing labor movement and attractiveness of communist theory to these people you claim were enjoying large gains in prosperity, and the problems contingent upon the large population of freed slaves (hmmm - is it possible your source may have averaged in the living standard improvements enjoyed by freed slaves, and you ascribed them to a lack of central banking?).

Living standards did improve during the late 1800s, of course - after the Civil War, there was nowhere to go but up even for white folks, and an entire continent of untapped resources to plunder - but not as much as they did during the aftermath of WWII and the kick in of the New Deal initiatives. Imagine: Roosevelt's New Deal boosted national prosperity more than annexing amazingly fertile California and finding huge deposits of gold there.

 

How is offering a desired product at a price point that's satisfactory to both parties 'taking full advantage' of them? Firstly, since BOTH people are happy with the trade, exactly WHO is taking advantage of whom here? The person who pays less for 2% white sugar water/skim milk or the dairy farmer who sold milk with sugar? Let me guess, you're going to blame the Dairy Farmer for innovating a product that is highly sought after by the market (aka: people want it).

What if you have a ham sandwich and your friend has a turkey sandwich. You really want her sandwich. She wants yours but, isn't really that fussed. She says you can eat yours of you both can trade but you have to give her %0.25 cents. It's really up to you. She can go either way. But, everyone knows ham is inferior to turkey - at least that's what her dad says. Which is why she has a turkey sandwich.

So? What are you going to do? Does it matter? Is there any way you can think of where force is being used? Is ANYONE being harmed in this trade, or not trade if it doesn't take place. Because I'm pretty sure if the trade takes place, she IS a capitalist (if she saves her 25 cents) BUT she's not taking 'full advantage'. No one is being taken advantaged of.

Also, when you say "Capitalist" who are you referring to? Example: Were you ever taught to 'save' your money so you could buy something you wanted? AND you had to do some chores in order to 'make' some money? Well, if you were, then YOU were a *gasp* Capitalist! I understand now-a-days the bankers would prefer you to teach your children to take out a loan from THEM (maybe use a credit card with a low teaser interest rate?). But, that's not exactly "Capitalism" because banks don't actually use capital any longer. They use debt. What you carry in your pocket is a Federal Reserve Note that's denominated in United States dollars (unless you have a pre-1971 Federal Reserve Bank Notes, which is a bit different.

Anyhow, capitalism in a free-market is probably the most efficient means to free people to create and become prosperous. Capital, law, private property and real money unleashes tremendous stores of human potential. It's too bad we live in, and will live and die in, a highly regulated fascist state with debt based currency whose value is based on the gun and the toiling of unborn children. I can see why, if you were to think the society you live in was capitalistic, why you'd hate it. But, it's not.

As, I believe it was Kant, once wrote: Haters gonna Hate, Staters gonna State.

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Finland is not the USA. I mean, you could go to KSA (another oil producer and generally wealthy society) and make an argument for Islam. 100% of the people are Islamic! A 10,000 times increase than in the USA!

IOWs yes, I agree you have a correlation, but that's not the same as causation. Different language, different culture, and lots of oil. The fact is across the board from East Germany to North Korea as you socialize the market, it stops functioning, no one is able to tell if they are on what they perceive as the winning end of a trade, civil liberties are reduced (to reduce variables) government grows and society suffers as the producers are swamped by a tidal wave of unproductive bureaucrats.

A story as old as time.

Worse still, once the common people get it into their head the farmer is stealing from them by offering them an apple, they demand more and more "Social Justice" (gods I hate the phrase... puke) and the State resorts to violence (income tax, bonds, inflation) and finally fiat currency and eventually the debts are too high, no more blood can be squeezed from the stone and the whole house of cards collapses.

Let's hope ours happens sooner rather than later. For everyone's sake.

I'm not even sure what you mean by 'Extremism'. I'm pretty sure the Chinese mothers who put their children into their Chinese based school think it's extremely disservice NOT to! I mean, their children will go out into the world and out-compete everyone else - at least academically. When they immigrate to the USA (and these students are highly sought after) who do you think is going to be hired? Who do you think will score the top in all the standardized State-run tests? I can tell you who, east Asians. Berkeley went from 3% Asians to over 50% in three years once they dropped their 'race' credential.


As an aside, I personally find daycare to be 'extreme'. I think public school itself is a bit 'extreme' (depending on the community).

 

Yes, I was ahead of myself. There was no general income tax (taxes on wages didn't begin until after WWII) and the central bank didn't do anything anywhere near what central banks have done thereafter. It pretty much left hands off other than a 2 bases point raise in interest. Exactly the opposite of what we're doing now. Also, THAT central bank is not the central bank of today. While an abomination to man, it was not the Federal Reserve of today. The rules have changed over the last hundred years, bonds for example.

Anyway, yes, the USA has had central banks during times and not at other times. It has had income tax (generally a war tax - which went away with the war debt) and at other times it hasn't.

As a matter of fact, the reason I attempt the argument from morality is because there's so many different points of view regarding history. For instance, if the central bank was so great, why did we eliminate the first one? The GFC isn't new. We've seen this exact same property bubble happen in the 1840-50s. For the exact same sorts of reasons. Banks lent too much, people over borrowed, prices ballooned, that whole thing collapsed. In the late 1800s purposeful inflation was punishable by hanging, now it's applauded. Granny can eat cat food on her savings... yippie. Then there's the who industrial revolution to consider. Finally, it really depends on who is writing the history. Think about the phrase "Honest Abe". What is it you think? It makes me feel uneasy. Like seeing a picture of General Mao standing in front of a Chinese mountain helping the 'workers'. Pure propaganda. Yet, if I were to suggest that you needn't actually call someone 'Honest' unless they're going to fleece you, they'd have the shits. How dare I suggest such a thing about a *gasp* President! Who freed the Slaves. And he doesn't need to stand in front of a mountain, he's carved into one! Although how those four (many who'd hate one another) ended up together is beyond me.


This is why I asked: Why the income tax? Why the bond sales? We can make all the fiat currency needed (no more, no less). So, why use force, why charge interest, why give a small group of private banks a 'handlers' fee? It's our money isn't it? Why would we need a private bank to allow us to print our own money? Joe says it's purely because of inflation. OK, then we can still print the money and have a rule that if according to parameters A, B and C if inflation runs above 2% for x amount of time, then we make less money.


That's one thing you may want to think about.


Another is why on earth you'd think Capitalism (savings) is a BAD thing. I think you're confusing our present regulated fascism with free-market capitalism. Two very different things.

Lastly, I wonder if you've ever worked in the government before? If you did, and you actually cared about people, you'd probably want to quit. I know bureaucrats who literally spend more in a year on travel expenses than you'd probably pay in income tax over most of your working life. Do they think what they're doing is immoral? No. Like you and most people they have no idea what money is, where it comes from, and honestly, they probably wouldn't care all that much. Most tell me they want the job security and like the fact they can spend time with their family. From their point of view, me even suggesting anything about 'income tax is force' is like telling them they shouldn't spend time with their children - I mean, don't I think they should spend time with their children? Who am I to suggest they are takers? They do .... something.

Which is why I think there isn't going to be any changes any time too soon. Life in the USA is going to get worse. The government is going to grow, and unless you work in the government (best to go federal) you'll be working longer harder and for a lot less to pay for it and in the end, even public servants are going to be hung out to dry. It's already happening as counties go bust. No more money. No more pension. The old and the young (basically the defenseless) seem to be fair game in the New Economy.

 

My point of view is that understanding begins with getting the facts straight - you don't do that. Your entire world view rests on assertions of what did not happen and does not exist. You seem constitutionally unable to adjust your analysis to match reality.

It's not just this thread, it's all of them - here's bizarre fantasy assertions from the thread next to this one:

Not a single factual claim in that quote is accurate. The stuff about the schooling is just goofy - by 1900 most States had not only public but compulsory schooling, and the ones that didn't had literacy rates (in particular the ability of girls to write as well as read) nowhere near 95%.

And you know government bureaucrats who get paid "a few hundred thousand a year" if I recall the assertion.

You don't know a single bureaucrat who spends as much on travel as many upper echelon capitalist executives, or gets paid by the government even a tenth of what they make per year. There aren't any.

 

Reality vs. Self-Serving Political Fantasy

You do realize that it takes between six and seven years to make a bottle of Maker's Mark?

One of the tricky things about making and selling good whiskey is that it takes time; Maker's is a blend that is around six years old. Which means that the fine people at the Maker's Mark distillery in Loretto, Ky., and their corporate overlords at what is now called Beam Inc. were having to make decisions back in 2007 that determined how much Maker's Mark they have to sell now.

And, it would seem, they guessed wrong. They didn't properly foresee the booming worldwide demand for the supple, nectar-like perfection of Maker's. Sales of the bourbon rose 14 percent in 2011 and 15 percent in 2012. This is part of a broader trend: Some 16.9 million cases of Kentucky and Tennessee whiskey were shipped in 2012, according to the Distilled Spirits Council, up from 14.9 million cases in 2007; the revenue earned on that whiskey soared more than 28 percent in that span.

That is normally a problem — too much demand for a product — that a company loves to have. The simple answer to that problem would be to raise prices to whatever level will make the market clear. Maker's didn't do that, and the result was predictable: Shortages of the bourbon in some markets ....

.... Most companies would simply raise the price of Maker's until the market cleared. But Beam Inc. depends on Maker's Mark to be one of its mainstay products — and if it raised the price too quickly, it could lose that status. Many higher-end bars now use Maker's Mark as their standard go-to bourbon for mixed drinks, and at many mid-tier places it is their standard premium option. If the price of Maker's gets too out of whack with other bourbons of similar quality, they might rethink that practice and turn to less pricey options. I've already noticed a growing number of bars in D.C. using Bulleit bourbon, a bit cheaper and rougher on the finish than Maker's, as their standard bourbon when making a Manhattan or Old Fashioned.

And if that kind of change happened on a large enough scale, it could cost Maker's its status as that go-to powerhouse brand that helps underpin a company that sold $3.1 billion worth of liquor last year.

(Irwin)​

Neil Irwin's analysis is well-founded. The company has since reversed its decision:

After backlash from customers, the producer of Maker's Mark bourbon is reversing a decision to cut the amount of alcohol in bottles of its famous whiskey.

Rob Samuels, Maker's Mark's chief operating officer, said Sunday that it is restoring the alcohol volume of its product to its historic level of 45 percent, or 90 proof. Last week, it said it was lowering the amount to 42 percent, or 84 proof, because of a supply shortage.

“We've been tremendously humbled over the last week or so,” Samuels, grandson of the brand's founder, said of customers' reactions.

The brand known for its square bottles sealed in red wax has struggled to keep up with demand. Distribution has been squeezed, and the brand had to curtail shipments to some overseas markets.

In a tweet Sunday, the company said to its followers: “You spoke. We listened.”

(AP)​

According to Chairman Emeritus Bill Samuels, "Our focus was on the supply problem. That led to us focusing on a solution. We got it totally wrong." COO Rob Samuels explained that Maker's devotees "would rather put up with the occasional supply shortage than put up with any change in their hand-made bourbon".

You can't blame everything on the governemnt. As much as you want to make this the fault of government—especially to feed your ego by denouncing those who disagree with you as ignorant—I'm more inclined to pay attention to what the people in charge of this private company are saying: "We really made this decision after an enormous amount of thought," Bill Samuels explained, "and we focused on the wrong things."

This one's on them, and they know it. They've already gotten away trading out corks for a screw-top. The consumers who drive their sales did not match their projections.

Maker's Mark has otherwise played a pretty good hand, invading the Jack Daniel's market. In Seattle, if you want a whiskey and Coke, you get Maker's. If you want a Jack and Coke, you ask for Jack and Coke. This is a change that has occurred within the last decade. I encountered the same thing in Vegas last year. When I was there in '05, a whiskey and Coke was still a Jack and Coke. When I was there in October, it was Maker's. The company's projections six years ago just plain fell short.

And now they have to chance it. As they have learned from the backlash, it will do better to risk losing market share in the U.S. to occasional shortages than guarantee losing a large part of their consumer base by screwing with the recipe that won their battle with Jack Daniel's.

It had nothing to do with inflation. Rather, it wass a precarious combination of six-year projections that turned out to be short, and the delicate relationship between price point and their market-share maneuvering.
____________________

Notes:

Irwin, Neil. "Bourbonomics 101: What the Maker's Mark dilution debacle says about corporate strategy". Wonkblog. February 17, 2013. WashingtonPost.com. February 19, 2013. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...lution-debacle-says-about-corporate-strategy/

Associated Press. "Maker's Mark reverses decision to cut amount of alcohol in whiskey, restores historic level". The Washington Post. February 17, 2013. WashingtonPost.com. February 19, 2013. http://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...04e39e-7926-11e2-9c27-fdd594ea6286_story.html

 

to actually focus on the ACTUAL issue rather than Michael's fantasy I'm surprised that this company would make this blunder considering that the same mistake was made by a beer company last year and if they had looked at the outcome they would never have done this.

VB (Victoria Bitter) which runs on the slogan "a big cold beer" cut there alcohol content and there was a HUGE backlash to the point that they had to run a huge campaign apologizing for doing it to try and get people to come back

 

Well, this is a seriously devastating blow to this particular hypothesis. Given that real inflation is diminishing the size of other food and beverage items - it was a reasonable hypothesis (as linked in NYT).

I admit defeat!

It does seem someone at Beam made a completely unpredictable blunder. I think this is the second time in as many years, so, never let it be said I don't bow to the facts.

Maybe I'll go down and buy a Maker's Mark (even though I hate Whisky) just to give it a try

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WIKI

Gee, I wonder why the emphasis on Native Americans? What do YOU think?

We could look at the schools slogan

As for literacy pre- our Prussian modeled educational factory cog machine/compulsory government school.

http://econ.ucsc.edu/~fairlie/papers/utrends.pdf
“

”

 

And yet you continue to promulgate your erroneous notions.

LOL, you are a little late, but better late than never. It has been already been said many times that you don’t bow to facts Michael, because you don’t. You do routinely ignore facts in virtually every post you make Michael. For days now you have been ignoring the facts on this particular issue.

 

Correct. They are an example of a country with a much larger/stronger government (per person) than the US has, and one that is doing economically well - and in your own words are better capitalists than the US. Not a bad model to follow, eh?

You have hit upon a very important tenet of logic! Hopefully you'll begin to apply that to many of your other premises.

And yet you have just posted an example of a country which are better capitalists than the US (per your own post) whose government is three times larger in terms of expenditures per person.

So why hasn't Finland collapsed? Could it be that there are other factors than just the size of government? Could it be that government is actually one of the MINOR factors in determining the course of an economy? Could it even be that (gasp!) in some cases larger governments HELP economies in various small ways? Per your examples it sure looks like it.

"You like public schools? Then the only possible explanation is that you want communism!" <- extremism. The belief that all things must be taken to their extremes.

So you'd rather people leave their kids outside in the cold to die? (see how extremism works?)

 

Bourbon as a rewarding endeavor ....

Maker's is a step up from Jack and Jim, for certain, but it's best on the rocks or as a mixer. I will readily admit, however, that it is the bourbon that finally got my attention. These days, Maker's is my general bottom shelf for neat or rocks. (Circumstances can occasionally compel me to drop down to Beam or—grimace!—Jack.)

Hudson, Woodford, Knob ... there are some excellent bourbons for drinking neat, but in the end, like so many other things, it's an acquired taste. If you're not a bourbon fan, the best Maker's can do for you is a shot in your coffee, or something like that.

Generally speaking, I prefer quality beer, and the west coast is blessed with a plethora, from Boundary Bay up north (Bellingham) to Stone down south (San Diego), and plenty of stops in between (Deschutes in Bend and Portland; Rogue in Newport, Oregon; Firestone-Walker in Paso Robles; the list is ridiculous, as those are only a few of the better-known labels). But a bourbon neat is a useful drink if, say, you're going to a concert; standing around with a drink in your hand while your favorite band pounds out the heavy, the last thing you really want to do is step away to the restroom every fifteen minutes.

But that also reminds that there are plenty of smaller distilleries, and some of them make excellent whiskey. Still, though, whiskeys in general are of limited appeal insofar as if you don't like them in general, that won't change unless you accidentally stumble onto one that just happens to suit your palate.

 

Agreed. And to bring this back to the subject of the thread, I was recently talking to the head of brewing operations at Lost Abbey and they mentioned two things that were interesting:

1) Their beers are incredibly popular (specialty releases sell out within hours) but they do not want to raise the price above what it is now (sometimes $15 a bottle!) and

2) the alcohol content of beer is measured by the original gravity/final gravity ratio but this is often inaccurate. They had their beer tested in a lab and it was consistently higher than their OG/FG estimate, and thus they were planning on reducing the grain bill a bit. This is the brewing equivalent of "adding water."