- GLENLIVET CITY LIKES COMING TO CHICAGO
- MIKE MILLER OF DELILAH'S WELCOMES YOU TO THE KENTUCKY BOURBON COUNTRY
- FAREWELL TO BOOKER NOE
- LAPHROAIG & LAGAVULIN
- MIKE MILLER'S "EXTREMELY BOURBON"
- IRISH WHISKEY


GLENLIVET CITY LINKS
The Glenlivet City Links is an urban-scaled golf course housed in a 10,000 square foot space in New York City. The course features nine holes sloped with water hazards, bridges and sand traps, providing urban golf enthusiasts with an extraordinary chance to hit the turf in the heart of Manhattan.
The Glenlivet City Links kicked off in Times Square, hosting the public for three weeks, before traveling to four other cities across the United States, including Chicago for 2 weeks in December. Designed for golf enthusiasts in urban settings with limited access to greens, there are no set green fees to play on The Glenlivet City Links; instead a ‘pay-as-you-will’ policy has been implemented to benefit Direct Relief International to aid the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

MIKE MILLER WELCOMES YOU TO THE KENTUCKY BOURBON COUNTRY
Ah, Bourbon - America’s only native spirit represents a community of people and places steeped in tradition. Prior to prohibition America boasted hundreds of distilleries producing a multitude of various sorts of whiskey, however a change drinking habits globally but especially in this country after prohibition led to a demise in the consumption and thus production of American whiskey.
Fortunately, over the course of the last decade or so, we have seen a massive resurgence of interest in American whiskey and a significant rise in consumption globally and the reintroduction of lost brands and the development of new, dynamic, modern American whiskies. There has not been a more interesting time to be involved in American whiskey making - and drinking, since the turn of the century.
Another real bright spot in today's American whiskey industry has been the availability of the people behind the brands, to the consumer - not only can you enjoy a fine glass of Elmer T. Lee bourbon, but you can meet him at Bourbonfest and get a feel for the personality in the bottle - I don’t know of another spirit sector where this is more true. With personalities like the incomparable, and sadly late Booker Noe and the current legacy of friendly Freddy Noe, Maker’s Mark’s gleaming Bill Samuel’s, Wild Turkey’s fantastic Jimmy Russell, the expertise of Heaven Hill’s Parker Beam and son Craig Beam, Barton’s race calling Bill Friel and the youngest master distiller in the industry Greg Davis, the brilliance of Julian and Preston Van Winkle, the gentlemanly Lincoln Henderson of Brown Forman, Jack Daniels' stoic Jimmy Bedford, Four Roses astute Jim Rutledge, and of course Buffalo Trace’s Elmer T. Lee and Gary Gayheart, it’s no wonder people travel from all corners of the globe to experience
American whiskey at Bourbonfest.
There really is no other spirit in the world where the distillers are so apparent and this is just the tip of the icecube, the community of people surrounding the American whiskey industry is unparalleled.
Certainly, this is largely due to the proximity of the distilleries in a relatively small part of the country, but there is true camaraderie amongst these people. Even though they are each others competition, they exist as one in many ways, as represented primarily by the unity of the Kentucky Distillers Association and a truly good natured business environment.
As I write this I am preparing to again visit Bardstown, Kentucky - the home base of Bourbon whiskey, the location of the Oscar Getz Museum of Whiskey History and the center of The Kentucky Bourbon Festival. This is the greatest and largest gathering of Bourbon producers and enthusiasts anywhere in the world - An unparalleled opportunity to sample every whiskey the industry has to offer while interacting with the community that makes it happen and experience the global reach Bourbon has achieved, with its growing popularity in Asia, Europe and Australia.
I also relish the ability to visit each distillery, interact with the fermenting mash and taste the Bourbon right from the barrel.
But what I am looking forward to the most is the ability to visit with the Bourbon world's unusual personalities, have a drink with them and share in the lives that exist in those bottles of whiskey.
Cheers!
Mike Miller
Delilah’s - Chicago, USA

LAPHROAIG & LAGAVULIN
by Dr. D’Og
Am fear a ni obair na thràth Bidh e na leth-thàmh. Or as my editor would say: He who does his work in time will always have leisure time
Speaking of leisure, the interesting thing about Scotch whisky is how much work goes into producing it, then how much time is spent waiting for it to mature. Resting in the barrels is a term used to describe how whisky matures as it sits in a warehouse, mixing with the wood resins and previous materials that also aged in the casks. How could two whiskies, located within hundreds of yards of one another, end us so different?
A good question, and one that has never wholly been answered. Take Laphroaig and Lagavulin, two of the giants of Islay, the small island west of Glasgow, home of fishermen, farmers, distillers and, of course, smugglers.
Laphroaig, owned by Allied Domecq PLC, is the quintessential Islay malt: Oily, full bodied, heavily peated (smoked) and with a distinctly iodine-like nose. This, as has been so often stated, is not a whisky for the fainthearted. The strange thing is how many first time drinkers actually like Laphroaig. People who would normally drink vodka take to Laphroaig like an olive to a martini. Established in 1815 (but not officially licensed until 1825 according to Graham Nown in his book on whisky), Laphroaig was owned by the Johnston family from its official inception until 1847, then taken over and operated by members of the Johnston family from 1856-1954. Laphroaig also boasts of having one of the foremost women in the history of whisky, Miss Bessie Williamson (who was also known as Mrs. Wishart Campbell), running the distillery from 1954 until the 1960's, when Laphroaig acquired by a series of larger companies.
Lagavulin's history, on the other hand, is a bit more complicated. There were actually two Lagavulin Distilleries on the site, according to Moss & Hume. The earliest was founded by yet another Johnston (John), and ceased operation around 1833. The second Lagavulin was founded in 1817 by Archibald Campbell. By 1837, only one Lagavulin was in operation, owned by Donald Johnston.
When what was to become White Horse Distillers Ltd. took over Lagavulin Distillery in 1867, the stage was set for a rivalry between the two massive malts of Islay (with apologies to Ardbeg.) Lagavulin became a part of the huge Distillers Company Ltd. in 1927, and is currently owned by Diageo PLC. The 16 year old Lagavulin is more complex, rounded and sweeter than Laphroaig, boasting a powerful smoky flavor balanced with a burnt, toasty, almost spicy profile. The age difference (16 versus 10 for Laphroaig) accounts for some of the differences, but these two malts would never be mistaken for one another. Yet there they sit, less than a mile apart, producing vastly different whiskies. And no one still can explain why.

FAREWELL TO BOOKER NOE
By RUSS BRIDENBAUGH
The world would be a lesser place without the formidable presence of Frederick Booker Noe, Jr, a Kentuckian and a legend in his own time." ( My opening sentence from an article about Booker Noe for the Indianapolis Star in 1999.)

Well, I am sorry to say, the world is a lesser place. Booker Noe died of complications from diabetes on Feb. 24, at his home in Bardstown, Kentucky. The world has lost a legend and bourbon has lost part of its heart and soul. Born in 1929 (on Pearl Harbor day), youthful Booker was known as "Hard Times". Later he would be known to just about everybody as "Booker".

He began making whiskey in 1951 and one uncle after observing him work, replied to a fellow family member, "That boy's got a real knack for it." Something of an understatement as Jim Beam's grandson moved steadily up the bourbon ladder to become Master Distiller. There is something very elegant and southern about Bourbon, and so it was with Booker. A true southern gentleman, I never heard him utter a negative thought, or as one of his friends put it to me, "Booker won't say anything bad about anything or anybody."

If you were lucky, you would get an invitation to Booker's home in Bardstown. Just seeing that 3 story spiral, wooden staircase in the foyer would nearly take your breath away. Every time I got to go to Booker’s, I'd make a point of walking up that staircase to the third floor. In a way, that staircase was like the man--from the ground up and elegant and polished and a wonder to behold.

He was a big man physically and otherwise--certainly up to the tasks that came before him and especially responsible for the rejuvenation of the entire bourbon spirit industry with the introduction of True Barrel Bourbon (now referred to as "Small Batch Bourbon") in 1987. He called it "Booker's" as was appropriate and Small Batch Bourbons started hitting the market in a big way. Like Booker they were big, well formed and elegant. With one in hand, one had to have the right glass--crystal. To dilute them with anything but branch water was a sin.

If you were REAL lucky, you got invited to taste bourbon right out of the barrels in the ageing warehouses at Jim Beam Distillery in Claremont, KY. Ten o'clock in the morning, fifth floor of the warehouse, 90 degrees in mid-July and drinking cask strength bourbon with Booker right out of the barrel--and no place to spit. That was an experience. But the real experience was lunch at Booker's house. One soon learned that you didn't try to match Booker when it came to size of food portions (or second helpings). Sharing the table with Booker was a special treat and many have had that treat during Booker's "retirement" as Ambassador of Bourbon when he stopped making whiskey in 1992, and took the bourbon message literally all over the world.

Booker Noe is survived by his wife and son and is missed by all of us who had the honor of basking in the sunshine of his immense shadow.

IRISH WHISKEY
By Alan Dikty,
BEVERAGE TESTING INSTITUTE
The Scots most likely learned about distilling from the Irish (though they are loath to admit it). The Irish in turn learned about it, according to the Irish at least, from missionary monks who arrived in Ireland in the seventh century. The actual details are a bit sketchy for the next 700 years or so, but it does seem reasonable to believe that monks in the various monasteries were distilling aqua vitae ("water of life"), primarily for making medical compounds. These first distillates were probably grape or fruit brandy rather than grain spirit. Barley-based whiskey (the word derives from “uisce beatha,” the Gaelic interpretation of “aqua vitae”) first appears in the historical record in the mid-1500s when the Tudor kings began to consolidate English control in Ireland. Queen Elizabeth I was said to be fond of it and had casks shipped to London on a regular basis.

The imposition of an excise tax in 1661 had the same effect as it did in Scotland, with the immediate commencement of the production of poteen (the Irish version of moonshine). This did not, however, slow down the growth of the distilling industry, and by the end of the 18th century there were over 2,000 stills in operation around the country.

Under British rule, Ireland was export oriented and, along with grains and assorted foodstuffs, Irish distillers produced large quantities of pot-distilled whiskey for export into the expanding British Empire. Irish whiskey outsold Scotch whisky in most markets because it was lighter in body. It is said that in the late 19th century over 400 brands of Irish whiskey were being exported and sold in the United States.

This happy state of affairs for Irish distillers lasted into the early 20th century when the market began to change. The Irish distillers, pot still users to a man, were slow to respond to the rise of blended Scotch whisky with its column-distilled, smooth grain whisky component. When National Prohibition in the United States closed off Irish whisky’s largest export market, many of the smaller distilleries closed. The remaining distilleries then failed to adequately anticipate the coming of Repeal (unlike the Scotch distillers) and were caught short without adequate stocks when it came. The Great Depression, trade embargoes between the newly independent Irish Republic and the United Kingdom, and World War II caused further havoc among the distillers.

In 1966 the three remaining distilling companies in the Republic of Ireland—Powers, Jameson, and Cork Distilleries—merged into a single company, Irish Distillers Company (IDC). In 1972, Bushmills, the last distillery in Northern Ireland, joined IDC. In 1975 IDC opened a new mammoth distillery at Midleton, near Cork, and all of the other distilleries in the Republic were closed down with the production of their brands being transferred to Midleton. For a 14-year period, the Midleton plant and Bushmills in Northern Ireland were the only distilleries in the country.

This sad state of affairs ended in 1989 when a potato-peel ethanol plant in Dundalk was converted into a whiskey distillery. The new Cooley Distillery began to produce malt and grain whiskeys, with the first three-year-old bottlings being released in 1992.

Irish whiskeys, both blended and malt, are usually triple distilled through both column and pot stills, although there are a few exclusively pot-distilled brands. Irish Pure Pot Still Whiskey is generally labeled as such. Otherwise, Irish whiskeys are a mix of pot and column-distilled whiskeys. Irish Malt Whiskey is likewise so designated. Standard Irish Whiskey is a blend of malt and grain whiskies.

© 2001-2004 Beverage Testing Institute. All rights reserved.

AN EXTREMELY BOURBON by MIKE MILLER
By MICHAEL MILLER – DELILAH’S
What a wonderful time to be a bourbon drinker. Over the course of a decade we have seen more innovation in this sector than during any other period since prohibition. Though we can only go and visit a dozen or so American whiskey distilleries, we are graced with over a hundred unique commercially available expressions of Bourbon whiskey. So let’s take a quick look at how and why have we gotten to this point and which whiskies you should be keeping an eye out for.

Before prohibition there were hundreds of whiskey producers in America, making hundreds of brands of different whiskies. Diversity was clearly not an issue then, however, one significant difference between pre and post-prohibition American whiskies is the aging requirements to be considered Bourbon, or Rye for that matter, and the availability of older expressions of the commercially produced whiskies. We are certainly aware of the devastating toll prohibition took on this country - the massive loss of jobs, the significant creation of organized crime, the extermination of the majority of American distilleries, but we need to also recognize what changes were determined and thus created immediately following prohibition. Firstly, making vodka is easy, so bootlegging clear, neutral spirits - i.e., bathtub gin, was simple and created a dominant market for these spirits after the mistake was over. Furthermore, lighter bodied Canadian whiskies were immediately available as were Scotch & Irish whiskies, meanwhile it would take an arduous four years to bring fresh America whiskey back to the market. Also, old stocks of Bourbon were returned to their proper distillery and released into the market as new brands, but these sixteen year old plus Bourbons - though fabulous, were nothing like the whiskies which were popular prior to prohibition, as Bourbon was previously taxed each year in the barrel, so rarely was anything over four years old. This situation created what would become a downward spiral of closed distilleries and lost markets for American whiskies for decades.

Let’s skip ahead now to the wine cooler days of the early 1980’s. America had experienced another world war, a few particularly nasty conflicts, a cold war, which just seemed to go on forever and the disappearance of most of America’s whiskey making traditions. People just weren’t drinking as much and their tastes for light beer, sweet drinks and clear spirits were driving the whiskey industry out of business. This country was down to fewer than twenty operating whiskey distilleries by the early 1980’s and the distilleries that were still operating were holding an extraordinarily high amount of product in barrel - the tax structure having changed, no longer taxing the whiskey until bottled.

And then something remarkable happened, Small Batch Bourbon. The rise of the American whiskey category in general over the past decade is exactly mirrored by the introduction of reasonably priced and extremely interesting expressions of Bourbon whiskey. I credit a few distinct situations that were developed by a few very dynamic, forward thinking producers/distillers.

Within the ground breaking Small Batch Bourbon collection released by the Jim Beam company in the early nineties, Bookers must stand out as the one that virtually single handedly changed the industry. Named for Beam’s longtime master distiller and grandson of Jim Beam himself, the late Booker Noe made available something complete new to the consumer. Never before was a cask strength, uncut, un-filtered product – basically straight from the barrel, made available to the general public - it immediately caused quite a stir.

I then must recognize the efforts of Bill Samuels and the people at Makers Mark. If only for the marketing genius, which changed the perception of Bourbon drinking forever, starting also in the early nineties, Samuels turned a small, nitch, very family oriented brand into an international phenomenon. Again putting focus on the idea of small batch and pedigree, the developments of these brands led to the explosion of single barrel Bourbon - led predominantly by Blanton’s, boutique labels such as A.H. Hirsch, Pappy Van Winkle, Black Maple Hill and so forth, created a situation that had never before existed in this sector. We all of a sudden could experience every possible style, age, and taste profile possible from the dynamic decision makers in the industry.

Up to the minute, I have seen many attempts to ride this ground breaking wave of interest in American whiskey, some have continued to push the envelope, others have come and gone - often because the old Bourbon has just run out. But either way, fortunately for us, development in American whiskey continues and in just the last few years I have been witness to Wild Turkey Russell’s Reserve, Booker’s Distiller’s Masterpiece finished in Port barrels, Sazerac 18 year old Rye, Old Potrero Straight Rye Whiskey, Classic Cask 17 year old and of course my own Delilah’s Ten Years Strong single barrel 100 proof unfiltered private label. So let’s toast the remarkable developments in American whiskey over the previous decade, support these brands and look forward to what tomorrow may bring.