What's Really In That Handmade Whiskey? - AskMen
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      The Truth About Craft Spirits

      Next Time You Go To The Liquor Store, You'll Be Lied To. Here's Why.

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      Why is all the fuss so important? An estimated 81 new distillers launched last year in the U.S. alone, and it's projected there will be over 1,000 small, licensed distillers in the country by 2021 (even as the big boys continue to expand and build new facilities). What happens if Stoli or Cuervo starts labeling its products "craft," the way Nabisco labels its crackers as "artisanal" to get in on the action? Will consumers burn out on mediocre or misleading product sold at a premium, tanking the entire industry?

      "What is craft, really?" asks Jensen, "It's something with identity, authenticity, a great product, consistency and a great story." But, he stresses, the craft distilling world is not run by dreamy-eyed artistes. "It's a very commercial, competitive world, on which a lot of livelihoods depend. In the end, I think it becomes: How does the consumer perceive craft? If the consumer perceives it as craft, am I the guy to say no?" 

      Aye, there's the artisanal rub. Does the consumer always perceive "craft" accurately? In the beer world for example, many popular "craft" spirits may not meet a hardcore brew fan's personal definitions: Blue Moon is owned and operated by Coors; Goose Island, while still boldly brandishing its indy creative streak, is now owned by Budweiser parent company Anheuser-Busch (which also launched ShockTop); Sam Adams is now an empire.

      At November's WhiskyFest NY, there was some under-the-breath grumbling among some attendees about Widow Jane, a new label out of Brooklyn (home to all things local, crafty and nit-picky) touting the use of limestone-filtered New York State water in its seven-year aged whisky, and underplaying the whisky's Kentucky origins. The bottle label accurately states "Bottled by Cacao Prieto Distillery Brooklyn, New York," but there is little else on the bottle or at the company's website suggesting the product is anything but New York-based, causing some regional distillers to question how the brand was positioning itself. Founder Daniel Preston counters, “You instantly know when picking up a bottle of whiskey if it was 100% distilled in house or not by reading the label. It will say ‘Distilled by XXX’ or ‘Bottled by XXX.’ We’ve always been 100% upfront about this, and are very proud of our story.”

      Widow Jane’s self-titled “Barrel Thief” Vince Oleson adds, "It's true that the seven-year bourbon whiskey we got ourselves on the market with was not distilled in Brooklyn. However, it was just a way for us to fund our distillation goals as we're moving forward." Those goals, according to Preston, include an extensive grain-to-glass program involving an upstate New York farm growing GMO-free heritage corns, like Wapsi Valley, Hopi Blue and a red corn called Bloody Butcher. According to Preston, some 20 liqueurs and house-distilled whiskeys (including the heritage expressions) are now available at the distillery store and online. “It’s standard practice for distilleries to buy, sell and trade barrels,” says Preston. “There’s nothing inherently wrong with this, or anti-craft.”

       "As for the sourced whiskey," says Oleson, "we're doing it much different than some companies out there who just take giant vats of whiskey made somewhere else, slapping their label on it and calling it their own. We do everything single-barrel, and we're blending the cask-strength bourbon with limestone mineral water from a mine we own in Rosendale in upstate New York." Limestone-filtered water is a key element in the taste of Tennessee and Kentucky whiskeys, so the blending makes sense.

      Widow Jane isn't the only craft label to engender such controversy. Templeton Rye out of Templeton, Iowa, claims its recipe derives from a local Prohibition-era relative who helped put the town's moonshine on the map, drawing accolades from the likes of gangster Al Capone. Though proud of its Iowa backstory, the whiskey is distilled and aged at the large Lawrenceburg Distillers facility in Indiana. 

      While Templeton was initially less-than-forthcoming about details of the recipe's origin and its contemporary production in the beginning, it has become increasingly transparent over the past few years, noting the international sourcing of its rye and the Lawrenceburg connection on its website. In the end, they insist the finished rye is a quality product that tastes good, and the product today is generally well regarded in the industry.

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