“Hey, there’s wood in my bottle.”

Wood takes an innovative journey

Who can argue that wood plays a vital role in the taste of your favorite whisk(e)y. In fact, in a Vinepair article it’s estimated that “wood is responsible for 60 to 75 percent of the taste of a finished whiskey.”

More than that, wood is the star of whiskey making with various types of oak, casks that previously held other spirits (even wine), different toasting techniques, even double barrel resting. Maker’s Mark 46 goes one step further and adds wood staves to the barrels. Described as follows: “The innovative wood-stave-finishing process starts with fully matured Maker’s Mark at cask strength. We then insert 10 seared virgin French oak staves into the barrel and finish it for nine weeks in our limestone cellar.”

A new and unique approach

The Sanctified Spirits Company, a startup in Texas, which owns the Oak & Eden brand of bourbon and rye whiskeys, uses a spiral piece of wood (referred to as a spire) inserted into the bottle. This patent pending technique, which they call in-bottle finished whiskey, consists of a 5-inch spiral cut piece of wood from the same species of wood as the barrel. They rest the product for 6 weeks and sell the whiskey with the spire in it.

While I am not a whiskey taster/reviewer, I’m an avid American Whiskey fan, so I tried it to see what it tastes like. The one I tried was Bourbon & Spire (“Bourbon Whiskey finished with a toasted oak spiral”). I loved it.

Here’s how Brad Neathery, Co-Founder and CMO, describes the process:

“The technique allows us the ability to create millions of combinations of whiskey expressions through the selection of the base spirit (bourbon, rye, wheated bourbon, single malt, etc.), the wood type of the spire (American Oak, French Oak, Cherry, Ash, etc.), the fire level we expose the spire to (light toast, medium toast, char, etc.), and the spice or liquid we can infuse the spire with (wine, coffee, rum, beer, etc.).”

About the company

The company was founded by Joe Giildenzopf (CEO), his brother Jamie Giildenzopf (Co-Founder) and Brad Neathery (CMO) in 2017.

When I got a bottle and while doing my research for this article, I noticed the references to God, Christianity and Creation. For example, on the back label it says, “The name pays a gracious homage to both the perfection of the creator who breathes his unique spirit into us, and the wood that infuses our other favorite spirit, and it’s complex flavors.” So, I asked Joe and Brad about this aspect of the company.

“We are Christians. That being said, this is not a Christian whiskey. We’re not attempting to proselytize with this whiskey. We do however, because of our faith and our understanding of Scripture, see the world through that lens, including the production of whiskey. When He turned His attention to making mankind, he did not speak us into existence, he instead used his hands. Taking the elements of the earth and forming a being… breath(ed) into us, which is translated in Hebrew (as) ‘inspire.’ … We call the whiskey Oak & Eden, in-bottle finished, inspired whiskey. And because that great creation story began with God in the garden, we named our product Oak & Eden. Oak is emblematic of wood in the bottle. Eden is the perfection of God’s creation.”

I mentioned these references as religious overtones. Joe corrected me — “I see them as a perspective on the world.”

Makes sense to me. These folks are passionate in what they do, spiritual in how they approach business and it comes together in an innovative, great tasting product.

The products

The current line up consists of Bourbon & Spire, Toasted Oak; Rye & Spire, Charred Oak; Rye and Rumba, Rum Soaked Oak; Bourbon & Vine, Cabernet Steeped Oak.

There’s an excellent review of the brands and tasting notes in this Forbes article.

Brad told me about their newest efforts:

“By the time that you’ve written it, we will have released a collaboration project with Rahr and Sons Brewing, in Texas. They’re a beer company. We want to have two products, a rye infused with their IPA, and a bourbon infused with their Scottish ale.”

The products are all 45% AbV (90°) and sell for $40 for the Bourbon and Rye. Oak & Eden buy their whiskeys from a number of sources, including Midwest Grain Products (MGP). They curate, buy the whiskey, blend, bottle, and finish it in-bottle with the spire.

They launched in May of last year and Oak & Eden is available in TX, CO, KY, MI, OK, and LA. This year they anticipating being in GA, KY, IN, GA, NY, IL. They expect to be national by the end of 2020.

They sold 3,200 (6-pack) cases in eight months in Texas, among the top selling new items in the state. They have a national contract with RNDC (Republic National Distributing Company).

Oak & Eden has three patents, according to Joe:

“We have an exclusive license to the patent for the manufacturing of the spire. We don’t own that, but our cooper does and we have that exclusive license through the life of that patent. We also have a patent on in-bottle finishing, which is the technique of finishing the spirit in a closed glass container with a spiral cut piece of wood. And, then we have a design patent on the bottle and the way in which the spire rests in the bottle. So yeah, we’ve got pretty good IP wrapped around it.”

I asked about their interest in making this innovation available to others. Their answer is they talk about it but have not as yet come to any conclusions, much less a strategy.

The marketing approach

Speaking of strategy, one thing I did not ask about but has since occurred to me, is why they launched so many line extensions from the outset. If it were me, I might have opted to launch with two then gradually roll out the others over time or with selected markets. I would be concerned about stretching the resources too thin.

But I suppose it makes sense. There’s a need to show the range of products using this new technology, an account doesn’t need to purchase all of them, and perhaps they have the financial and other resources to “blast” in rather than “soak” in.

The article cited above in Forbes, raised an important question that I am sure is on the mind of many of you — legitimate innovation or marketing gimmick? The writer’s conclusion:

“I think this is a legitimate innovation and one to get excited about … As a finishing technique, the spire offers a lot more flexibility for finishing whiskeys and dramatically expands the options for different finishes beyond the usual approach of barrels that previously held another liquid.”

I tend to agree. But, the verdict is up to the consumer.

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The Seagram VO and VO Gold story

A Second Shot for Both Brands

Diageo sells portfolio of brands to Sazerac,” read the headline of the press release. It went on to say that among the brands acquired were Seagram’s VO and VO Gold. I found this fascinating on a number of levels. First, you might say that these brands have seen better days and why would a company like Sazerac, with a full and lush portfolio, want these brands. On the other hand, Sazerac has done amazing things with brands they acquired from Seagram (think Eagle Rare and Fireball to name only two) so, a revival of the Seagram VO franchise would not be unusual or impossible.

It was under my watch at Seagram that VO’s decline accelerated and VO Gold was created. So, among others, I contacted John Hartrey and Art Peterson (both of whom you have met before on this blog) who played important roles with those brands, back in the day. I also spoke with Drew Mayville, who worked on the creation of VO Gold and was the 4th and last Master Blender at Seagram, and is now the Master Blender at Sazerac.

{By the way, as I write this, I’ve learned that Sazerac has introduced “Mister Sam” Whiskey — a Blend of Sazerac’s American and Canadian Whiskeys and a tribute to the Seagram founder, Sam Bronfman. The blend was created by Drew Mayville.}

The importance of VO to Seagram

Let’s start with the fact that the New York Stock Exchange symbol for Seagram was VO. That speaks volumes. Next, consider the fact that The Chairman (aka Edgar M. Bronfman) earned his stripes at the company working on VO.

It was always a great whiskey, a 6-year-old Canadian blend and the aspiration of Seagram 7 drinkers looking for more and, yes, better.

I recall, after taking over the position of U.S. marketing head, being summoned to a lunch with The Chairman in his private dining room. This was during the time that Edgar Jr was involved in Hollywood. I think, in retrospect, the purpose was to let me know that he was back in control and was in charge during this interregnum. Really? As though I didn’t know? All I recall from that lunch was that the butler asked me what I wanted to drink and I looked at him in amazement. With the exception of a special occasion, drinking at lunch was not for me. When I told him so, his look was beyond amazement as he said, “The Chairman generally has a VO before lunch… I’d suggest you do the same.”

Some believe that the term VO stood for “Very Own” and, according to the Master of Malt website, “It is said the blend was created after a post-prandial conversation (during or relating to the period after dinner or lunch) amongst the Seagram family; the letters “VO” might well stand for “very own”, as in, their very own blend…”

Art Peterson told me the following story about the family’s commitment to VO:

“When Edgar Senior and Charles (Bronfman) were running the Canadian operation, they learned that due to some production or maturation difficulties, the blenders were unable to match the character of the current VO production to the standard. So, Charles and Edgar made the decision to stop shipping the brand until they solved the problem. That meant that there were shortages in the marketplace, but they were determined that no shipments would be made until that problem was solved.” (Despite my griping about the owners, they were all about quality and doing the right product thing, no matter what.)

Most interesting to the VO story is the packaging, notably the ribbon on the bottle. I’ve been told that it was the racing colors of a Bronfman owned horse. More about that ribbon in a moment.

But tastes changed and the brand slipped

By the early 1990s, consumer liquor preferences had leaned to clear spirits in general and vodka in particular, so whiskies (with a few exceptions) suffered volume declines. At Seagram, Seagram 7 Crown was huge and a bar staple so its losses were manageable. At the other end, Crown Royal, whose appeal was to top shelf drinkers and strong regional support, actually grew in volume. In part, this was a result of an upmarket line extension — Crown Royal Special Reserve. Seagram VO was awash in red ink and, while it held its own against the archrival Canadian Club, you didn’t want to be the brand manager who presented the sales and marketing results when there was a Bronfman in the room. As in… “our sales are way down BUT, our market share is up.”

The central question became, “What to do about VO.”

Enter the Consultants

The owners of Seagram loved to bring in consulting companies such as McKinsey or Boston Consulting Group — you know, highly paid outsiders who basically ask for your watch so they can tell you what time it is. I couldn’t help but wonder why they chose to go around the company’s employees. I often felt they thought, how smart can our people be, they chose to work for us didn’t they?

Among other things the consultant contribution to the brand was to “take the goodness away,” by eliminating what they saw as ‘unnecessary’ packaging elements. You know… what we in marketing and sales call “brand personality elements.” Among the cost saving victims was the VO ribbon.

VO after the package changes

The Answer…

…came from the toilers in the company, not the consultants. In so doing, we broke what classic marketers call the rule of line extensions — don’t line extend from a weak brand. Nonsense.

There were many reasons why an upmarket VO line extension made sense, including increased margin, additional VO facings in stores, a new face in the brand’s franchise and lineup, and more. And, the success of Crown Royal Special Reserve, gave us the impetus to try that tactic on VO. What did we have to lose?

So, VO Gold was born and, with the thumbing of our noses at the consultants, we put all the goodness in packaging back into VO Gold. Including the ribbon.

But the strength of the brand came from the blenders and the marketers. Here’s how Art Peterson described what happened with the product formulation:

“Drew Mayville was part of the team and in on the creation of the brand. What happened was that VO Gold was just an idea. We knew it had to be some kind of a premium VO, but true to VO characters. We started by discussing, ‘What could we do to improve VO?’ Well, one idea, of course, is you can use older whiskeys. We decided that we would focus on eight-year-old whiskeys. And then, ‘What can we do to VO to make it different but still recognizably VO?’ We decided to go with a whiskey that would be brighter. Also, some of the characteristics in VO that we liked were the fruity characteristics, and that came from having certain yeasts that we used in our rye whiskeys in the VO blend.”

The proof of the blenders’ success came in a letter to Art from Charles Bronfman:

“I have tasted VO Gold and it’s just fabulous!!! Best damn VO I have ever tasted, and as you know, I have tasted an awful lot of VO over the years. Nice going, my friend.”

VO Gold

What I especially enjoyed about Seagram was the team spirit and, in this case, how marketing worked hand in hand with the blenders and production to bring this brand to life.

Led by John Hartrey, the marketing folks came up with a totally unique idea; never done before but used by others afterward. They ran a program that centered on “meet the blender.”

What they did was communicate, through advertising and point of sale, a series of dinners in five different markets. It was a contest whereby “you and 20 of your friends” could win a dinner with Art Peterson, followed by an expert tasting with him. It was a huge success and VO Gold was on its way.

About that ribbon

John reminded me of a great story about the VO ribbon. It was removed because it required special equipment and was expensive to produce. Little did the geniuses at the consulting firm (or many of us) know that it played a role in the Viet Nam war. According to John:

“When we removed the ribbon, we got a letter from a Vietnam Vet asking why the ribbon was removed. He told us that during the war, the VO ribbon was referred to as a “short timers’ ribbon”.  The idea was that when someone had a short time left on their tour (probably 30 days), he put the ribbon on his uniform so that everyone knew to protect him and get him home.”  

The story was corroborated here.

The Ribbon

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Seagram’s VO and VO Gold now have a second shot at success. The best part is that one of the blenders who worked on the original products, Drew Mayville, is the current Master Blender for the new owners (Sazerac) of the brand.

Drew used a great expression when we spoke that really resonated with me, “A lot of companies want to meet consumer expectations. At Sazerac, we strive to delight the consumer.”

I can’t wait for it to come on the market.

Thank you John, Art and Drew for taking the time to talk with me about this.

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Why is it called a “cocktail?”

The mystery is solved — sort of

Ever wonder why it’s called a cocktail? I have, and I set out to learn the answer. So, I checked with Gary (Gaz) Regan, my friend and business associate and, a fountainhead of information about all sorts of booze business matters. He has written 18 books on the business including, 101 best new Cocktails, The Bartender’s Gin Compendium, and The Joy of Mixology.

 It turns out that in the new revised and updated edition of The Joy of Mixology, Gaz addresses this question at the outset of this amazing book, which is full of anecdotes, stories, and cocktail recipes. With his permission here are some excerpts on “How Did a Cocktail Come to be called a Cocktail?

On May 13, 1806, the Balance and Columbian Repository of Hudson, New York, answered a reader’s query as to the nature of a cocktail: “Cocktail is a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters—it is vulgarly called a bittered sling.” The cocktail had been born, it had been defined, and yet it couldn’t have been very well known by the general populace, or the newspaper wouldn’t have considered it a fit topic for elucidation.

Where does the word cocktail come from? There are many answers to that question, and none is really satisfactory. One particular favorite story of mine, though, comes from The Booze Reader: A Soggy Saga of a Man in His Cups, by George Bishop: “The word itself stems from the English cock-tail which, in the middle 1800s, referred to a woman of easy virtue who was considered desirable but impure. The word was imported by expatriate Englishmen and applied derogatorily to the newly acquired American habit of bastardizing good British Gin with foreign matter, including ice. The disappearance of the hyphen coincided with the general acceptance of the word and its re-exportation back to England in its present meaning.” Of course, this can’t be true since the word was applied to a drink before the middle 1800s, but it’s entertaining nonetheless, and the definition of “desirable but impure” fits cocktails to a tee.

A delightful story, published in 1936 in the Bartender, a British publication, details how English sailors of “many years ago” were served mixed drinks in a Mexican tavern. The drinks were stirred with “the fine, slender and smooth root of a plant which owing to its shape was called Cola de Gallo, which in English means ‘Cock’s tail.’” The story goes on to say that the sailors made the name popular in England, and from there the word made its way to America.

Another Mexican tale about the etymology of cocktail—again, dated “many years ago”—concerns Xoc-tl (transliterated as Xochitl and Coctel in different accounts), the daughter of a Mexican king, who served drinks to visiting American officers. The Americans honored her by calling the drinks cocktails—the closest they could come to pronouncing her name. And one more south-of-the-border explanation for the word can be found in Made in America, by Bill Bryson, who explains that in the Krio language, spoken in Sierra Leone, a scorpion is called a kaktel. Could it be that the sting in the cocktail is related to the sting in the scorpion’s tail? It’s doubtful at best.

One of the most popular tales told about the first drinks known as cocktails concerns a tavern keeper by the name of Betsy Flanagan, who in 1779 served French soldiers drinks garnished with feathers she had plucked from a neighbor’s roosters. The soldiers toasted her by shouting, “Vive le cocktail!” William Grimes, however, points out in his book Straight Up or On the Rocks: The Story of the American Cocktail that Flanagan was a fictional character who appeared in The Spy, by James Fenimore Cooper. He also notes that the book “relied on oral testimony of Revolutionary War veterans,” so although it’s possible that the tale has some merit, it’s a very unsatisfactory explanation.

A fairly plausible narrative on this subject can be found in Famous New Orleans Drinks & How to Mix ’em, by Stanley Clisby Arthur, first published in 1937. Arthur tells the story of Antoine Amedie Peychaud, a French refugee from San Domingo who settled in New Orleans in 1793. Peychaud was an apothecary who opened his own business, where, among other things, he made his own bitters, Peychaud’s, a concoction still available today. He created a stomach remedy by mixing his bitters with brandy in an eggcup—a vessel known to him in his native tongue as a coquetier. Presumably not all Peychaud’s customers spoke French, and it’s quite possible that the word, pronounced coh-KET-yay, could have been corrupted into cocktail. However, according to the Sazerac Company, the present-day producers of Peychaud’s bitters, the apothecary didn’t open until 1838, so there’s yet another explanation that doesn’t work.

Another theory has it that in England, horses of mixed blood had their tails docked to signify their lack of breeding, and were known as “cocktailed” horses, but since I first wrote that, the term has been clarified. David Wondrich, cocktail historian extraordinaire, has concluded that the word’s origins did indeed involve horses and their tails, but with a difference: “cocktail,” he found, was a bit of ginger or cayenne pepper that crooked horse dealers would put into tired old horses’ bums to make them cock their tails up and act a little more lively than usual.

Gary (gaz) Regan

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So, there you have it… five possible explanations of the origin of the word cocktail.

I don’t know about you but I’m going with the last one, but I much prefer “down the hatch” than “bottoms up.”

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