To be fair, the mash bill is only one part (and a somewhat minor one at that) of a finished whiskey. It’s not typically as prominent of a component as the mash bill is for a beer, but it’s a bigger deal than it would be for a gin or vodka.
Aging is really the big differentiator- the fact that producers can take that 95% rye MGP distillate and create so many different renditions of it through various sorts of aging and other finishing processes (like the Lincoln County charcoal filtering process used for Dickel) is a pretty big indicator to me that aging/finishing is where it’s at in terms of producing an interesting whiskey. (that said, I tend to think that getting ADM neutral distillate and filtering it/redistilling it is lame AF when it comes to vodka producers)
I once attended a discussion about whiskey and aging put on by Heaven Hill and Glenmorangie at “Tales of the Cocktail” about a decade ago. They pointed out that in their production process, they make no distinction between barrels that may end up as bog-standard Evan Williams, Elijah Craig 21 or anything in between. They just track the barrels as far as time and position in the rickhouse, and grab them as needed for their various bottlings. In other words, they don’t make a distillation run and say “these bottles will be Elijah Craig 18”, and then the next run will be Evan Single barrel, etc… They just barrel it all, and then years later, decide what will become which bottling.
So in a sense, using the MGP distillate is similar, in that any given barrel-worth of white dog may end up as say… Whistlepig, Templeton, Dickel Rye, or Bulleit, all of which are quite distinct, both in flavor and in price point.
Personally I think that US Federal liquor laws and history kind of limit the US whiskey industry more than anything. By that I mean that historically blended whiskey means crap like Seagram’s 7, and the relatively restrictive laws means that we end up with a lot of straight whiskeys, but very few quality equivalents of the Scottish vatted malts or even blended whiskeys. From what I can tell, such a thing would have to be labeled similarly to Seagrams 7, and not as a bourbon, for example, even though 100% of it would actually be bourbon.
For once I’m on the side of more governmental regulation. We have very few quality equivalents? Hell, the Scots have very few quality equivalents! Vatted malts are an Abomination Unto Nuggan, and you have to get into the Blue/Green/Infraviolet range of Johnnie Walker before the shit gets drinkable. IMO, blends are a way of covering up substandard whiskey in the quest for the Holy Dollar (or Euro.)
I totally agree on the aging stuff, however. It’s all in the art of the aging.
I mostly agree with you here but there’s a couple of sticking points for me. You’re correct that the big guys don’t distill a given mashbill differently for the different products that they expect to deliver from a run. They really have two variables in their control before the finishing steps. Barrel entry proof and barrel location/rotation. Now, that said, all the careful barrel placement in the world can’t guarantee what happens to the spirit inside. A big part of what differentiates the various brands based on a particular mashbill is careful identification of the barrels that have the characteristics they’re looking for. Some barrels from the ‘wrong’ location will have fantastic characteristics suitable for a high-end product, and other barrels from the ‘correct’ location will turn out poorly and be buried in a low end product or even sold on the bulk market. That’s one reason why the big guys have an easier time than the small distillers or the non-distiller producers. They simply have a big library of stocks to make what they want.
The biggest lever available these days apparently is the filtering process. Seems like the technology has evolved to a point where several substantially different products can be made from the same dump. I guess that’s good when it’s done to augment a great product, less so when it’s used to strip all distinguishing characteristics from lesser grade spirits.
Somewhere in here I lost the point I was getting at. If anyone finds it, let me know. At the core, I’m still disappointed that there are so many new brands out there with semi-fictional backstories that ultimately end up being the same thing. And whether all the finishing tricks are good or bad in anyone’s eyes, I still think that MGP always has that same dill note, Alberta Springs always tastes like Alberta Springs and so on. My suspicion is that most of these NDPs follow the strategy of “let’s just bottle what we found” rather than pursue a careful strategy of maturation to profile.
That’s fair- I suspect it’s because if you just age someone else’s white dog, you only have one process to master, while if you do it all, you have to master mashing, fermenting and distilling, as well as aging. And none of those are trivial- they all require attention to detail and specialized equipment, and can introduce variability at each step.
And silenus, I think there could very easily be a market for whatever the vatted malt equivalent for bourbon or rye would be. Or even a blended version that would be aimed at the price point of say… Maker’s Mark and Beam black. I’m just saying that it doesn’t all HAVE to be straight whiskey as defined by law, but that’s what people perceive as the quality category. I’d personally be really intrigued by some kind of bourbon/rye blend.
Now, I suppose it could be that there’s just not the variability in bourbons and ryes that there is in say… Scotch and rum (two spirits commonly blended in non-garbage bottlings), and that however you slice it, a blended bourbon is going to either be non-distinctive or just seem diluted. But why not try and make a “Jim Beam Purple” or something like that?
I think maybe if I understand, we’re seeing an attempt to create variety akin to blending with a lot of the finished products now available. Port, wine, rum and beer barrels are all being used to differentiate similar product. Same way that Oola and High West both have Bourbon/Rye and Bourbon/Rye/Scotch blends on the market right now.
So, looking at the conversation since my naive question, it appears that the aging is different.
My naive question was meant as “Are these brands that are using MGP’s 95% rye all one-hundred-percent-identical drinks that taste precisely the same in every way”. And it appears maybe the answer is no.
In my opinion, the answer is no. But I’ll ask the next question of the group, which is, “Is there enough variation between the various MGP rye bottlings to justify the wide variability in pricing?” I don’t think so, at least excluding extra-aged or specialty-finished bottlings. If I feel a need for MGP rye, I just buy the giant bottle of Bulleit rye from Costco. I think that’s my most cost-effective source.
Some of the same thinking applies to the MGP bourbons, although I’ll admit that the fact that MGP has several different bourbon mashbills muddies the waters there.
Footnote: MGP (neé LDI, neé Pernod Ricard, neé Seagrams) rye was created to be one of the blend stocks in Seagrams Canadian whisky products. That explains why Aeschines and others find it to be sort of an outlier as far as rye style goes. It was an ingredient originally, created to emphasize certain notes as a small component of a blend, not a stand-alone product. Same goes for the Alberta Springs products out there. When the boom hit, everyone was looking around for something to bottle, and these guys had it.
You also have things like the St. George malt whiskies, which are not “straight malt whisky” per the US Articles of Identity. To be a straight malt whisky it would have to be aged in new charred oak barrels like its straight malt bourbon and rye cousins. Instead, they are aging stuff in different types of barrels and blending it. I really like what they do, and the quality for the price point is excellent.
I am seeing a few more things appearing on the market like the Wild Turkey “Forgiven” where the distillers are leaving the constraints of the “straight” category. (One less fortunate deviation is simply not aging the spirit for two years, making it ineligible for “straight,” though I mean more creative stuff, such as distilling hopped barley mash and turning it into whisky, etc. etc.)
I’ve heard of it being done but can’t think of the example. Close though is Stranahan’s. They used to start with an unhopped beer from Flying Dog, although I believe they do it themselves now.
