#Brown Forman Forester Center
Text
The interior landscape of the Brown Forman Forester Center, in Louisville, Kentucky.
Scan
770 notes
·
View notes
Text
Fueled by their donations, Mitch McConnell pushes special tax break for bourbon industry – ThinkProgress
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and fellow Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul announced a bill on Wednesday to provide special corporate tax advantages for liquor distillers.
A look at McConnell’s campaign finance history may offer a big clue as to why: hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions from the alcoholic beverages sector.
The Advancing Growth in the Economy through Distilled Spirits Act would renew an expiring provision from President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cut bill that allows for the deduction of interest expenses related to bourbon inventory when the expenses are paid, rather then when the bourbon is bottled and sold. In a joint press release, Paul said the bill would “preserve Kentucky’s signature Bourbon industry by boosting job creation and maintaining a level playing field between Bourbon and whiskey producers at home and their competitors abroad.”
But back in 2010, an examination by the non-partisan Center for Public Integrity calculated the largest individual donors to McConnell over his decades-long tenure in Congress. Of the top five largest career donors, three had ties to the Kentucky-based Brown-Forman Corporation. Brown-Forman’s products include Jack Daniel’s whiskey and Old Forester bourbon.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, in 2014 — the last time McConnell was up for re-election — he also received more in donations from the beer, wine, and liquor sector than any other senator. The total for that campaign alone: $144,950.
So far this year, McConnell has received $5,000 from Brown-Forman’s corporate PAC and $10,000 from the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America.
As majority leader, McConnell has spent most of the 116th Congress ensuring no lawmaking happens. He has boasted of being the “grim reaper” who blocks legislation from even coming to the floor and has so stanched the flow of bills that even his Republican colleagues have publicly complained. He has introduced little legislation, aside from housekeeping resolutions required to organize the Senate. So when the Kentucky Republican announces he will push for a bill, it is unusual.
While Paul is in just his second term in the Senate, he too has received tens of thousands in contributions from the alcohol industry.
Credit: Source link
The post Fueled by their donations, Mitch McConnell pushes special tax break for bourbon industry – ThinkProgress appeared first on WeeklyReviewer.
from WeeklyReviewer https://weeklyreviewer.com/fueled-by-their-donations-mitch-mcconnell-pushes-special-tax-break-for-bourbon-industry-thinkprogress/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=fueled-by-their-donations-mitch-mcconnell-pushes-special-tax-break-for-bourbon-industry-thinkprogress
from WeeklyReviewer https://weeklyreviewer.tumblr.com/post/186544326622
0 notes
Text
Fueled by their donations, Mitch McConnell pushes special tax break for bourbon industry – ThinkProgress
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and fellow Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul announced a bill on Wednesday to provide special corporate tax advantages for liquor distillers.
A look at McConnell’s campaign finance history may offer a big clue as to why: hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions from the alcoholic beverages sector.
The Advancing Growth in the Economy through Distilled Spirits Act would renew an expiring provision from President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cut bill that allows for the deduction of interest expenses related to bourbon inventory when the expenses are paid, rather then when the bourbon is bottled and sold. In a joint press release, Paul said the bill would “preserve Kentucky’s signature Bourbon industry by boosting job creation and maintaining a level playing field between Bourbon and whiskey producers at home and their competitors abroad.”
But back in 2010, an examination by the non-partisan Center for Public Integrity calculated the largest individual donors to McConnell over his decades-long tenure in Congress. Of the top five largest career donors, three had ties to the Kentucky-based Brown-Forman Corporation. Brown-Forman’s products include Jack Daniel’s whiskey and Old Forester bourbon.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, in 2014 — the last time McConnell was up for re-election — he also received more in donations from the beer, wine, and liquor sector than any other senator. The total for that campaign alone: $144,950.
So far this year, McConnell has received $5,000 from Brown-Forman’s corporate PAC and $10,000 from the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America.
As majority leader, McConnell has spent most of the 116th Congress ensuring no lawmaking happens. He has boasted of being the “grim reaper” who blocks legislation from even coming to the floor and has so stanched the flow of bills that even his Republican colleagues have publicly complained. He has introduced little legislation, aside from housekeeping resolutions required to organize the Senate. So when the Kentucky Republican announces he will push for a bill, it is unusual.
While Paul is in just his second term in the Senate, he too has received tens of thousands in contributions from the alcohol industry.
Credit: Source link
The post Fueled by their donations, Mitch McConnell pushes special tax break for bourbon industry – ThinkProgress appeared first on WeeklyReviewer.
from WeeklyReviewer https://weeklyreviewer.com/fueled-by-their-donations-mitch-mcconnell-pushes-special-tax-break-for-bourbon-industry-thinkprogress/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=fueled-by-their-donations-mitch-mcconnell-pushes-special-tax-break-for-bourbon-industry-thinkprogress
from WeeklyReviewer https://weeklyreviewer.tumblr.com/post/186544326622
0 notes
Text
Fueled by their donations, Mitch McConnell pushes special tax break for bourbon industry – ThinkProgress
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and fellow Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul announced a bill on Wednesday to provide special corporate tax advantages for liquor distillers.
A look at McConnell’s campaign finance history may offer a big clue as to why: hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions from the alcoholic beverages sector.
The Advancing Growth in the Economy through Distilled Spirits Act would renew an expiring provision from President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cut bill that allows for the deduction of interest expenses related to bourbon inventory when the expenses are paid, rather then when the bourbon is bottled and sold. In a joint press release, Paul said the bill would “preserve Kentucky’s signature Bourbon industry by boosting job creation and maintaining a level playing field between Bourbon and whiskey producers at home and their competitors abroad.”
But back in 2010, an examination by the non-partisan Center for Public Integrity calculated the largest individual donors to McConnell over his decades-long tenure in Congress. Of the top five largest career donors, three had ties to the Kentucky-based Brown-Forman Corporation. Brown-Forman’s products include Jack Daniel’s whiskey and Old Forester bourbon.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, in 2014 — the last time McConnell was up for re-election — he also received more in donations from the beer, wine, and liquor sector than any other senator. The total for that campaign alone: $144,950.
So far this year, McConnell has received $5,000 from Brown-Forman’s corporate PAC and $10,000 from the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America.
As majority leader, McConnell has spent most of the 116th Congress ensuring no lawmaking happens. He has boasted of being the “grim reaper” who blocks legislation from even coming to the floor and has so stanched the flow of bills that even his Republican colleagues have publicly complained. He has introduced little legislation, aside from housekeeping resolutions required to organize the Senate. So when the Kentucky Republican announces he will push for a bill, it is unusual.
While Paul is in just his second term in the Senate, he too has received tens of thousands in contributions from the alcohol industry.
Credit: Source link
The post Fueled by their donations, Mitch McConnell pushes special tax break for bourbon industry – ThinkProgress appeared first on WeeklyReviewer.
from WeeklyReviewer https://weeklyreviewer.com/fueled-by-their-donations-mitch-mcconnell-pushes-special-tax-break-for-bourbon-industry-thinkprogress/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=fueled-by-their-donations-mitch-mcconnell-pushes-special-tax-break-for-bourbon-industry-thinkprogress
0 notes
Text
Previous Forester on Whiskey Row: The Final Bourbon Enjoy
On June 14, 2018 a small crowd amassed at the scorching sidewalk in downtown Louisville. The instance, along with celebrating Nationwide Bourbon Day, was once to witness the grand opening of the Previous Forester Distilling Co. The Mayor and different notables from town govt and the Kentucky bourbon trade gave brief speeches lauding its finishing touch.
With its arrival, Previous Forester Distilling Co. turns into the 9th bourbon appeal within the house. Positioned within the center of Whiskey Row, it’s the second one downtown distillery to open simply this yr. It’s additionally the 12th authentic prevent at the Kentucky Bourbon Trail excursion program. (The Kentucky Bourbon Trail Craft Tour program has an extra fourteen distilleries.) Designed from the bottom as much as be a customer revel in and schooling heart, it is a totally operational distillery, cooperage and bottling facility.
THE DISTILLERY EXPERIENCE
The distillery excursion is composed of twelve stops, starting via descending a flight of stairs into the sub-basement for Orientation. Visitors first pay attention in regards to the historical past of Previous Forester and Brown-Forman sooner than transferring on to forestall #2: Substances. By the way, Previous Forester has just one mash invoice for all its bourbons: 72% corn, 18% rye, 10% malted barley.
Previous Forester Distilling Co.’s 44 foot-tall column-still / Photograph Credit score: Andrew Hyslop & Brown Forman
After visitors be told in regards to the variety and processes of the grains, they transfer into the fermentation room. Right here, 4 fermentation vats fortunately bubble away below strategically positioned spotlighting. Subsequent at the excursion, visitors take the glass elevator as much as Degree three. Alongside the way in which, they get an up-close take a look at the distillery’s new 44 foot-tall copper steady column-still. When they arrive, they’re offered to the lab and the chemical research processes which are carried out to verify high quality.
WORKING COOPERAGE
Distillery manufacturing staff paintings Tuesday via Saturday together with a number of engaged in making the barrels used to mature the bourbon. With this element, the Previous Forester Distilling Co. is the one distillery revel in in Kentucky that features a operating new barrel cooperage. It’s an outstanding nod to the truth that Brown-Forman is the one bourbon corporate to supply its personal barrels. As an added bonus, the occasional fortunate customer gets the chance to press the button to begin the hearth which ignites the barrel.
After witnessing the cooperage, visitors then observe the trail of the barrel to a maturation warehouse which descends in an enormous spiral during the 3 complete flooring. As soon as complete, the warehouse will grasp as much as 900 barrels with the remainder manufacturing saved at different Brown-Forman warehouses. The getting older warehouse opens onto a purposeful bottling line and the excursion ends at a proper, sit-down tasting room. After a guided tasting, visitors are led into the nonetheless room/present store, an open room which homes the aforementioned column nonetheless.
Igniting the barrel / Photograph Credit score: Kertis Inventive & Brown Forman
Along with a complete product line and different bourbon-centric wares, the present store additionally sells the re-release of the famed The President’s Choice. This expression of Previous Forester is a unmarried barrel product first offered in 1964 via then-president George Garvin Brown II. These days, 5th technology circle of relatives member and present president of Previous Forester, Campbell Brown, selects the barrels.
AN HOMAGE TO LOUISVILLE’S BOURBON HISTORY
Because the revel in is an absolutely functioning distillery, manufacturing is anticipated to exceed garage capability quicky. Consequently, getting the barrels to the off-site maturation warehouses is treated by the use of a novel three-story “barrel elevator” opening onto and visual from Primary Boulevard. It’s a slightly that complements the realm of Whiskey Row for all passers-by, even those that by no means input the development.
The foyer / Photograph Credit score: Andrew Hyslop & Brown Forman
With issues such because the barrel elevator, the one working coopage in a Kentucky distillery, and the convenience of monitoring the method of creating bourbon from grains via to tasting, the Previous Forester Distilling Co. is probably the most complete and academic bourbon revel in in Louisville to this point. Consequently, the ability is an homage to Brown-Forman, Louisville, and bourbon itself.
Excursions started June 15, 2018. You’ll to find data relating to location, hours of operation, and the way to make excursion reservations via visiting their web page here.
Article tie in to obtain:
With Distiller, you’ll at all times know what’s within the bottle sooner than you spend a cent. Fee, Evaluate, and Uncover spirits! Head on over to Distiller, or obtain the app for iOS and Android nowadays!
The put up Old Forester on Whiskey Row: The Ultimate Bourbon Experience seemed first on The Distiller Blog.
The post Previous Forester on Whiskey Row: The Final Bourbon Enjoy appeared first on Liquor Gift Baskets.
from http://liquorgiftbaskets.net/2018/12/09/old-forester-on-whiskey-row-the-ultimate-bourbon-experience/
0 notes
Text
To Be Read
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller
A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
Alanna Series by Tamora Pierce
Alien Earth by Megan Lindholm
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Amy, My Daughter by Mitch Winehouse
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green
An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
Anathem by Neal Stephenson
And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts
Belgaraiad series by David Eddings
Binary Star by Sarah Gerard
Black Company series by Glen Cook
Bodily Harm by Margaret Atwood
Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum
Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon by Spider Robinson
Captive Prince by C.S. Pacat
Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood
Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke
Christopher Moore books (?)
Cloven Hooves by Megan Lindholm
Conan by Robert E. Howard
Contact by Carl Sagan
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
Dangerous Women ed. George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois
Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
Death Comes to Pemberly by P.D. James
Death Is a Lonely Business by Ray Bradbury
Declare by Tim Powers
Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delaney
Discworld by Terry Pratchett
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Phillip K. Dick
Doctor Sleep by Stephen King
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
Dragon Flight by Anne McCaffrey
Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey
Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath by H.P. Lovecraft
Dune by Frank Herbert
Enrique’s Journey by Sonia Nazario
Fear: Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward
Fafhrd and Gray Mouser books by Fritz Leiber
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Foundation by Isaac Asimov
Four Past Midnight by Stephen King
Freakonomics by Stephen J. Dubner and Steven Levitt
Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais
Going Postal by Terry Pratchett
Gun, with Occasional Music by Jonathan Lethem
Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
Hyperion by Dan Simmons
I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
Icewind Dale Trilogy by R.A. Salvatore
If I Stay by Gayle Forman
In the Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
Inferno by Dante
Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne
Kingkiller Chronicle #1 and #2 by Patrick Rothfuss (upon announcement of release date for #3)
Kushiel’s Legacy by Jacqueline Carey
Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult
Legend by David Gemmel
Lensman Series by E.E. “Doc” Smith
Little, Big by John Crowley
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Longbourn by Jo Baker
Lucifer’s Hammer by Larry Niven
Lud in Mist by Hope Mirrlees
Malazan Books of the Fallen by Steven Erikson
Me Before You by Jojo Moyes
Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn by Tad Williams
Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson
My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
My Two Moms by Zach Wahls
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Nova by Samuel R. Delaney
Old Man’s War by John Scalzi
Origin by Dan Brown
One Thousand and One Nights
Only Forward by Michael Marshal Smith
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
Paradise Lost by John Milton
Perdido Street Station by China Mieville
Pride by Ibi Zoboi
Purgatorio by Dante
Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
Riftwar Saga by Feist
Ringworld by Larry Niven
River World Series by Phillip Jose Farmer
Rogues ed. George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois
Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally
Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde
Shades of Magic by V.E. Schwab
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Small Gods by Terry Pratchett
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
Stardust by Neil Gaiman
Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Stepford Wives by Ira Levin
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
Sunshine by Robin McKinley
Surfacing by Margaret Atwood
The Amber Chronicles by Roger Zelazny
The Art of the Lord of the Rings by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull
The Belgariad by David Eddings
The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter
The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe
The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov
The Chronicler of Master Li and Number Ten Ox by Barry Hughart
The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever by Stephen R. Donaldson
The Codex Alera Series by Jim Butcher
The Complete Stories by Flannery O’Connor
The Conan Chronicles by Robert E. Howard
The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart
The Culture Series by Lane M. Banks
The Dark Tower by Stephen King
The Death Cure by James Dashner
The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
The Dragonlance Chronicles by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher
The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood
The Elric Saga by Michael Moorcock
The Epic Adventures of Lydia Bennet by Kate Rorick and Rachel Kiley
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan
The Final Testament of the Holy Bible by James Frey
The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay
The Fisher King Trilogy by Tim Powers
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
The Glass Book of the Dream Eaters by Gordon Dahlquist
The Gormenghast Series by Mervyn Peake
The Gypsy by Megan Lindholm
The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood
The Hollows series by Kim Harrison
The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury
The Inheritance & Other Stories by Megan Lindholm and Robin Hobb
The Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini
The Kalevala by Elias Lonnrot
The Ki and Vandien Quartet by Megan Lindholm
The Last Herald-Mage Trilogy by Mercedes Lackey
The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
The Legend of Drizzt by R.A. Salvatore
The Long Walk by Stephen King
The Malazan Book of the Fallen Series by Stephen Erikson
The Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein
The Mote in God’s Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
The Neverending Story by Michael Ende
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
The Once and Future King by T.H. White
The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
The Pact by Jodi Picoult
The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
The Red Magician by Lisa Goldstein
The Riddlemaster of Hed series by Patricia McKillip
The Riftwar Saga by Raymond E. Feist
The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood
The Shannara Trilogy by Terry Brooks
The Shining by Stephen King
The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis
The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova
The Sword of Truth by Terry Goodkind
The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult
The Third Hill North of Town by Noah Bly
The Thrawn Trilogy by Timothy Zahn
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
The Uplift Trilogy by David Brin
The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold
The Walking Dead: The Road to Woodbury
The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
The Wilful Princess and the Piebald Prince by Robin Hobb
The Xanth Series by Piers Anthony
The Xenogenesis Trilogy by Octavia Butler
Tillu and Kerlew by Megan Lindholm
Time Enough for Love by Robert Heinlein
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Tripod Trilogy by Samuel Youd
Warriors ed. George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois
Watchmen by Alan Moore
Watership Down by Richard Adams
We Are Pirates by Daniel Handler
Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
Wicked by Gregory Maguire
Will Grayson Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan
Wizard of the Pigeons by Megan Lindholm
World War Z by Max Brooks
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
XKCD: What If? by Randall Munroe
Zodiac by Neal Stephenson
Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks
1 note
·
View note
Quote
http://ift.tt/eA8V8J La noche del Draft NBA 2017 estaba marcada por dos nombres: Markelle Fultz y Lonzo Ball. Dos jugadores que durante toda la temporada habían bregado por ser el número 1. Pero si por algo destacó este Draft no fue por esos dos nombres, sino por las sorpresas. Los Celtics eligieron en el puesto 3 a Jayson Tatum, alero de Duke, por encima de otros nombres que apuntaban más altos. Mientras, en los despachos se cernía el traspaso de uno de los jugadores más válidos de la actualidad: Jimmy Butler ponía rumbo a Minnesota a cambio de a Kriss Dunn, Zach LaVine y el posterior número 7 del Draft, Lauri Markkanen, un ala-pívot tirador.
Markelle Fultz pone el broche a los Sixers
Fultz había ganado la carrera en las últimas semanas para tener el honor de ser número 1, y el intercambio de su derecho de elección de Celtics a Philadelphia lo confirmaba. Los Sixers querían al base de la Universidad de Washington para completar su Proceso. En su currículum no obstante, una de cal y otra de arena. Fultz es por números el mejor jugador NCAA en una década, pero por contra no consiguió colar a su equipo ni para la March Madness.
Con él los Sixers forman un Big-Three de talento con 3 números 1: Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons, aún sin debutar, y el citado Fultz. Pueden ser una bomba a futuro, pero también los nuevos Timberwolves.
Lonzo Ball, el sueño cumplido de una familia de bocazas
Hablar de Lonzo Ball (UCLA) es hablar del novato más mediático de los últimos años. En primer lugar porque su capacidad anotadora y de visión de juego lo merece, y en segundo por el bocazas de su padre, que desde el principio se encargó de colocarlo en los Lakers. Y así fue. Tras el trade de D’Angelo Russell, los angelinos ya tienen nuevo base titular, ahora toca ver si todo lo que promete es cierto.
Conociendo a Lonzo Ball, sus hermanos y el bocazas de su padre
Jayson Tatum, la sorpresa Celtic
Danny Ainge había asegurado que traspasar el pick. 1 le daba igual porque en el 3 iba a elegir al jugador que pensaba elegir en primera posición. En ese momento todos pensamos en Josh Jackson, el espigado alero de la Univ. de Kansas que era muy de su gusto. Pero no, Jackson acabará formando dúo con Devin Booker en Phoenix, porque los Celtis elegieron a Jayson Tatum.
Tatum, alero de la universidad de Duke, es para muchos analistas el jugador más hecho de este Draft, una máquina de tirar con un físico también bueno, ideal para un puesto de tres muy valorado en los Celtis desde siempre y donde aunque ya estén Jaylen Brown o Crowder, la llegada de Tatum no cierra tampoco la puerta al posible fichaje de Hayward. Eso sí, su virtud, estar ya hecho, es también su mayor problema, ya que su nivel de desarrollo puede ser menor que otros novatos.
Del puesto 4 al 10
Como decimos, Jackson puso rumbo a Phoenix, mientras que los Kings se lanzaron a por De’Aaron Fox, base de Kentucky con también muy buena pinta. Menos hecho dicen que está Jonathan Isaac, el alero de Florida State por el que ha apostado Orlando.
Con el pick 7 del trade de Jimmy Butler, los Bulls escogieron a Lauri Markanen, finlandés formado en la NCAA que como decimos es un cuatro tirador, con lo que ello acarrea para Mirotic. Los Knicks se tiraron a por el base francés Frank Ntilikina, mientras que Dallas se llevó el jugador más revolver de todo el Draft: Dennis Smith es definido como un mini-Westbrook, pero las lesiones y su mala cabeza pueden cortar su progresión. Puede salirles genial, no obstante. Por último, en el puesto 10 entró Zach Collins, el único center de las primeras posiciones, que será jugador de Portland tras otro traspaso mediante Sacramento realizado en plena gala.
LAS 30 ELECCIONES DE PRIMERA RONDA
NÚMERO
EQUIPO
JUGADOR
UNIVERSIDAD
PUESTO
1
76ers
Markelle Fultz
Washington
Base
2
Lakers
Lonzo Ball
UCLA
Base
3
Celtics
Jayson Tatum
Duke
Alero
4
Suns
Josh Jackson
Kansas
Alero
5
Kings
De’Aaron Fox
Kentucky
Base
6
Magic
Jonathan Isaac
Florida State
Alero
7
Bulls (vía Wolves)
Lauri Markkanen
Arizona
Ala-pívot
8
Knicks
Frank Ntilikina
Estraburgo (FRA)
Base
9
Mavericks
Dennis Smith
N. Carolina State
Base
10
Blazers (vía Kings)
Zach Collins
Gonzaga
Pívot
11
Hornets
Malik Monk
Kentucky
Escolta
12
Pistons
Luke Kennard
Duke
Escolta
13
Jazz (vía Nuggets)
Donovan Mitchell
Louisville
Escolta
14
Heat
Bam Adebayo
Kentucky
Pívot
15
Kings (vía Blazers)
Justin Jackson
North Carolina
Alero
16
Wolves (vía Bulls)
Justin Patton
Creighton
Pívot
17
Bucks
D.J. Wilson
Michigan
Alero
18
Pacers
T.J. Leaf
UCLA
Ala-pívot
19
Hawks
John Collins
Wake Forest
Ala-pívot
20
Kings (vía Blazers)
Harry Giles
Duke
Pívot
21
Thunder
Terrance Ferguson
Adelaide 36ers (AUS)
Escolta
22
Nets
Jarrett Allen
Texas
Pívot
23
Raptors
OG Anunoby
Indiana
Alero
24
Nuggets (vía Jazz)
Tyler Lydon
Syracuse
Ala-pívot
25
Sixers (vía Magic)
Anzejs Pasecniks
Gran Canaria (ESP)
Pívot
26
Blazers
Caleb Swanigan
Purdue
Pívot
27
Lakers (vía Nets)
Kyle Kuzma
Utah
Ala-pívot
28
Jazz (vía Lakers)
Tony Bradley
North Carolina
Pívot
29
Spurs
Derrick White
Colorado
Escolta
30
Lakers (vía Jazz)
Josh Hart
Villanova
Alero
http://www.sweethoops.com/fultz-a-sixers-lonzo-ball-a-lakers-y-tatum-para-celtics-asi-queda-el-draft-nba-2017/
0 notes
Text
The Kingsman 2, Drake, Whiskey And A New Level Of Product Placement
Add to Flipboard Magazine.
We at zenruption have become privy to a juicy little leak. But first, here’s a riddle: what do Drake and The Statesman movie have in common? If you guessed a tie that appeared in the first movie that was a Drake brand, you are correct, but that’s not my point. My point is, on this day, as Drake “drops” his own line of whiskey, Virginia Black American Whiskey, just in time for the Kentucky Derby, we have discovered a little secret about the upcoming film and the marketing within The Kingsman: The Golden Circle.
As you know, the opening scene of The Kingsman: The Secret Service pivots around a glass of 1962 Dalmore. As violence erupts and the sorting out of who are the bad guys and who are the good guys, the elite beverage is delivered without wasting a precious drop, creating a weird tension where the value of the whiskey is clearly higher than that of the lives being taken. Throughout the movie, quality spirits are front and center and even play critical roles in advancing the storyline. In the new Kingsman, due in theaters September 22, whiskey plays an even more prominent role.
In the first show, the Kingsmen use a tailor shop as the front for their secret headquarters and equipment dispensary. In The Golden Circle, the plot moves to America. In this film, we are introduced to The Statesmen, who are master distillers in Kentucky. The Statesmen are played by Jeff Bridges, Hallie Berry, and Channing Tatum. This movie has upped the ante in product placement and marketing.
Instead of merely placing a bottle or mentioning a brand of whiskey in the movie, as was done with the ‘62 Dalmore, the Statesmen in The Golden Circle drink their own brand, Statesman Whiskey. Now, this might seem like a lost opportunity to create revenue by mentioning a sponsored brand. Not so fast. With the help of Brown-Forman, makers of Old Forester, Jack Daniel’s, and Woodford Reserve to name a few, a new whiskey was created: Statesman. This whiskey will be introduced all over the country, capitalizing on the brand endorsed by the Statesmen from the movie. So instead of merely placing a product in a film, they are creating a product and taking advantage of the movies’ following (If only Jeff Bridges could have marketed Dude Brand Joints after The Big Lebowski, no?)
There is a hint to this in the official trailer for The Kingsman: The Golden Circle. At 1:05 you can see the engraving on the silver flask attached to Jeff Bridges belt. It says, Statesman.
We may have to wait until September to watch the sequel to The Kingsman, but now we have another product to wring our hands over: when will this whiskey drop?
medianet_width = "728"; medianet_height = "90"; medianet_crid = "728762653"; medianet_versionId = "111299"; (function() { var isSSL = 'https:' == document.location.protocol; var mnSrc = (isSSL ? 'https:' : 'http:') + '//contextual.media.net/nmedianet.js?cid=8CUTI81HQ' + (isSSL ? '&https=1' : ''); document.write('<scr' + 'ipt type="text/javascript" id="mNSC" src="' + mnSrc + '">' + 'ipt>'); })();
#The Kingsman#The Kingsman 2#The Kingsman: The Golden Circle#The Golden Circle#Drake#Brown-Forman#Jack Daniel's#Virginia Black Whiskey#Drake Wiskey#bourbon#Woodford Reserve#old forester#Kentucky Derby#whiskey#whisky#Jeff Bridges#Hallie Berry#Channing Tatum#Elton John#Samuel L. Jackson
0 notes
Text
How Japan Created the Modern American Bourbon Market
It was 1975 and bourbon sales in America were tanking. The brown spirit had hit its peak just five years earlier, selling some 80 million cases in 1970 — but it all went downhill from there.
Baby boomers coming of drinking age were rejecting the stuffy-seeming whiskey their parents drank, instead favoring beer, cheap wine, and, most especially, clear booze like vodka and tequila. The American whiskey industry was reeling and running out of ideas.
“This was a daunting task since the market was totally Scotch-taste oriented,” William Yuracko, then head of Schenley International’s export division, told the The New York Times in 1992. Japanese people mostly drank Scotch — the country had lifted all restrictions on imported spirits in 1969 — or their own homegrown whiskey, which was likewise based on a Scotch flavor profile. “Bourbon was unknown and a total departure from the taste pattern,” he wrote.
Remarkably, within a few short years, Yuracko (who would would become Schenley president from 1975 to 1984) and others would create a frenzy for bourbon in Japan. In fact, the country’s desire for very well-aged, high-proof, premium-packaged, limited editions and single-barrel bourbons helped Kentucky survive when the American bourbon market was dead as disco.
The U.S. would, in turn, follow Japan’s lead and, as the world entered a new millennium, start latching onto these trends and introducing products that helped revive America’s fervor for the once-humble spirit, ultimately and unwittingly turning it into something now rabidly pursued by connoisseurs the world over.
A Critical Mass of Bourbon
Yuracko first started taking reconnaissance trips to the Far East in 1972 and quickly realized that getting Scotch-swilling Japanese old-timers to switch to bourbon would be nearly impossible. He decided to instead focus his efforts on Japan’s youth, the “post-college consumer,” he told The Times, “whose tastes were not yet formed and who was attuned to Western products and ideas,” like Coca-Cola and Levi’s.
“They were having their own youth revolution, [like] what we had gone through in the ’60s they were going through in the 80s,” explains Chuck Cowdery, author and bourbon historian. “Rejecting their parents’ generation, including what their parents’ generation drank. They were open to trying something new.”
Enter bourbon. Then, as now, it was very hard for foreigners to make headway in Japanese business. Yuracko knew he’d need a local liaison, so he offered a distribution partnership with Suntory, the Japanese whiskey brand that already controlled 70 percent of the local market. Brown-Forman, another American whiskey powerhouse and Schenley’s best competitor, would eventually offer Suntory the same deal.
“I cannot overestimate the importance of the decision taken by Schenley management to place their most important brands in the same house with their major competitor,” Yuracko explained in a paper he wrote for the Journal of Business Strategy in 1992. “This would be tantamount to Ford and General Motors giving all their top models to Toyota to market in Japan.”
It was a major gamble for everyone involved. Suntory could, of course, intentionally torpedo all bourbon sales to assure Japanese whiskey would never again have a competitor; or it could favor one bourbon brand over the other. The fact was, however, neither Schenley nor Brown-Forman had much to lose. If they didn’t take the gamble, bourbon might not even exist by the end of the decade.
Suntory didn’t want to simply do a trial, either. According to Yuracko, Suntory wanted a “critical mass” of bourbon, “a product for every taste and price level … and each brand was given its own identity and market niche.” Schenley offered Suntory Ancient Age, J.W. Dant, and I.W. Harper. Brown-Forman handed over Early Times, Old Forester, and Jack Daniel’s.
Since most drinking in Japan was done outside of the home, Schenley and Brown-Forman together began setting up bourbon bars all over the country. The bars had “an unsophisticated atmosphere that would appeal to young people already attracted to American clothes, cars, and customs,” Yuracko explained, playing country music and serving American food like hamburgers and chili, and only pouring Suntory’s six bourbon brands.
Instead of buying single glasses of bourbon, young customers purchased bottles, stored in cabinets along the bars, each adorned with a neck tag denoting whose was whose. In an era before TikTok, it became a youthful challenge to see who could drink the most personal bottles. Thanks to heavy advertising from Suntory, one brand quickly began to rise above the others.
“I.W. Harper was the eye-opener,” explains Cowdery. A bottom-shelf product in America, it was naturally able to be sold at much higher prices in Japan, before Schenley eventually fully repositioned it as a premium, 12-year-old product. If it was only moving 2,000 cases internationally in 1969, I. W. Harper eventually became the largest-selling bourbon brand in Japan at more than 500,000 cases per year by 1991. Cowdery explains, “It was profitable to buy cases of I.W. Harper on [the American] wholesale market and privately ship them to Japan.”
Eventually, the U.S. had to take I.W. Harper off the market stateside in order to satisfy demand in Japan. Soon enough, other brands took notice and decided to see if they, too, could become “big in Japan.” By 1990, 2 million cases of bourbon were headed to the country every year.
More Brands Head to Japan
In a sleepy Osaka suburb, a three-story building that has been everything from a hotel to a brothel is now a bar styled like a western saloon. It serves American food like fried chicken, thumps Dylan and the Beatles on a vintage jukebox, and mixes up classic cocktails like the Mint Julep and another called the Scarlett O’Hara. This is Rogin’s Tavern in Moriguichi, a bourbon bar that opened in the 1970s that remains a shrine to Americana and its governmentally protected spirit, stocking more and arguably better bourbon than pretty much any single bar in America.
“I tasted my first bourbon in the basement bar of the Rihga Royal Hotel, a famous old place in Osaka,” claims Seiichiro Tatsumi, Rogin’s owner since 1977. He quickly became obsessed, reading everything he could about bourbon via literature provided by the American Cultural Center in Osaka. He finally visited Kentucky for the first time in 1984 and fell in love, driving its country roads, stopping at off-the-beaten path liquor stores, and acquiring numerous dusty bottles to bring back to Japan. He now owns a second home in Lexington.
Over the years, Tatsumi claims, he has probably “self-imported” some 5,000 bourbons from America back to his bar. “I stop at every place I pass, and I don’t just look on the shelves,” he says. “I ask the clerk to comb the cellar and check the storeroom for anything old. I can’t tell you how many cases of ancient bottles I’ve found that way.”
It wasn’t only Tatsumi. Japan gave these old bourbon brands a new lifeline. For example, Four Roses had long fallen out of favor with American drinkers by the 1970s. In 1967, Seagram’s turned the once-venerable brand into a dreaded blended whiskey, cut with grain neutral spirit and added flavoring.
“[B]y the time the ‘90s rolled around it was just an average blended whiskey,” the late Al Young, Four Roses’ former senior brand ambassador who worked at the company for 50 years, told VinePair contributor Nicholas Mancall-Bitel last year. But in Japan it was legitimate straight bourbon whiskey, packaged in sleek Cognac-style bottles with embossed silver roses, and it was a big hit. Just as Schenley and Brown-Forman had partnered with Suntory, in 1971 Four Roses struck up a partnership with Kirin, Japan’s top beer brand.
If brands like I.W. Harper, Four Roses, and Early Times were saved by Japan, others were specifically created for it. Blanton’s, for example, was spawned in 1984 by two former Fleischmann’s Distilling execs, Ferdie Falk and Bob Baranaskas. The two had acquired the Buffalo Trace distillery (then known as the George T. Stagg Distillery), as well as Schenley’s key bourbon, Ancient Age. Believing, like Yuracko, that the future of bourbon was overseas, they called their new company Age International.
“[T]he brand chased the profitable high-priced segment,” writes Fred Minnick in his book “Bourbon: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of an American Whiskey.” In this case, that meant introducing the world’s first commercial single-barrel bourbon, specifically designed for Japan, and packaged in a now iconic grenade-shaped, horse-stoppered bottle.
Blanton’s was such a hit in Japan that by 1992 Japanese company Takara Shuzo had purchased Age International for $20 million. It immediately flipped the actual distillery to Sazerac, while retaining the brand trademarks for Blanton’s.
Aged Bourbons Claim a Price
Accustomed to Scotch, once Japanese consumers “moved onto other types of whiskey, they already had these expectations built in for 12-, 15-, 18-year age statements,” explains John Rudd, an American who formerly lived in Japan and runs the Tokyo Bourbon Bible blog.
Bourbon in America had typically been released after about four years — it got too oaky if it aged much longer, it was believed at the time — and few consumers particularly cared about lofty age statements. Not so in Japan and, luckily, the glut in America allowed many bourbon distilleries to unload what they thought was over-aged junk.
“With a depressed market in America, lots of bourbon, especially extra-aged bourbon, was shipped to Japan where it could command a higher price,” Rudd says.
There was Very Old St. Nick, specially created in 1984 for the Japanese market, some as old as 25 years. There was Old Grommes Very Very Rare Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, which in the late 1980s started sending Japan bottles as old as two decades. A.H. Hirsch, aged 15, 16, and eventually 20 years, landed in Japan as early as 1989, and is still some of the most coveted bourbon of all time (so much so that Cowdery wrote an entire book about it).
Heaven Hill, today the largest family-owned and operated distillery in the U.S., specifically bottled an Evan Williams 23 for the Japanese market and created new brands like Martin Mills 24 Years.
“Japan considered bourbon a prestigious, highly coveted consumer good,” says Jimmy Russell, Wild Turkey’s master distiller who started visiting Japan in the 1980s. Every year he returned with special bottlings from his company, some as old as 13 years, a lofty age that never existed in America. “Back then, you’d see private bottle programs at prestigious bars where high-level executives would have their own bottles of bourbon designated ‘my bottle.’”
Rogin’s Tavern, for one, started tapping distilleries for its own private, cask-strength bottlings. Willett provided a 25-year-old labeled “Rogin’s Choice.” Julian Van Winkle III, scion of the soon-to-come Pappy dynasty, offered a 12-year bottling. Van Winkle III, in particular, kept his nascent company afloat in the mid-1980s and onward by providing special bottlings, many under a name you could easily now call the entire Japanese whiskey marketplace: Society of Bourbon Connoisseurs.
Van Winkle III first released Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Reserve 20 Year in America in 1994; by the mid-2000s, Pappy had become the most coveted whiskey in the country, regularly selling for thousands of dollars per bottle.
“Bourbon became popular here [in America] again,” explains Rudd. “And people quit thinking it needed to be young.”
The American Bourbon Revival
America’s bourbon malaise would last nearly three decades, reaching its nadir in 2000, when a mere 32 million cases were moved stateside. Of course, it’s always darkest before the dawn, and, thanks to Japan’s example, things were already being put into place for bourbon’s homeland revival.
Like at Four Roses, where Jim Rutledge took over as master distiller in 1995 and made it his mission to get the company to start letting American consumers finally taste the high-quality bourbon Japan had been enjoying for decades. As Mancall-Bitel explained, however, “The bourbon was performing too well overseas and the company didn’t want to rock the boat — until it was rocked from within the company.”
Seagram’s collapsed and started selling off its assets. Rutledge convinced Kirin to buy Four Roses, and the eventual Japanese CEO, Teruyuki Daino, moved his offices from Tokyo back to the distillery in Lawrenceburg, Ky. By 2002, once again, Four Roses bourbon was sold in America. Today it’s one of the bourbon world’s most revered brands, introducing geek-friendly products like Single Barrel in 2004 and the Small Batch series in 2006.
Japan proved that well-aged, premium bourbon actually had a place in the world. Bourbon didn’t have to be Scotch’s economical, bottom-shelf brother. Blanton’s, when it was finally sold in America, was priced at $24 a bottle — then a massive price point — and was advertised in such upscale places as The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, and Ivy League alumni mags. Around the same time, Japanese drinkers were gladly paying $115 per bottle.
Bourbon’s rebirth in America has caused many brands to pull back their products from the Japanese market and raise prices on the little still sent there. Japan’s taste for bourbon has dwindled. At the same time, American tourists were heading to Japan to clear shelves of old stock.
“It all corresponded with the American bourbon boom getting out of hand,” explains Rudd. He believes Japan is no longer the bourbon oasis that it once was, even as recently as 2014, when he lived near a liquor store that stocked rare bottles like Society of Bourbon Connoisseurs, gold wax A.H. Hirsch, Van Winkle 1974 Family Reserve 17 Year, and Buffalo Trace Antique Collection offerings from the early aughts.
Rudd says he’d buy a few bottles here and there, always resting assured that more would be there any time he returned. “Then one day, I went back to the store and nothing was left,” he says. “I asked the owner what happened and he told me, ‘Some American guy named Alex came by and purchased all of it.’”
The article How Japan Created the Modern American Bourbon Market appeared first on VinePair.
source https://vinepair.com/articles/japan-created-american-bourbon-market/
0 notes
Text
How Japan Created the Modern American Bourbon Market
It was 1975 and bourbon sales in America were tanking. The brown spirit had hit its peak just five years earlier, selling some 80 million cases in 1970 — but it all went downhill from there.
Baby boomers coming of drinking age were rejecting the stuffy-seeming whiskey their parents drank, instead favoring beer, cheap wine, and, most especially, clear booze like vodka and tequila. The American whiskey industry was reeling and running out of ideas.
“This was a daunting task since the market was totally Scotch-taste oriented,” William Yuracko, then head of Schenley International’s export division, told the The New York Times in 1992. Japanese people mostly drank Scotch — the country had lifted all restrictions on imported spirits in 1969 — or their own homegrown whiskey, which was likewise based on a Scotch flavor profile. “Bourbon was unknown and a total departure from the taste pattern,” he wrote.
Remarkably, within a few short years, Yuracko (who would would become Schenley president from 1975 to 1984) and others would create a frenzy for bourbon in Japan. In fact, the country’s desire for very well-aged, high-proof, premium-packaged, limited editions and single-barrel bourbons helped Kentucky survive when the American bourbon market was dead as disco.
The U.S. would, in turn, follow Japan’s lead and, as the world entered a new millennium, start latching onto these trends and introducing products that helped revive America’s fervor for the once-humble spirit, ultimately and unwittingly turning it into something now rabidly pursued by connoisseurs the world over.
A Critical Mass of Bourbon
Yuracko first started taking reconnaissance trips to the Far East in 1972 and quickly realized that getting Scotch-swilling Japanese old-timers to switch to bourbon would be nearly impossible. He decided to instead focus his efforts on Japan’s youth, the “post-college consumer,” he told The Times, “whose tastes were not yet formed and who was attuned to Western products and ideas,” like Coca-Cola and Levi’s.
“They were having their own youth revolution, [like] what we had gone through in the ’60s they were going through in the 80s,” explains Chuck Cowdery, author and bourbon historian. “Rejecting their parents’ generation, including what their parents’ generation drank. They were open to trying something new.”
Enter bourbon. Then, as now, it was very hard for foreigners to make headway in Japanese business. Yuracko knew he’d need a local liaison, so he offered a distribution partnership with Suntory, the Japanese whiskey brand that already controlled 70 percent of the local market. Brown-Forman, another American whiskey powerhouse and Schenley’s best competitor, would eventually offer Suntory the same deal.
“I cannot overestimate the importance of the decision taken by Schenley management to place their most important brands in the same house with their major competitor,” Yuracko explained in a paper he wrote for the Journal of Business Strategy in 1992. “This would be tantamount to Ford and General Motors giving all their top models to Toyota to market in Japan.”
It was a major gamble for everyone involved. Suntory could, of course, intentionally torpedo all bourbon sales to assure Japanese whiskey would never again have a competitor; or it could favor one bourbon brand over the other. The fact was, however, neither Schenley nor Brown-Forman had much to lose. If they didn’t take the gamble, bourbon might not even exist by the end of the decade.
Suntory didn’t want to simply do a trial, either. According to Yuracko, Suntory wanted a “critical mass” of bourbon, “a product for every taste and price level … and each brand was given its own identity and market niche.” Schenley offered Suntory Ancient Age, J.W. Dant, and I.W. Harper. Brown-Forman handed over Early Times, Old Forester, and Jack Daniel’s.
Since most drinking in Japan was done outside of the home, Schenley and Brown-Forman together began setting up bourbon bars all over the country. The bars had “an unsophisticated atmosphere that would appeal to young people already attracted to American clothes, cars, and customs,” Yuracko explained, playing country music and serving American food like hamburgers and chili, and only pouring Suntory’s six bourbon brands.
Instead of buying single glasses of bourbon, young customers purchased bottles, stored in cabinets along the bars, each adorned with a neck tag denoting whose was whose. In an era before TikTok, it became a youthful challenge to see who could drink the most personal bottles. Thanks to heavy advertising from Suntory, one brand quickly began to rise above the others.
“I.W. Harper was the eye-opener,” explains Cowdery. A bottom-shelf product in America, it was naturally able to be sold at much higher prices in Japan, before Schenley eventually fully repositioned it as a premium, 12-year-old product. If it was only moving 2,000 cases internationally in 1969, I. W. Harper eventually became the largest-selling bourbon brand in Japan at more than 500,000 cases per year by 1991. Cowdery explains, “It was profitable to buy cases of I.W. Harper on [the American] wholesale market and privately ship them to Japan.”
Eventually, the U.S. had to take I.W. Harper off the market stateside in order to satisfy demand in Japan. Soon enough, other brands took notice and decided to see if they, too, could become “big in Japan.” By 1990, 2 million cases of bourbon were headed to the country every year.
More Brands Head to Japan
In a sleepy Osaka suburb, a three-story building that has been everything from a hotel to a brothel is now a bar styled like a western saloon. It serves American food like fried chicken, thumps Dylan and the Beatles on a vintage jukebox, and mixes up classic cocktails like the Mint Julep and another called the Scarlett O’Hara. This is Rogin’s Tavern in Moriguichi, a bourbon bar that opened in the 1970s that remains a shrine to Americana and its governmentally protected spirit, stocking more and arguably better bourbon than pretty much any single bar in America.
“I tasted my first bourbon in the basement bar of the Rihga Royal Hotel, a famous old place in Osaka,” claims Seiichiro Tatsumi, Rogin’s owner since 1977. He quickly became obsessed, reading everything he could about bourbon via literature provided by the American Cultural Center in Osaka. He finally visited Kentucky for the first time in 1984 and fell in love, driving its country roads, stopping at off-the-beaten path liquor stores, and acquiring numerous dusty bottles to bring back to Japan. He now owns a second home in Lexington.
Over the years, Tatsumi claims, he has probably “self-imported” some 5,000 bourbons from America back to his bar. “I stop at every place I pass, and I don’t just look on the shelves,” he says. “I ask the clerk to comb the cellar and check the storeroom for anything old. I can’t tell you how many cases of ancient bottles I’ve found that way.”
It wasn’t only Tatsumi. Japan gave these old bourbon brands a new lifeline. For example, Four Roses had long fallen out of favor with American drinkers by the 1970s. In 1967, Seagram’s turned the once-venerable brand into a dreaded blended whiskey, cut with grain neutral spirit and added flavoring.
“[B]y the time the ‘90s rolled around it was just an average blended whiskey,” the late Al Young, Four Roses’ former senior brand ambassador who worked at the company for 50 years, told VinePair contributor Nicholas Mancall-Bitel last year. But in Japan it was legitimate straight bourbon whiskey, packaged in sleek Cognac-style bottles with embossed silver roses, and it was a big hit. Just as Schenley and Brown-Forman had partnered with Suntory, in 1971 Four Roses struck up a partnership with Kirin, Japan’s top beer brand.
If brands like I.W. Harper, Four Roses, and Early Times were saved by Japan, others were specifically created for it. Blanton’s, for example, was spawned in 1984 by two former Fleischmann’s Distilling execs, Ferdie Falk and Bob Baranaskas. The two had acquired the Buffalo Trace distillery (then known as the George T. Stagg Distillery), as well as Schenley’s key bourbon, Ancient Age. Believing, like Yuracko, that the future of bourbon was overseas, they called their new company Age International.
“[T]he brand chased the profitable high-priced segment,” writes Fred Minnick in his book “Bourbon: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of an American Whiskey.” In this case, that meant introducing the world’s first commercial single-barrel bourbon, specifically designed for Japan, and packaged in a now iconic grenade-shaped, horse-stoppered bottle.
Blanton’s was such a hit in Japan that by 1992 Japanese company Takara Shuzo had purchased Age International for $20 million. It immediately flipped the actual distillery to Sazerac, while retaining the brand trademarks for Blanton’s.
Aged Bourbons Claim a Price
Accustomed to Scotch, once Japanese consumers “moved onto other types of whiskey, they already had these expectations built in for 12-, 15-, 18-year age statements,” explains John Rudd, an American who formerly lived in Japan and runs the Tokyo Bourbon Bible blog.
Bourbon in America had typically been released after about four years — it got too oaky if it aged much longer, it was believed at the time — and few consumers particularly cared about lofty age statements. Not so in Japan and, luckily, the glut in America allowed many bourbon distilleries to unload what they thought was over-aged junk.
“With a depressed market in America, lots of bourbon, especially extra-aged bourbon, was shipped to Japan where it could command a higher price,” Rudd says.
There was Very Old St. Nick, specially created in 1984 for the Japanese market, some as old as 25 years. There was Old Grommes Very Very Rare Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, which in the late 1980s started sending Japan bottles as old as two decades. A.H. Hirsch, aged 15, 16, and eventually 20 years, landed in Japan as early as 1989, and is still some of the most coveted bourbon of all time (so much so that Cowdery wrote an entire book about it).
Heaven Hill, today the largest family-owned and operated distillery in the U.S., specifically bottled an Evan Williams 23 for the Japanese market and created new brands like Martin Mills 24 Years.
“Japan considered bourbon a prestigious, highly coveted consumer good,” says Jimmy Russell, Wild Turkey’s master distiller who started visiting Japan in the 1980s. Every year he returned with special bottlings from his company, some as old as 13 years, a lofty age that never existed in America. “Back then, you’d see private bottle programs at prestigious bars where high-level executives would have their own bottles of bourbon designated ‘my bottle.’”
Rogin’s Tavern, for one, started tapping distilleries for its own private, cask-strength bottlings. Willett provided a 25-year-old labeled “Rogin’s Choice.” Julian Van Winkle III, scion of the soon-to-come Pappy dynasty, offered a 12-year bottling. Van Winkle III, in particular, kept his nascent company afloat in the mid-1980s and onward by providing special bottlings, many under a name you could easily now call the entire Japanese whiskey marketplace: Society of Bourbon Connoisseurs.
Van Winkle III first released Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Reserve 20 Year in America in 1994; by the mid-2000s, Pappy had become the most coveted whiskey in the country, regularly selling for thousands of dollars per bottle.
“Bourbon became popular here [in America] again,” explains Rudd. “And people quit thinking it needed to be young.”
The American Bourbon Revival
America’s bourbon malaise would last nearly three decades, reaching its nadir in 2000, when a mere 32 million cases were moved stateside. Of course, it’s always darkest before the dawn, and, thanks to Japan’s example, things were already being put into place for bourbon’s homeland revival.
Like at Four Roses, where Jim Rutledge took over as master distiller in 1995 and made it his mission to get the company to start letting American consumers finally taste the high-quality bourbon Japan had been enjoying for decades. As Mancall-Bitel explained, however, “The bourbon was performing too well overseas and the company didn’t want to rock the boat — until it was rocked from within the company.”
Seagram’s collapsed and started selling off its assets. Rutledge convinced Kirin to buy Four Roses, and the eventual Japanese CEO, Teruyuki Daino, moved his offices from Tokyo back to the distillery in Lawrenceburg, Ky. By 2002, once again, Four Roses bourbon was sold in America. Today it’s one of the bourbon world’s most revered brands, introducing geek-friendly products like Single Barrel in 2004 and the Small Batch series in 2006.
Japan proved that well-aged, premium bourbon actually had a place in the world. Bourbon didn’t have to be Scotch’s economical, bottom-shelf brother. Blanton’s, when it was finally sold in America, was priced at $24 a bottle — then a massive price point — and was advertised in such upscale places as The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, and Ivy League alumni mags. Around the same time, Japanese drinkers were gladly paying $115 per bottle.
Bourbon’s rebirth in America has caused many brands to pull back their products from the Japanese market and raise prices on the little still sent there. Japan’s taste for bourbon has dwindled. At the same time, American tourists were heading to Japan to clear shelves of old stock.
“It all corresponded with the American bourbon boom getting out of hand,” explains Rudd. He believes Japan is no longer the bourbon oasis that it once was, even as recently as 2014, when he lived near a liquor store that stocked rare bottles like Society of Bourbon Connoisseurs, gold wax A.H. Hirsch, Van Winkle 1974 Family Reserve 17 Year, and Buffalo Trace Antique Collection offerings from the early aughts.
Rudd says he’d buy a few bottles here and there, always resting assured that more would be there any time he returned. “Then one day, I went back to the store and nothing was left,” he says. “I asked the owner what happened and he told me, ‘Some American guy named Alex came by and purchased all of it.’”
The article How Japan Created the Modern American Bourbon Market appeared first on VinePair.
Via https://vinepair.com/articles/japan-created-american-bourbon-market/
source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/how-japan-created-the-modern-american-bourbon-market
0 notes
Text
How Japan Created the Modern American Bourbon Market
It was 1975 and bourbon sales in America were tanking. The brown spirit had hit its peak just five years earlier, selling some 80 million cases in 1970 — but it all went downhill from there.
Baby boomers coming of drinking age were rejecting the stuffy-seeming whiskey their parents drank, instead favoring beer, cheap wine, and, most especially, clear booze like vodka and tequila. The American whiskey industry was reeling and running out of ideas.
“This was a daunting task since the market was totally Scotch-taste oriented,” William Yuracko, then head of Schenley International’s export division, told the The New York Times in 1992. Japanese people mostly drank Scotch — the country had lifted all restrictions on imported spirits in 1969 — or their own homegrown whiskey, which was likewise based on a Scotch flavor profile. “Bourbon was unknown and a total departure from the taste pattern,” he wrote.
Remarkably, within a few short years, Yuracko (who would would become Schenley president from 1975 to 1984) and others would create a frenzy for bourbon in Japan. In fact, the country’s desire for very well-aged, high-proof, premium-packaged, limited editions and single-barrel bourbons helped Kentucky survive when the American bourbon market was dead as disco.
The U.S. would, in turn, follow Japan’s lead and, as the world entered a new millennium, start latching onto these trends and introducing products that helped revive America’s fervor for the once-humble spirit, ultimately and unwittingly turning it into something now rabidly pursued by connoisseurs the world over.
A Critical Mass of Bourbon
Yuracko first started taking reconnaissance trips to the Far East in 1972 and quickly realized that getting Scotch-swilling Japanese old-timers to switch to bourbon would be nearly impossible. He decided to instead focus his efforts on Japan’s youth, the “post-college consumer,” he told The Times, “whose tastes were not yet formed and who was attuned to Western products and ideas,” like Coca-Cola and Levi’s.
“They were having their own youth revolution, [like] what we had gone through in the ’60s they were going through in the 80s,” explains Chuck Cowdery, author and bourbon historian. “Rejecting their parents’ generation, including what their parents’ generation drank. They were open to trying something new.”
Enter bourbon. Then, as now, it was very hard for foreigners to make headway in Japanese business. Yuracko knew he’d need a local liaison, so he offered a distribution partnership with Suntory, the Japanese whiskey brand that already controlled 70 percent of the local market. Brown-Forman, another American whiskey powerhouse and Schenley’s best competitor, would eventually offer Suntory the same deal.
“I cannot overestimate the importance of the decision taken by Schenley management to place their most important brands in the same house with their major competitor,” Yuracko explained in a paper he wrote for the Journal of Business Strategy in 1992. “This would be tantamount to Ford and General Motors giving all their top models to Toyota to market in Japan.”
It was a major gamble for everyone involved. Suntory could, of course, intentionally torpedo all bourbon sales to assure Japanese whiskey would never again have a competitor; or it could favor one bourbon brand over the other. The fact was, however, neither Schenley nor Brown-Forman had much to lose. If they didn’t take the gamble, bourbon might not even exist by the end of the decade.
Suntory didn’t want to simply do a trial, either. According to Yuracko, Suntory wanted a “critical mass” of bourbon, “a product for every taste and price level … and each brand was given its own identity and market niche.” Schenley offered Suntory Ancient Age, J.W. Dant, and I.W. Harper. Brown-Forman handed over Early Times, Old Forester, and Jack Daniel’s.
Since most drinking in Japan was done outside of the home, Schenley and Brown-Forman together began setting up bourbon bars all over the country. The bars had “an unsophisticated atmosphere that would appeal to young people already attracted to American clothes, cars, and customs,” Yuracko explained, playing country music and serving American food like hamburgers and chili, and only pouring Suntory’s six bourbon brands.
Instead of buying single glasses of bourbon, young customers purchased bottles, stored in cabinets along the bars, each adorned with a neck tag denoting whose was whose. In an era before TikTok, it became a youthful challenge to see who could drink the most personal bottles. Thanks to heavy advertising from Suntory, one brand quickly began to rise above the others.
“I.W. Harper was the eye-opener,” explains Cowdery. A bottom-shelf product in America, it was naturally able to be sold at much higher prices in Japan, before Schenley eventually fully repositioned it as a premium, 12-year-old product. If it was only moving 2,000 cases internationally in 1969, I. W. Harper eventually became the largest-selling bourbon brand in Japan at more than 500,000 cases per year by 1991. Cowdery explains, “It was profitable to buy cases of I.W. Harper on [the American] wholesale market and privately ship them to Japan.”
Eventually, the U.S. had to take I.W. Harper off the market stateside in order to satisfy demand in Japan. Soon enough, other brands took notice and decided to see if they, too, could become “big in Japan.” By 1990, 2 million cases of bourbon were headed to the country every year.
More Brands Head to Japan
In a sleepy Osaka suburb, a three-story building that has been everything from a hotel to a brothel is now a bar styled like a western saloon. It serves American food like fried chicken, thumps Dylan and the Beatles on a vintage jukebox, and mixes up classic cocktails like the Mint Julep and another called the Scarlett O’Hara. This is Rogin’s Tavern in Moriguichi, a bourbon bar that opened in the 1970s that remains a shrine to Americana and its governmentally protected spirit, stocking more and arguably better bourbon than pretty much any single bar in America.
“I tasted my first bourbon in the basement bar of the Rihga Royal Hotel, a famous old place in Osaka,” claims Seiichiro Tatsumi, Rogin’s owner since 1977. He quickly became obsessed, reading everything he could about bourbon via literature provided by the American Cultural Center in Osaka. He finally visited Kentucky for the first time in 1984 and fell in love, driving its country roads, stopping at off-the-beaten path liquor stores, and acquiring numerous dusty bottles to bring back to Japan. He now owns a second home in Lexington.
Over the years, Tatsumi claims, he has probably “self-imported” some 5,000 bourbons from America back to his bar. “I stop at every place I pass, and I don’t just look on the shelves,” he says. “I ask the clerk to comb the cellar and check the storeroom for anything old. I can’t tell you how many cases of ancient bottles I’ve found that way.”
It wasn’t only Tatsumi. Japan gave these old bourbon brands a new lifeline. For example, Four Roses had long fallen out of favor with American drinkers by the 1970s. In 1967, Seagram’s turned the once-venerable brand into a dreaded blended whiskey, cut with grain neutral spirit and added flavoring.
“[B]y the time the ‘90s rolled around it was just an average blended whiskey,” the late Al Young, Four Roses’ former senior brand ambassador who worked at the company for 50 years, told VinePair contributor Nicholas Mancall-Bitel last year. But in Japan it was legitimate straight bourbon whiskey, packaged in sleek Cognac-style bottles with embossed silver roses, and it was a big hit. Just as Schenley and Brown-Forman had partnered with Suntory, in 1971 Four Roses struck up a partnership with Kirin, Japan’s top beer brand.
If brands like I.W. Harper, Four Roses, and Early Times were saved by Japan, others were specifically created for it. Blanton’s, for example, was spawned in 1984 by two former Fleischmann’s Distilling execs, Ferdie Falk and Bob Baranaskas. The two had acquired the Buffalo Trace distillery (then known as the George T. Stagg Distillery), as well as Schenley’s key bourbon, Ancient Age. Believing, like Yuracko, that the future of bourbon was overseas, they called their new company Age International.
“[T]he brand chased the profitable high-priced segment,” writes Fred Minnick in his book “Bourbon: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of an American Whiskey.” In this case, that meant introducing the world’s first commercial single-barrel bourbon, specifically designed for Japan, and packaged in a now iconic grenade-shaped, horse-stoppered bottle.
Blanton’s was such a hit in Japan that by 1992 Japanese company Takara Shuzo had purchased Age International for $20 million. It immediately flipped the actual distillery to Sazerac, while retaining the brand trademarks for Blanton’s.
Aged Bourbons Claim a Price
Accustomed to Scotch, once Japanese consumers “moved onto other types of whiskey, they already had these expectations built in for 12-, 15-, 18-year age statements,” explains John Rudd, an American who formerly lived in Japan and runs the Tokyo Bourbon Bible blog.
Bourbon in America had typically been released after about four years — it got too oaky if it aged much longer, it was believed at the time — and few consumers particularly cared about lofty age statements. Not so in Japan and, luckily, the glut in America allowed many bourbon distilleries to unload what they thought was over-aged junk.
“With a depressed market in America, lots of bourbon, especially extra-aged bourbon, was shipped to Japan where it could command a higher price,” Rudd says.
There was Very Old St. Nick, specially created in 1984 for the Japanese market, some as old as 25 years. There was Old Grommes Very Very Rare Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, which in the late 1980s started sending Japan bottles as old as two decades. A.H. Hirsch, aged 15, 16, and eventually 20 years, landed in Japan as early as 1989, and is still some of the most coveted bourbon of all time (so much so that Cowdery wrote an entire book about it).
Heaven Hill, today the largest family-owned and operated distillery in the U.S., specifically bottled an Evan Williams 23 for the Japanese market and created new brands like Martin Mills 24 Years.
“Japan considered bourbon a prestigious, highly coveted consumer good,” says Jimmy Russell, Wild Turkey’s master distiller who started visiting Japan in the 1980s. Every year he returned with special bottlings from his company, some as old as 13 years, a lofty age that never existed in America. “Back then, you’d see private bottle programs at prestigious bars where high-level executives would have their own bottles of bourbon designated ‘my bottle.’”
Rogin’s Tavern, for one, started tapping distilleries for its own private, cask-strength bottlings. Willett provided a 25-year-old labeled “Rogin’s Choice.” Julian Van Winkle III, scion of the soon-to-come Pappy dynasty, offered a 12-year bottling. Van Winkle III, in particular, kept his nascent company afloat in the mid-1980s and onward by providing special bottlings, many under a name you could easily now call the entire Japanese whiskey marketplace: Society of Bourbon Connoisseurs.
Van Winkle III first released Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Reserve 20 Year in America in 1994; by the mid-2000s, Pappy had become the most coveted whiskey in the country, regularly selling for thousands of dollars per bottle.
“Bourbon became popular here [in America] again,” explains Rudd. “And people quit thinking it needed to be young.”
The American Bourbon Revival
America’s bourbon malaise would last nearly three decades, reaching its nadir in 2000, when a mere 32 million cases were moved stateside. Of course, it’s always darkest before the dawn, and, thanks to Japan’s example, things were already being put into place for bourbon’s homeland revival.
Like at Four Roses, where Jim Rutledge took over as master distiller in 1995 and made it his mission to get the company to start letting American consumers finally taste the high-quality bourbon Japan had been enjoying for decades. As Mancall-Bitel explained, however, “The bourbon was performing too well overseas and the company didn’t want to rock the boat — until it was rocked from within the company.”
Seagram’s collapsed and started selling off its assets. Rutledge convinced Kirin to buy Four Roses, and the eventual Japanese CEO, Teruyuki Daino, moved his offices from Tokyo back to the distillery in Lawrenceburg, Ky. By 2002, once again, Four Roses bourbon was sold in America. Today it’s one of the bourbon world’s most revered brands, introducing geek-friendly products like Single Barrel in 2004 and the Small Batch series in 2006.
Japan proved that well-aged, premium bourbon actually had a place in the world. Bourbon didn’t have to be Scotch’s economical, bottom-shelf brother. Blanton’s, when it was finally sold in America, was priced at $24 a bottle — then a massive price point — and was advertised in such upscale places as The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, and Ivy League alumni mags. Around the same time, Japanese drinkers were gladly paying $115 per bottle.
Bourbon’s rebirth in America has caused many brands to pull back their products from the Japanese market and raise prices on the little still sent there. Japan’s taste for bourbon has dwindled. At the same time, American tourists were heading to Japan to clear shelves of old stock.
“It all corresponded with the American bourbon boom getting out of hand,” explains Rudd. He believes Japan is no longer the bourbon oasis that it once was, even as recently as 2014, when he lived near a liquor store that stocked rare bottles like Society of Bourbon Connoisseurs, gold wax A.H. Hirsch, Van Winkle 1974 Family Reserve 17 Year, and Buffalo Trace Antique Collection offerings from the early aughts.
Rudd says he’d buy a few bottles here and there, always resting assured that more would be there any time he returned. “Then one day, I went back to the store and nothing was left,” he says. “I asked the owner what happened and he told me, ‘Some American guy named Alex came by and purchased all of it.’”
The article How Japan Created the Modern American Bourbon Market appeared first on VinePair.
source https://vinepair.com/articles/japan-created-american-bourbon-market/
source https://vinology1.tumblr.com/post/191000805079
0 notes
Last Seen Blogs
dosrayitas-blog
Dos Rayitas
cybersecuritystar-blog
Cyber Security Star
kael-la-kael-blog
so is this for your name or like a bio or what
flowerplantboi
pure happiness
anyafc
☹ Dɪᴇ Aɴα ☹.