-WHISKEYFEST
-FAREWELL TO BOOKER NOE
-MIKE MILLER'S "EXTREMELY BOURBON"
-IRISH WHISKEY
-------------------------------------------------------

4TH ANNUAL WHISKEYFEST CHICAGO
APRIL 7, 2004

The world's most influential whisky press, consumers, and trade will attend this very special event in Chicago.

Malt Advocate magazine, America's leading whisky publication, is proud to announce the Fourth Annual WhiskyFest Chicago, which will be held in the Hyatt Regency's Grand Ballroom on the evening of Thursday, April 7, 2004 from 6:30 to 10:00 PM. The last two events sold out in advance.

WhiskyFest Chicago is the largest independent whisky event in the U.S. More than 200 of the world's finest and rareset whiskies will be available for sampling featuring the finest single malt and blended Scotch whiskies, the best bourbons and Tennessee whiskeys, top of the line Irish whiskeys, and the best from Canada. The focus is on education, and distillery representatives will be on hand at the pouring booths to explain how the whiskies are made.

Ten of the world's leading distillery managers and master blenders will be conducting seminars throughout the evening including Richard Paterson (The Dalmore), Bob Dalgarno (The Macallan), Alistair Robertson (Talisker), Julian Van Winkle (Old Rip Van Winkle), Fred Noe (Jim Beam), Ricky Christie (Scott's Selection), Mark Brown (Buffalo Trace), Evan Cattanach (The Classic Malts), Craig Beam (Heaven Hill), Colum Egan (Bushmills), George Grant (Glenfarclas), Dan Tullio (Canadian Club) and Stuart Thomson (Ardbeg). Many other well-known distillery managers are also expected to attend.
Tickets are $85 and include a gourmet buffet and Scottish crystal tasting glass. Advance ticket sales only by calling 1-800-610-MALT or through the Malt Advocate website. See more information about the event at www.maltadvocate.com including the list of whiskies, bios of the speakers and more.

Malt Advocate Magazine
P.O. Box 158
Emmaus, PA 18049
(610) 967-1083
Questions? Contact Amy Westlake at Amy@maltadvocate.com

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.

Join us at Delilah’s (2771 N. Lincoln Ave., Chicago, IL) during the week of April 5th - 9th as Whiskyfest Chicago 2004 hits town on April 7th and we will be hosting tastings and meetings every night with the world’s most entertaining distillers, and of course immediately following the fest as we will be hosting the official Whiskyfest after party. Cheers.