Maker’s Mark Misses the Mark
The saddest story you will read all day:
Maker’s Mark is getting a little less boozy.
The bourbon producer, known for its signature red wax-sealed bottles, is watering down its whiskey in an effort to meet rising global demand.
The change was first announced in a letter from company executives to loyal customers.
“Fact is, demand for our bourbon is exceeding our ability to make it, which means we’re running very low on supply,” wrote Rob Samuels, the company COO.Samuels said that “after looking at all possible solutions,” the company was reducing alcohol by volume by 3%.
Fact is, all liquor is watered down.
The stuff in the casks is a much higher proof (typically close to 50% ABV) than the stuff in the bottles (typically 40-46% ABV, depending on the booze and the brand). Distilleries add water during the bottling process to even out the proof, since the alcohol will evaporate at different rates out of different casks. Ideally, the distillery will use the same water used to make the booze in the first place, so no foreign flavors are introduced.
This is why “cask-strength” Scotch confuses me. You’re going to have to water the stuff down a bit to make it palatable, and odds are you won’t have access to the same stuff from that one particular stream in the Scottish highlands or wherever.
Anyway.
What Maker’s is doing is adding more water when they move the stuff from cask to bottle — almost 7% more. You’ll want to add one less ice cube to your rocks glass, or a smaller splash of water, or use a little less sugar & bitters in your Old Fashioned. Because what Maker’s has effectively done here is to sell you 7% less booze in the same size bottle for the same amount of money.
To which I say: I’d take a Bulleit for Maker’s Mark.
Samuels said that “after looking at all possible solutions,” the company was reducing alcohol by volume by 3%.
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Well, ONE possible solution would be to raise prices in the face of demand outstripping supply. THAT works. PLUS, it provides the ability to RAISE your output.
Another solution is to curtail advertising, which Maker’s Mark is now doing on shows like “Justified”.
Seems like a disingenuous statement to me…
Gotta put on my marketing hat here. In a lot of ways, this is marketing 101. Well, maybe 201.
Raising the price would bump it up into Knob Creek and Booker’s territory (both also owned by Beam).
But MM is fast becoming a mainstream product, kinda like BMW in the 80’s. Better to keep the cost down a bit, and hope the fan base continues to grow.
Well, ONE possible solution would be to raise prices in the face of demand outstripping supply. THAT works. PLUS, it provides the ability to RAISE your output.
People would whine just as much about a price incease.
And the problem with “raising output” is that bourbon takes years to make.
You can’t just “make more of it” now – Beam isn’t constrained by capital, and not “making more” because they can’t afford to; they’re constrained by the amount of bourbon they barreled a few years back.
(Contra Mr. Green, I actually enjoy sipping a cask-strength bourbon or scotch straight now and then. So it’s not like you *must* water it down – and using good clean ice works just fine. I find that letting a wee sip fill the entire palate with scotch fumes makes for an excellent tasting platform.
And contra Mr. Apostic, you do realize that Twinkies have a 2 week fresh shelf life, right?)
I’ve been a Bulliet fan since the beginning. Just a better overall bourbon.
I was lucky enough to meet Tom Bulliet here in San Francisco about 5 years ago. Besides just being an overall great dude, you could tell he knew his stuff. At the time, he said SF was buying about 60% of world-wide consumption of Bulliet.
Maker’s is decent, the branding is genius, but I’m not heartbroken over this news as it has long been replaced on my lower shelf bourbon list.
Alcohol is an interesting market and I just don’t understand this decision. They say this is driven by expansion. My arm-chair CEO would chose to limit expansion, keep the product quality at current levels until they can scale to the point where they can expand without the major hit to their margins. It may tick off a couple of distributors in the short-term, but it causes demand increase in the near-term.
Will expanding beyond their means hurt them? Dunno. I guess they’re betting that most people don’t give a flying monkey about it.
So.. the solution to more people than you can serve wanting to buy your stuff is.. to make your stuff worse?
That’s an.. interesting take on business management.
“You’re going to have to water the stuff down a bit to make it palatable…”
What’s this “you” stuff, white man? Honestly, I’d say it depends on the whiskey.
I can understand the decision to water down. It’s not like they can just speed up the production line. They’ve got a sudden unexpected increase in demand, they’ve got to wait years for properly-aged bourbon and they don’t want to lose market share in the meantime in their existing markets by raising the price. There’s only one way to increase short-term production without drastically affecting quality. And heck, I haven’t chosen Maker’s in ages, so what do I care?
Still, it just feels all wrong.
I was speaking — very strictly — of adding a little water or ice to the cask strength stuff.
There’s just too much heat from the alcohol to properly taste the scotch.
Weird problem out in LA. Bulleit is only two dollars cheaper than Knob Creek. So, I don’t drink that much Bulleit these days.
I like Makers in novelty chocolates though I haven’t had any since embarking on a low sugar/starch/carb diet. It’s Reynolds’ fault.
MM is my favorite bourbon for times I don’t feel like drinking bourbon.
And it’s always been my secret potion for getting dates drunk fast.
IMO, this won’t change much. Hate to see it though, just on principle.
It’s going to save them some cash on excise taxes though, so in a way, I appreciate the Galt element of it.
What is this “bourbon” of which you philistines speak? Any dram that spells whisky with an E isn’t worth drinking.
Feh, “whisky” versus “whiskey” is a marketing thing that mostly arose after Prohibition. Like “grey” versus “gray”.
Just for the fun of it, check out this 1922 issue of Cosmopolitan (yes, THAT Cosmopolitan!)
Scroll to Page 33 for the booze article. But the whole magazine is pretty intriguing if you’ve got the time to indulge.
http://books.google.com/books?id=jQHnAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
AYE!
I dunno. I bought a case of Twinkies last year when supply suddenly became limited, so I’ll prolly buy a few bottles of MM before it becomes the New Coke of this drinking generation.
Meanwhile, Buffalo Trace has been growing on me….
Not much of a bourbon fan (I prefer Scotch or Irish Whisky), but ah does likes me some Bulleit (yes, I typed it that way on purpose). I think most bourbon turns me off because it is sickly sweet to me.
As the phrase goes … drink what you like!