It's a good time to be a whiskey maker, and craft whiskeys are all the rage with names like Bulleit, Redemption, Templeton and George Dickel.
But according to a report on the Daily Beast, some of those producers tossing off hazy, golden adjectives like "hand-crafted," "small-batch," and "artisanal," are well, not. There's a factory in Indiana churning out massive quantities of beverage-grade alcohol, and some distilleries are just buying it and putting it in their pretty bottles.
Steve Ury is an attorney by day and Recent Eats blogger by night who is tracking where the good stuff comes from. He tells All Things Considered's Audie Cornish that over 50 different brands from different companies appear to be bottling whiskey from this big Indiana factory, which goes by the name of MGP, Midwest Grain Products.
Ury says that one of the tell-tale signs on the bottle is the wording. "Does it say it is 'distilled' by that company, or does it say it's 'bottled by or 'produced by' that company? That sounds like a small difference, but it has a big legal meaning."
He also looks for the recipe because the Indiana distillery uses 95 percent rye, which is very distinct. That's a red flag that it might be from Indiana.
As for the taste, Ury notes that different barrels taste different. "Sometimes they blend it with other whiskeys; sometimes they put it in a barrel that previously held port or rum to give it a slightly different flavor," he says. "Sometimes they'll filter it. But there's a commonality of flavor of these MGP ryes because they are so distinct."
As the Daily Beast notes, one brand called Whistle Pig Straight Rye Whiskey based in Vermont has gotten a lot of hype. It launched in 2010, and Ury looked at the source of the whiskey and when it's supposed to be aged. So is there a discrepancy?
Ury says Whistle Pig launched with a 10-year old whiskey, made from barrels of whiskey from Canada sold it as the company's own rye whiskey.
The Salt
As Craft Beer Starts Gushing, Its Essence Gets Watered Down