Celebri-quote: Christina Hendricks

• Men, do you think you have no chance of getting close to "Mad Men"  siren Christina Hendricks? Well, that probably is true -- if you don't drink whiskey. Here's what she had to say on the subject in an interview with The Sun of London.

"I love it when a man orders Scotch. Most women find it a big turn-on.

"I've always been attracted to men who exude confidence and a sense of purpose in life. A man is much sexier when he is able to project a very clear impression of who he is and can take charge of situations.

"Women like to feel a man can protect us when we need that or feel vulnerable. A bit of swagger mixed in with a good sense of humor is important."

[Go here for an archive of celebri-quotes.]

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Dowd on drinks ... on radio ... on demand

Wm. Dowd graphic

I made another appearance on WAMC Northeast Public Radio today, this time discussing rums with "The Roundtable" host Joe Donahue and news maven Ray Graf.

If, for some inexcusable reason, you missed the show, all you have to do is click here to tune in to the 25-minute program. The trio of rums under discussion today were markedly different from each other:

• Serralles Don Q Añejo (Puerto Rico)

• Ron Miel Guanche Arehucas (Canary Islands, Spain)

• Banks 5 Island Rum (Various Caribbean countries)

Incidentally, if you want to hear an earlier program I did on WAMC concerning the history of whiskey, just click here.

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MA partners making beer-based whiskies

Berkshire's spirits line.

Two Massachusetts adult beverage makers are teaming up to create a pair of craft beer-based whiskies.

Berkshire Mountain Distillers Inc., located in Great Barrington, and the Boston Beer Company, brewer of Samuel Adams, on Monday announced their collaboration in a multi-year project.

The two brews -- Samuel Adams Boston Lager and Samuel Adams Cinder Bock -- will be triple distilled in Great Barrington, then barrel-aged in wood. The collaboraters said because whiskey aging is a very complex and multi-faceted process it is difficult to pinpoint an exact release date. The projected timeline is for 2015.

Representatives of both companies tasted several beer styles and their distilled products from trial distillations before deciding which Samuel Adams brews to use. The two brews have markedly different taste profiles. The hopes are to create two whiskies just as different from each other.

"There are many parallels between making spirits and brewing beer," said Jim Koch, founder of Boston Brewing. "Marrying the two not only makes sense, but will also produce a drink that beer- and spirits-lovers alike can enjoy."

Berkshire Mountain Distillers was created in 2007. It produces Greylock Gin, Ethereal Gins, Ragged Mountain Rum, Ice Glen Vodka, Berkshire Bourbon and New England Corn Whiskey in the Berkshires' first legal distillery since Prohibition.

The Boston Beer Company was founded in 1984 and has become an iconic craft brewing brand. It brews more than 50 styles of beer.

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Wooden it be lovely

Barrel-making in a Louisville, KY, cooperage. (Dowd photo)

A few years ago I embarked on a journey called “From Forest to Flask.” It was part of an assignment for a UK drinks magazine to track the path of wood that adds the aging nuances to the best Scotch whiskies.

The project took me from the timberlands of the Ozark Mountains to a sawmill in Missouri, a cooperage in Kentucky and a distillery in the Highlands of Scotland. If I had been patient, I could have saved a lot of travel wear-and-tear.

A proud Governor Robert Bentley of Alabama has just announced a new job-creating enterprise in his state. Considering that he does not drink, it’s interesting he is so enthusiastic about it.

The project is the development of a 200-employee cooperage that is targeted to begin turning out American white oak barrels in the spring of 2014 for Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey, made and bottled just 200 miles away in Lynchburg, TN. By comparison, the distance my magazine assignment covered between the Louisville cooperage and the Scottish distillery was 3,800 miles.

“It doesn’t mean I’m going to partake what’s in the barrels, but we’re glad to make the barrels,” Bentley said upon making the announcement of the project to be located midway between Florence and Decatur in lightly-populated Lawrence County. Brown-Forman, Jack Daniel’s parent company, already has a mill that cuts barrel staves in neighboring Jackson County.

American white oak is, by law, the only type of wood that may be used in bourbon barrels. It also is popular for making barrels that mature Tennessee whiskey, ryes and some blends. Most non-bourbon distillers, as well as some winemakers, like to acquire used white oak bourbon barrels because the process of spirits aging already has taken place and the wood readily exudes grace notes of color and flavor to their maturing liquid.

Most in the industry concur that aging in wood accounts for perhaps 60% of the taste of the finished product and, of course, for all of the beautiful hues of gold, amber and copper that result from the chemical interaction of spirit and wood.

 “I’ve experimented with putting new-make whisky into various woods,” Bill Lumsden of the iconic Scottish brand Glenmorangie told me. “You never know when something pleasing will come out of it.”

Lumsden had the opportunity in the mid- to late-1990s to try swamp, burr, chinkapin and post oaks in prototype barrels that had been air-dried for 18 months.

“There’s a high degree of spiciness in the swamp oak, and the burr oak has a pleasantly oiliness, almost buttery. The others didn’t provide much difference from American white oak.” Most people refer to Lumsden as the master distiller for the highland distillery located in Tain, Ross-shire, Scotland, but several years back his title was broadened to “head of distilling and whisky creation.” That’s a fancy way of saying he is Glenmorangie whisky.

Any complaints from traditionalists about his experimentations?

“Oh, some, but I put it down to jealousy,” Lumsden said with a twinkle.

While the vast bulk of wood used for aging Glenmorangie whiskies is American white oak, German Black Forest oak also is used. With perhaps 90 different types of oaks in the world, wood can continue to be Lumsden’s playground for a long time to come.

By the way, my entire “Forest to Flask” journey is included in my book “Barrels & Drams: The History of Whisk(e)y in Jiggers and Shots” (Sterling Epicure), available in bookstores and through online booksellers.

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New Bacardi rums are revealing items

For quite some time, distillers have been very particular about both the flavors in and the designs of their bottles and packaging materials as they fight for space on increasingly-crowded store shelves.

Bacardi, the world's top-selling rum, now is showing its attention in both areas as it rolls out its two newest flavored clear rums, Bacardi Wolf Berry and Bacardi Black Razz.

Wolf Berry is a blend of blueberry, rum and wolf berry (sometimes known as goji berry), which gives the spirit a sweet and tangy taste. Black Razz is a mix of raspberry, rum and black sapote, a Central American fruit.

New packaging features temperature- and light-activated bottles. When chilled, Wolf Berry reveals a red claw mark across the label; Black Razz reveals a large brilliant red berry logo.

Both the new flavors are available in 50ml, 200ml, 375ml, 750ml, 1l and 1.75l formats at a suggested retail price of $14.99 per 750ml bottle.

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World's largest gin collection in UK hotel

Duplessis (l) accepts the award.

OXFORDSHIRE, England -- The Feathers Hotel in Woodstock has officially been proclaimed the holder of the largest collection of gin in the world.

A Guinness Book of World Records adjudicator visited the hotel to count the 161 different varieties of gin stocked by the hotel bar as a crowd of guests and employees looked on for the entire 45 minute inspection.

Jeremy Duplessis, hotel general manager, said, "It's absolutely fantastic to be crowned a world record breaker. We have been building on the collection for three years and have picked up gins from all corners of the world -- from Holland, Spain, the U.S.A. and Germany as well as Britain, home of the famous London Gin, so it's great to have our efforts rewarded."

The hotel also stocks some of the world's most exclusive gins. For example, a bottle of Vincenzi 1950 comes in at US$348; a single glass of Burnett's White Satin 1960 will set drinkers back US$30; and, a seven-course dinner paired with gins is US$116.

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Followup (2) on Five Wives Vodka flap

In the face of widespread opposition, the Idaho State Liquor Division (ISLD) has reversed its earlier edict banning the brand Five Wives Vodka from being sold in the state.

The vodka, made in neighboring Utah, found favor with the Idaho drinking establishment, many of whom voiced objection to the ISLD decree. The distiller itself threatened a lawsuit against Idaho if the ban were not reversed.

The original ruling came in a nanny-state type of pronouncement from the ISLD that the ban was being instituted because the brand might be taken as a reference to the former Mormon practice of polygamy and that might offend someone. Both states have a significant Mormon population, although polygamy has been outlawed since the 1800s.

You can catch up on the nuances of the controversy on my earlier postings here and here.

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Drinking scene rejiggered in Kansas

TOPEKA, KS -- The Jayhawk State's drinking scene is in the midst of major changes.

Under a bill signed into law by Governor Sam Brownback, changes effective July 1 include:

• Liquor stores will be allowed to offer free wine, beer and liquor tastings as of Sunday, July 1.

• Dinner railway cars can obtain a liquor license. State Rep. TerriLois Gregory, R-Baldwin City, said the measure was aimed at luring a Nebraska dinner train business to operate between Baldwin City and Ottawa.

• Drinking establishments may offer "happy hour” specials. Previously, could offer special drink prices, but those charges had to last all day.

• Micro-distilleries will be allowed to to sell and serve their products on their premises.

Another provision of the law, that went into effect on May 31, allows visitors at wine tasting festivals to taste samples and buy bottles of those same wines at the event. Previously, wine tasting visitors had to go to the individual wineries to purchase those same wines.

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Maker's Mark gets court seal of approval

The first time I visited Maker’s Mark bourbon in Loretto, KY, I was invited to dip a just-filled bottle in the distillery’s iconic melted red wax.

In my enthusiasm, I plunged the neck of the bottle into the molten vat a bit too vigorously, and wound up with dripping wax coating the neck, half the bottle and my hand up to the wrist. My face was as red as the wax.

That embarrassing moment has always stayed with me, so when I saw a legal decree involving the wax seal, it naturally caught my attention.

From now on, if you see a whiskey with a dripping wax seal on its and it doesn't say Maker's Mark on the label, you may be seeing something illegal.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has held that the red, wax seal that covers the stopper on bottles of Maker’s Mark bourbon is a protected trademark that must be used exclusively by that brand. The ruling follows a lawsuit in which Maker’s Mark Distillery Inc. sought to prevent a similar seal from being used on bottles of Jose Cuervo tequila.

It's not the use of a wax seal, per se, that is the problem. Lots of distillers use wax seals -- Knob Creek, for one, and even Cuervo for years. Rather, it is the design of the seal that Maker's Mark worries about.

Until 2001, Cuervo bottles had been crowned with a straight-edge seal, then the design was changed to an uneven style that made the wax look as if it were dripping down the bottle neck, a la Maker's which was trademarked in 1985.

Judge John Heyburn II of the District Court for the Western District of Kentucky ruled in favor of Maker’s Mark on the dual points of infringement and trademark validity. This was upheld on appeal at the Sixth Circuit.

In their ruling, the three appeal judges noted: "The company has bottled bourbon for commercial sale under the Maker’s Mark name, and has used a red dripping-wax seal on its Maker’s Mark bourbon bottles, since 1958. Maker’s Mark -- and craft bourbon generally – garnered national attention when The Wall Street Journal published a front-page article about the bourbon, the red dripping-wax seal, and the family behind it ['Maker’s mark goes against the grain to make its mark,' by David P. Garino, 1980]." Furthermore, the appeal judges noted, a 2002 Business Week report declared the dripping-wax seal "one of the most recognizable branding symbols in the world." Six years later, the "CBS Sunday Morning" show referred to the factory process for applying the feature as the "famous dip in red sealing wax."

These findings, said the judges, "support the district court’s ultimate conclusion regarding the breadth of market recognition of Maker’s Mark’s trademarked, red dripping-wax seal."

Also, the judges wrote, "There is more than one way to seal a bottle with wax to make it look appealing.

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Dubonnet: Fit for a monarch

Vintage Dubonnet poster.

The salespeople at Dubonnet have had their hands full supplying their aperitif to PR-savvy pubs across the United Kingdom this week.

It is a blend of fortified wine, herbs, and spices with fermentation being stopped by the addition of alcohol. And, it is the drink favorite of Queen Elizabeth II, who this week is marking her diamond jubilee on the British throne.

Dubonnet was first sold in 1846 by Joseph Dubonnet, his entry in a competition run by the French government to find a way of persuading French Foreign Legionnaires in North Africa to drink quinine, which is part of the Dubonnet recipe. Quinine combats malaria, a disease prevalent in most places the Legionnnaires were posted, but is very bitter and, thus, not drinkable on its own.

 The brand-name Dubonnet was taken over by Pernod Ricard in 1976. It is available in Rouge (red), Blanc (vanilla) and Gold (orange) varieties.

The late queen mother, Elizabeth, was a noted imbiber of a cocktail that was 70% Dubonnet and 30% gin. QE II also has been photographed enjoying a Dubbonet-and-gin, which she has before lunch nearly every day.

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Followup on Five Wives Vodka flap

A few days ago, I reported ("Idaho joins ranks of the nanny states") that the Idaho Liquor Control Division has banned the sale of Utah-made Five Wives Vodka because its title may offend Mormons whose religion once allowed polygamy.

Part of the fallout from that ludicrous position -- polygamy has been outlawed since the 1800s -- was the possibility that the distiller, Ogden's Own Distillery, was considering withdrawing as a sponsor of the upcoming Boise Music Festival.

However, the distiller reconsidered after seeing a lot of public support for their product in Idaho. More than 1,000 T-shirts emblazoned with "Free the Five Wives" have been sold in the past few days. The company said it will use the proceeds to help underwrite the music festival at the original level of commitment. It will continue selling the T-shirts online.

"We are absolutely humbled by the support of the people in our neighboring state," said Steve Conlin, partner and vice president of marketing for Ogden's Own Distillery told the Idaho Statesman. "We've sold so many T-shirts to Idaho residents that we think it is only fair to give those proceeds back in sponsorship dollars. We feel bad that we can't get the shirts out fast enough."

Due to many state laws, the company cannot ship directly, but is hoping to have an online distributor available in 26 states early next week.

Ogden's Own is a micro-distillery located in Ogden, UT, the city's first licensed distillery since the 1800s. Its first product, Underground Herbal Spirit, won a Double Gold award at the 2010 San Francisco World Spirits Competition.

Incidentally, the vintage photo used on the label of Five Wives is of an old, scandalous vaudeville group, not a group of Mormon wives. The Salt Lake Tribune did some digging to get the background on the story. A fun read, available here.

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Idaho joins ranks of the nanny states

While Mayor Mike Bloomberg is busy trying to extend his nanny-state proclivities by banning sales in New York City of sugary drinks of 32 ounces or more, the entire state of Idaho is being protected from imagined offense by a Utah distiller.

Here's the story:

Because the majority of the populations of Utah and Idaho practice the Mormon religion that long ago allowed polygamy, the Idaho Liquor Control Division (ILCD) has decided that the Utah-manufactured Five Wives brand vodka has the potential to offend. Thus, the vodka has been banned from Idaho.

A letter signed by Howard Wasserstein, deputy director for procurement, distribution and retail for the ILCD, says, “We feel (the) Five Wives vodka concept is offensive to a broad segment of our population and will not be carried.”

 Odgen's Own Distillery, maker of Five Wives, reportedly has been in touch with the attorney who won a 2011 suit that overturned a Michigan ruling that the Flying Dog Brewery's Raging Bitch Beer was offensive and could not be sold.

Curiously, a Utah-brewed beer named Polygamy Porter is available in Idaho.

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