> "That's worse than a tariff, because it's literally taking your sales away, completely removing our products from the shelves ... that's a very disproportionate response," Lawson Whiting, the CEO of Brown-Forman
Nonsense, it is a perfectly reasonable response to the disproportionate, capricious, and possibly-illegal Republican import taxes on Americans (tariffs) that were thrown onto Canadian everything while "joking" about violently annexing Canada.
If Mr. Whiting cared about reasonable and proportional trade, he should be aiming those complaints at his own politicians. He's been maxing out in his donations to the company PAC for the last several years, but I can't tell you for sure what candidates that money went to. [0]
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P.S.: Fair disclosure, I live in a US state where Canada is--was?--the #1 international trade partner... You'd be surprised how little that narrows it down. [1]
This is good news to me at least. While I don’t expect the $30 bottles of Elmer T Lee, imo won’t lament any decrease in prices for these artificially inflated bottles. They were never that good.
No-one who has ever had a hangover is unaware that alcohol is a poison.
But it can also be an amazing social lubricant, it pairs so well with food and it can make a night sparkle. There’s a reason that mankind’s history is deeply entwined with alcohol’s.
I started drinking bourbon because for the money, some of it was phenomenal whisky. In particular the higher end Jim Beam products were on par with extremely expensive scotch, imo, particularly Booker's.
I remember thinking that a $65 bottle of Booker's could easily go head to head with some of the $200 Scotch bottles I'd sip from.
However, now Bookers is over $100 and hard to find, Knob Creek doesn't have an age statement anymore, and generally the quality has gone down.
Even before the annoying orange grifted his way back into office Bourbon became outright ridiculously priced outside the US. I used to buy a bottle of Blanton's bourbon from somewhere between 60€ and 80€ depending on the specific variant. The same bottle is 180€ or more. 300% price increase. I just won't pay that.
Bourbon was definitely on the downswing before this (note that any spirit made in the US will have the same issue with tariffs).
First, as noted, there are generational (and cyclical) shifts in spirits.
Second, bourbon’s “box” is very narrow. There are LOTS of innovative things that scotch manufacturers can and do pursue. Bourbon has to be barreled and bottled at specific proofs and, more importantly, must be majority corn and aged in a new oak barrel. There’s only so much differentiation you can have between distilleries, which is why some of the more innovative distilleries like High West often do “American whiskey” instead of bourbon.
Third, the bourbon boom in particular was so fast (and on the heels of a broken industry) that there wasn’t much quality aged supply. Partially because it’s cheaper and partially because size you can’t spend four years aging bourbon with no positive cash flow, most “craft” distilleries source from MGP (white label producer in Indiana), and I think you end up in this consumer trap where consumers know they want something nicer than bottom-shelf Jim Beam, but don’t know how to differentiate a distillery that does in-house product vs a distillery that sources. (Also, some distilleries that do in house are quite bad.) The net of it is consumers who want “nice” bourbon eventually conclude that “all bourbon tastes the same” which if you only buy from MGP sourced distilleries is sort of true. (Ironically some of the large brands like Wild Turkey are actually the really great brands in the space.)
9 comments
[ 0.25 ms ] story [ 645 ms ] threadNonsense, it is a perfectly reasonable response to the disproportionate, capricious, and possibly-illegal Republican import taxes on Americans (tariffs) that were thrown onto Canadian everything while "joking" about violently annexing Canada.
If Mr. Whiting cared about reasonable and proportional trade, he should be aiming those complaints at his own politicians. He's been maxing out in his donations to the company PAC for the last several years, but I can't tell you for sure what candidates that money went to. [0]
------
P.S.: Fair disclosure, I live in a US state where Canada is--was?--the #1 international trade partner... You'd be surprised how little that narrows it down. [1]
[0] https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs...
[1] https://www.weforum.org/stories/2021/07/usa-us-trade-canada-...
But it can also be an amazing social lubricant, it pairs so well with food and it can make a night sparkle. There’s a reason that mankind’s history is deeply entwined with alcohol’s.
https://robbreport.com/food-drink/wine/canadians-stopped-buy...
I remember thinking that a $65 bottle of Booker's could easily go head to head with some of the $200 Scotch bottles I'd sip from.
However, now Bookers is over $100 and hard to find, Knob Creek doesn't have an age statement anymore, and generally the quality has gone down.
First, as noted, there are generational (and cyclical) shifts in spirits.
Second, bourbon’s “box” is very narrow. There are LOTS of innovative things that scotch manufacturers can and do pursue. Bourbon has to be barreled and bottled at specific proofs and, more importantly, must be majority corn and aged in a new oak barrel. There’s only so much differentiation you can have between distilleries, which is why some of the more innovative distilleries like High West often do “American whiskey” instead of bourbon.
Third, the bourbon boom in particular was so fast (and on the heels of a broken industry) that there wasn’t much quality aged supply. Partially because it’s cheaper and partially because size you can’t spend four years aging bourbon with no positive cash flow, most “craft” distilleries source from MGP (white label producer in Indiana), and I think you end up in this consumer trap where consumers know they want something nicer than bottom-shelf Jim Beam, but don’t know how to differentiate a distillery that does in-house product vs a distillery that sources. (Also, some distilleries that do in house are quite bad.) The net of it is consumers who want “nice” bourbon eventually conclude that “all bourbon tastes the same” which if you only buy from MGP sourced distilleries is sort of true. (Ironically some of the large brands like Wild Turkey are actually the really great brands in the space.)