I am not an imbiber of this fine Kentucky small batch bourbon, but I work with people who consider this to be the summum bonum of fine living, along with a good Cuban cigar. I heard that the company is watering down the proof from 90 to 84 in order to meet a surge in demand and a shortage of product. As a business student, I ask this: didn't they learn the basics about supply and demand? Since price was an original discriminant, the shortage of the stuff should make it even more expensive and desirable! Maker's Mark - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I quit drinking altogether some years ago. For 40-odd years prior, my favourite drink was bourbon. Maker's Mark is available in Canada but I found it prohibitively expensive, even way back when. Most (but not all) booze here in Ontario (Government liquor stores only -no private ones) is watered down already. Most of the popular American bourbons are 80 proof here - 86 or 100 back home. We go across the border to buy the good stuff. The Cuban cigars we can get here, no problem. We sell a lot of them to Americans, too. I agree on the economics. Stupid indeed to water it down. But I'd go further - make booze-watering subject to criminal sanctions. :smile: Heresy and sacrilege! Excommunicate the felons! :smile: Johann
Why don't they just fill the bottle with Jim Beam (their flagship--and awful--product) and get on with it? They claim the processes are the same--and I'm sure they are. But they're coming right out and saying they'll sell you less product for your dollar by watering it down. In what other market does this work? Bookers. Knob Creek (also by the Jim Beam people). Knob Creek Single Barrel (ditto), or any number of barrel-proof bourbons would be a better alternative.
That stuff got me through some difficult decades - IIRC. :smile: Too bad Jim Beam can't use the Buckley's slogan. You know - "It tastes awful, but it works!" :smile: Johann
First time I tried Jim Beam, I actually liked it. There was a woody flavor and a vanilla flavor that I have not been ble to detectin other whiskeys. By about my fifth shot from the bottle (not on the same day), I could no longer taste anything but alcohol. Actually, more like hydrogen peroxide. Ugh. So I graduated to higher quality brands, but eventually got sick of those, too, and could no longer taste anything but alcohol in them either. Knob Creek- taste like nothing but alcohol to me. Maker's Mark- taste like nothing but alcohol to me. I have a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black in my fridge. I used to sip it neat, room temperature. Now, I can barely take it chilled, mixed with cola. At this point, I'm nearly ready to give up on whiskey because the next progression if whiskeys I can tolerate are too expensive fir me to tolerate. No worries! I can enjoy the fact that my favorite beers are less than $2/bottle. Even I can afford that once it a while. I LOL'd at "IIRC." How much DO you recall from those years?
No, I'm not drunk. The incoherence of my post above is a concequence of me typing it out on a touchscreen phone. It's hard to hit the right keys and would take me about an hour to go back and correct all the errors.
Pretty much all of it. "IIRC" was just a joke. I believe early-years IQ scores mean next to nothing, and I don't consider myself particularly smart, but (1) I'm one of the best test-takers around -- always have been. (2) I have an excellent memory. That can save the day, in school and elsewhere! In my 50s, I underwent a bunch of psych tests (my request :smile: ) and I was told I had the best memory of any of the 6,000+ subjects tested in that location. So - drinking had little or no effect on my memory. :smile: I drank for 40 years - quit about 8 years ago for no other reason than it just wasn't worth the money it cost. Booze is VERY expensive in Canada. Apparently, despite my best efforts, I failed to drink enough in those 40 years to damage my health at all. I'm not religious, but I do thank my Maker for my phenomenal health, every day. At 70, it's WAY better than I deserve! It seems my drinking career paralleled my working career. Once I retired, I didn't need to drink any more. Work is indeed the curse of the drinking classes! :smile: I have banked every cent I saved by not buying booze. In those 8 years, it's a respectable amount. I wish I had done the same when I quit smoking, 35 years ago. At ever-rising Canadian smoke-prices, I'd have an extra $75,000 (plus interest) if I'd put that money away... Oh, well, there were a couple of non-monetary rewards: I've seen my kids into middle age (youngest is 40 next month) and I'm seeing my grandchildren grow up! It's wonderful! Couldn't ask for more! Johann
Actually, that vanilla flavor is pretty much standard in bourbon. In the horribly cheap-and-nasty ones, with which I have much experience, I believe the flavour is sometimes artificially heightened by adding quantities of what smells and tastes (to me) like straight tincture of vanilla. I'd swear some of the worst makers must add the stuff to the bottled product -- no aging together. :sad: Johann
See what a little social activism can do . . . Maker's Mark Won't Cut Alcohol Content | ABC News - Yahoo!
The decision was hugely stupid to any bourbon drinker (and to just about any other observer). Maker's Mark was saying, essentially, "we're going to take some of the product you've already purchased and sell it to someone else." Or, "We're going to charge you bourbon prices for extra water in the bottle." They were actually announcing the dilution of their product! And they expected people not to react? It's not about taste testing and focus groups. The watered-down (even more) product probably did not taste noticeably different, but the message was, "We don't care about you and you won't notice the difference." The only reason why this became an issue is because the alcohol (true bourbon, actually) content is known to the consumer. That compelled the company to send out its pre-emptive strike. Candy bars adjust their weight all the time without this consternation. I suspect, despite their turnaround decision, they've damaged the brand. After all, another way to make the whisky stretch farther (their stated goal) is to introduce newer vintages. It takes 6-7 years of aging to produce bourbon. That means they can't increase supply quickly, unless they introduce newer whiskys into the blend. Boo!
Lady: Do you smoke? Man: Yeah, I do. Lady: How many packs a day? Man: Three packs. Lady: How much per pack Man: With all the taxes and everything, about ten dollars. Lady: And how long have you been smoking? Man: Fifteen years. Lady: So a pack costs ten dollars and you have three packs a day which puts your spending each month at nine hundred dollars. In one year, it would be $10,800 correct? Man: About that, I guess. Lady: If in a year you spend $10,800, not accounting for inflation, the past 15 years puts your spending at $162,000 correct? Man: I suppose so. Lady: Do you know that if you hadn't smoked, that money could have been put in a step-up interest savings account and after accounting for compound interest for the past 15 years, you could have now bought a Ferrari? Man: Wow, that's amazing. So... do you smoke? Lady: No, of course not! Man: Well then... where's your Ferrari?
It seems so obvious that there would be backlash over such a move that I fail to understand how the idea ever made it past the white board. Other options exist. They could make a second "value" product, with the announcement being that a price increase for their usual product is unavoidable due to economic factors. They could make non-traditional sizes so that the occasional buyer can still find value in the bottle s/he buys. Or, they could just do what everyone else has to do and that's to go ahead and increase the price. Slowly. So that hardly anyone notices the increments and gets used to the new prices. Not a serious idea, but it would have been better if they simply suggested their customers to add water to their own bottle in order to squeeze a little more volume out of it than to do it themselves.
I sold my hypothetical Ferrari to gather the cash necessary for my dental work. Then my Landlord hypothetically refused to let me keep living in my apartment unless I gave him the money I was going to use at the dentist. So, I have to hypothetically work overtime at a poorly paying job that is so stressful that sometimes I really wish I had a cigarette.
