by gillmang » Mon Oct 23, 2006 12:45 pm
The newsletter just arrived. I avidly read Chuck's further description of the Michter's saga which focuses on the earlier and middle years of its operations (the salad days one might say). It is (I add my voice to others') very well done, the facts march down the page smartly and are part of a clear and engaging narrative. Chuck's inference that Adolph Hirsch commissioned the production of a bourbon in 1974 as part of a plan to inject cash in the business is undoubtedly correct. Why a bourbon and not a rye or a blend? Someone as savvy as Hirsch with his extensive background in the distilling industry probably figured that while brown goods were generally in decline, bourbon stood a better chance of being saleable than straight rye which was really tanking by that time particularly in its homeland of Pennsylvania. Or maybe bourbon was simply slated to be made then for some reason, so he bought that.
As for being tipped later to take it away, that is possible, however as the owner of the goods, he would have had a legal entitlement to remove it. Presumably his title (under the warehouse receipt) was superior to the mortgage security held on the property as a whole (although I am not sure how that works under the Uniform Commercial Code in PA). It may be too the withdrawal of the stock was done under some kind of court order or supervision.
A man as smart again as Hirsch was was making, in other words, an investment and it must have paid off although perhaps not with the result one would see today when the market for such whiskey is prized and there is to boot a shortage of aged whiskey.
As for whether it would have been considered over-aged in the old days, I know some distillers and merchants felt and still feel that way. But as we have seen from other threads there was always a small amount of long-aged whiskey in the market and this goes right back to the mid-1800's. Some people always had a taste for it and could pay for it. So this Hirsch 16 (and the other age expressions, 15, 18, 19 and 20), while perhaps not intended by him to become such a specialty, is part of an old tradition and certainly cannot be said to be a freak or a marketing fluke of some kind. While some people do not like old whiskey, many do and this is purely a matter of taste; Hirsch 16 stands out as an excellent example of this specialty product. It gains added interest and allure due to its origins in the now defunct Bomberger/Michter's/Pennco distillery and its broad similarity to the straight rye and straight rye-like Orginal Sour Mash which was a Pennsylvania heritage and a star production of this distillery.
Gary