Nurse the Hate: Hate Celebrity Whiskey

I have learned just enough to be dangerous about distilled spirits.  All this means is that I know the basics on how various liquors are made in a very general sense.  It’s rather amazing how early spirits were invented in our collective history.  Wine came first as all you need to do is put juice into a jar, and the sugars will start to ferment by the wild yeasts in the air.  The first wines were undoubtedly made by accident.  There was wine.  And it was good.  If you lived somewhere you couldn't ripen grapes, you had to make due with other fruit sources.  Apple cider anyone?

 Human nature being what it is, guys sitting around in places that couldn’t ripen fruit of any kind asked themselves what they could use to get buzzed up.  It had to be grim sitting on a windy barren hill in Scotland.  What can you do with sacks of grain?  I suppose beer is easy enough to figure out, but how did they make the leap to liquor?  “Hey Bardolf…  What if we took this beer and boiled it at just low enough temperature in this crazy pot we made to capture the alcohol and leave the other crap behind?  And then what if we put that in a wood barrel for a few years?  Good idea, right?  Let’s go saw that heretic in half, tromp around the bog and then go make some booze!”.

Please note that this is a wildly simplistic consolidation of history, but it’s not that far off.  I used the heretic line in trying to pass my WSET Diploma Spirits exam as I recall.  The complexities of whiskey and scotch are of particular interest to me.  Variables like grains used, the fineness of the grind, temperatures of the initial “beer” ferment, shape and type of still, when the head and tails cut is made, type of barrel used, size of the barrel, length and place of aging and the eventual blend are all factors.  I don’t even know what I don’t know and it is overwhelming.  It would take generations to get it right, which is why many of the most influential brands have families that devote their lives to fine tuning recipes.

Knowing this, it drives me insane to see the sudden fashion to have celebrities release their own line of spirits.  Let me temper this with a caveat.  I don’t have a problem with someone being an endorser.  “For relaxing times, make it Suntory time” after all…  If the current James Bond gets a deal schilling a new gin, that’s fine.  However, the new “thing” is to suggest that the celebrities are as qualified as the artisans that have dedicated all their working hours to making whiskey.  I saw one where Matthew McConaughey is standing around the distillery with an old Kentucky distiller that has been making Wild Turkey for the past 50 years.  The good news for that KY good ole boy is that Matthew has been appointed “Creative Director” at Wild Turkey.  They even gave him a title!  "Alright! Alright! Alright! Good news!  Step aside and let me show you how it's done!  Matty is here!"

From the press release…  “McConaughey and master distiller Eddie Russell have collaborated to launch Wild Turkey Longbranch, a new bourbon that’s filtered with Texas mesquite and oak charcoals.   The idea behind Longbranch, says McConaughey, was to blend the tastes of Kentucky and Texas together.  “Longbranch, in its simplest form, is an extended hand, inviting a friend into your family,” he said in a statement. “So the branch that was extended to me from the Russells was a long one, one that reached from Kentucky to Texas and back again. I offered the Mesquite from my great state to add to their legendary Kentucky whiskey and together we made Longbranch.”

That poor Eddie Russell…  The guy is a master distiller and he has to pretend that his new Hollywood “creative director” is his equal in making whiskey.  Can you imagine the pitch the board had to make to Eddie Russell?  “Eddie… Look, Matthew is going to come in for a photo shoot.  Just listen to whatever bullshit he says, smile and nod.  He’ll hop back on a private plane and you will never see him again.  Just make a run of whiskey and filter it some mesquite when you’re done.  We’ll blend it in with the regular Turkey, let him take the credit for this “big idea” of his and we all make some money.  C’mon Eddie…  Do it for the team.”

That distiller guy does not look like a guy that is interested in talking to a groovy bro like McConaughey.  He looks like a guy that doesn't like little actor fellas on his turf, loves UK basketball, and has not been to a movie theater since he watched “Patton” in the 1970s.  I would have loved to have listened to his conference calls with McConaughey.  If you break it down according to what the PR piece says, it went like this...  McConaughey made the big suggestion of using mesquite charcoal because it’s from Texas and so is he.  The Wild Turkey guys handled the other 117 decisions.  His work as creative director was done after remembering mesquite was from Texas.  Later boys!  Who wants Vegan Tacos?

As patently offensive as that situation is to me is not nearly as bad as Bob Dylan partnering in "Heaven's Door" whiskey.  Apparently the guy that sold Angel's Envy whiskey for $150 million saw Dylan filed for a patent on "Bootleg" whiskey.  The Angel's Envy guy, a huge Dylan fan, reached out to him to partner on the idea and somehow convinced him on a partnership and a name change.  Dylan, who at this point is best known for his complete inability to communicate with other human beings, actually had several meetings and several phone calls with the whiskey pro from Angel's Envy.  That could not have been easy to arrange as even the Nobel Prize people couldn't get Dylan on the phone.  Then again, the Nobel Prize people weren't offering to make Bob a little jing-a-ling selling hooch.  In what is likely one of the biggest mistakes of Dylan's career, these meetings were not recorded.  I cannot begin to guess how bizarre and nonsensical these meetings must have been.  Recordings of these would have generated much more excitement than Dylan's current penchant for recording old standards from the 1930s.

From a New York Times article this weekend:  

Mr. Bushala said that over four or five meetings — always at Mr. Dylan’s metalworking studio in Los Angeles — and a number of phone calls, he had learned that his partner has a sophisticated whiskey palate.  Yet communication was still a challenge. Mr. Bushala and Ryan Perry, the chief operating officer, struggled to interpret Mr. Dylan’s wishes. Often they came in the form of enigmatic comments or simply glances.  “Sometimes you just get a long look,” Mr. Bushala said with a laugh, “and you’re not sure if that’s disgust or approval.”  He and Mr. Perry recalled Mr. Dylan’s tasting a sample of the double-barreled whiskey and saying that something was missing. “It should feel like being in a wood structure,” he said.   They struggled to decode the remark. What kind of wooden structure? A church? A railroad car? A barn?

How the fuck are you supposed to work with that?  I am a guy with an unsophisticated whiskey palate.  Yet if I am going to launch a whiskey brand, I think I would go to the effort of being able to describe the taste I was seeking.  "Guys, it should have a round flavor profile with sweet, toasty oak notes and a finish with cinnamon and baking spice.  Assertive but not too hot.  Perhaps in a style like Booker's but more rustic."  Yet Bob Dylan, a man known as a master with language offers "it should feel like being in a wood structure".  Holy crap would I have liked to hear what he said at the other three meetings.  There is no way in hell he said anything even remotely on topic.  Meanwhile his crew of attorneys would have been hovering like hawks to insure Bob's licensing interests were completely protected.  

Bob Dylan is worth an estimated $180 million dollars.  Why does this 76 year old man need to launch a whiskey brand at this point in his life?  At any point in his career, has he ever been photographed with a bottle of whiskey near him?  What association does he have with whiskey?  Has Bob Dylan ever heated a can of soup much less handled a ferment of a grain spirit?  He could have just as easily launched an energy drink or maybe gotten involved with those man groomers Bret Favre was hawking last year.  Bob is an older gent.  He probably knows a thing or two about cleaning up unwanted ear hair.  Maybe Bob teams up with Martha Stewart on home baking supplies.  "Like A Rolling Pin".  C'mon Bob...

I will tell you this.  If I am going to buy myself a nice bottle of whiskey, I am not concerned about whatever Matthew McConaughey or Bob Dylan are dabbling in.  I am asking what master distiller Eddie Russell from Wild Turkey thinks is good and I am having one of those.  That guy knows what he is talking about.