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American Whiskey Production Has Plummeted to a New Low (robbreport.com)
submitted 11 months ago by to c/boycottus@lemmy.ca
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[–] 99 points 11 months ago (23 children)

American Whiskey was a very popular export, especially to Canada.

And they have become very good at boycotting US goods. Especially when there are plenty of alternatives.

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  • [–] 21 points 11 months ago (15 children)

    Yeah, I didn’t love bourbon before, but my brother in law is a huge fan and hasn’t bought any.

    And he buys it but also follows and has all of us enter the lcbo lotteries to buy bourbons.

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  • [–] 14 points 11 months ago (14 children)

    I do love bourbon. I think it's one of the very few genuine contributions to world cuisine from the USA.

    And I will never drink another drop of it.

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  • [–] 24 points 11 months ago* (9 children)

    There’s nothing unique about bourbon. Other places can distill it, just not market it as such.

    There’s plenty of over 50% corn mash, and aged in brand new oak barrels, type “whiskeys” out there.

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  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago

    Okanagan Spirits makes "BRBN Bourbon-style whisky". Bourbon (as you say) is a protected designation of origin product, meaning that it has to be made in the US. It's not on the PDO list on Wikipedia though, so it appears it is a separate designation, same idea though.

    Point being that you can boycott US products and still have Bourbon "style" whisky. Kind of like how some distilleries outside Scotland make Scotch style whisky, which is often very very good.

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  • [+] -44 points 11 months ago (7 children)

    Wow! It's like I didn't know anything about liquor and you just enlightened me! THANK YOU OH SO MUCH KIND SIR!

    Oh, and ... buh-bye.

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  • [–] 16 points 11 months ago* (4 children)

    You’re the one calling appropriation a “genuine contribution” if you knew anything about the history of whiskey and bourbon, you wouldn’t be making that claim.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (3 children)

    I'm no expert on alcohol, but when I went to the distillery in Bourbon County, they tell it was made by accident originally. Basically the distillery burned down, and they tried reusing the burnt barrels only to find that the whiskey had a pleasant flavor?

    What's appropriation there? The locals just brought the whiskey recipe with them when they hopped the pond.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (2 children)

    What's appropriation there? The locals just brought the whiskey recipe with them when they hopped the pond.

    And then made legislation that it can only be made across the pond and no longer where the recipes originated from.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (1 child)

    They distinctly changed the recipe. It's no different than Champagne and Prosecco and Sparkling Wine. You can make the stuff, it just isn't called Bourbon. Why is it appropriation to use the same damn rules here that you already had in Europe?

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago*

    They didn’t change the recipe in a sense, they took the process of making rye and used “local” and government subsidized ingredients in a higher percentage to cut costs. Which was corn. It was already being made elsewhere.

    In the case of champagne, that’s a little more involved, there is actually a distinct difference from the soil in the area that make it. So to make it elsewhere WON’T be the same. And the legislation was to protect a unique process from starting to be used elsewhere, not to strip other places of what they were doing.

    The information coming from a bourbon distillery is gonna be HEAVILY biased to making them look like not the villain.

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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    I do worry about what happens when cheap American oak ex bourbon casks stop getting sent to Scotland…

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago* (2 children)

    Canada buys them for their whiskey, doesn’t need to be new.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    Depending on what they are making, sometimes they do. Re-charing can only go so far and you lose a lot of the elements in the oak when you do. Some casks are one time use only for what they want to make.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago*

    3-4 uses, than they ship them to Scotland to be broken down for scotch.

    I worked at a distillery as a contractor. Orientations include history as well as all the products they make. Also just talking with the higher ups gets some pretty useless neat information.

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  • [–] -3 points 11 months ago* (4 children)

    Well, let's be honest. American whiskey isn't very popular outside of NA. It's a mixer whisky but only for those that want a whiskey and Coke. There's just far better done elsewhere on the planet.

    But an American whiskey is for when people feel like that Hollywood western Americana vibe. It's a novelty.

    Even in USA media, the JD bottle is always used in the "hit rock bottom" scene.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    American whiskey isn’t very popular outside of NA

    In 2023 $1.8 billion of whiskey was exported to countries outside North America -- that number is second only to the UK. You can look at the numbers (and impacts of tariffs) here

    It’s a mixer whisky ... JD

    Yes, let's judge every other whisky producing country by the mass produced garbage that makes up the bulk of their exports too.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

    I feel like you're kind of proving my point here. Looking at the dollars and sales.

    So what percentage of that was the really good whiskey distilleries most people haven't even heard of vs the big ones that supply the world with the novelty of American whiskey?

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (1 child)

    Oh dude. That stuff is barely whiskey. There's much better American stuff out there.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago

    Yeah I know. It's the same with beers too. But you gotta find the places and directly order them or ask a distributor in the country to grab them. It's not something you can just grab from the shelf at the local store like other whisky countries.

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    [–] 44 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    They got what they voted for

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    • [+] 24 points 11 months ago (9 children)
    [removed by mod]
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  • [–] 31 points 11 months ago (4 children)

    Prices on domestic whiskey have held mostly flat. Some minor decreases. Prices on the imported good stuff (scotch and Irish whiskey) have spiked with the tariffs.

    Wine has decreased by 20-30%. Some wineries are going under..

    Beer sales have severely tanked especially the expensive smaller brands. Hops are massively oversupplied with many hop yards pulled out of production last year.

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    • [–] 17 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    American Whiskey Production Has Plummeted to a New Low

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    • [–] 14 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    Poor America .... poor, poor America .... pour America another drink.

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    • [–] 11 points 11 months ago

    I’ve seen more than a few restaurants in my downtown advertise variations on their Old Fashioneds featuring rye or Alberta whiskey. Can confirm just as delicious.

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    [–] 9 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    Nice

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    [–] 9 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    I have a small but growing collection of Irish and Japanese whiskeys. None of them will be American, even if I wouldn't have to pay tariffs here.

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    • [–] 7 points 11 months ago (7 children)

    I'm not an expert but I've done some googling about booze a few times.

    It is my understanding that from field to glass it takes 4 years minimum to make a bottle of bourbon. So what part of the process is "plummeting?" Are they not releasing as much this year, keeping more in barrels for longer, which means in a few years there's gonna be a lot of long age statement bourbons on shelves, or have they not distilled as much mash this year? It's not an industry that turns on a dime.

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  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago (5 children)

    I'd guess the part that's plummeting is the distillation phase.

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  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago (4 children)

    Or the stuff that would normally be aged 4 years is being held back and aged for 6 years

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  • [–] 0 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    Make blended whiskey. Use some 2 and 6 year to make some blended 4. And any extra before barreling can be made into gin, vodka or a host of other products.

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  • [–] 7 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    "Blended" implies different mash bills mixed together. It's all mixed from various barrels, unless it specifically says "single barrel". That process is called "batching" and they will add what they need to to hit the flavor profile. The youngest constituent age is what has to be listed on the bottle.

    https://thewhiskeywash.com/whiskey-styles/bourbon/lets-demystify-whiskey-bottle-label-age-statements/

    https://www.bourbinsane.com/bourbon-batch-variations-explained/

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago

    Depends on how financially healthy the distillery is. A place that's really bad will convert to gin production. An okay, not great, place might sell some more younger stuff at a discount. And places that planned well will hold out for greater profit down the line by aging more stuff.

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    • [+] 5 points 11 months ago (3 children)
    [deleted]
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