Wine Enthusiast Stumbles With 2012 Distiller of the Year

By Richard Thomas

Wine Enthusiast, one of the wine industry’s leading lifestyle magazines, stumbled badly this year by naming Michters Whiskey as its 2012 Distillery of the Year. In so doing, the popular magazine named a company without an actual working still as the leading distiller of not just the whiskey trade, but the entire spirits industry.

Michters Whiskey isn’t a distillery, or at least it isn’t a distillery yet. This is something Wine Enthusiast is well aware of, since in giving Michters the award, they describe the company’s acquisition of the Fort Nelson Building in downtown Louisville earlier this year, which is intended to become the site of the company’s new tourist-oriented micro-distillery. In even considering Michters for “Distiller of the Year,” let alone giving them the award, Wine Enthusiast made the sort of stumble that cannot serve any purpose other than undermining their credibility on the subject of spirits.

At the The Whiskey Reviewer, we describe an outfit like Michters using the general term “whiskey-maker.” Scotland, Ireland and the United States are packed with whiskey-making companies who do not actually distill their own product, instead preferring to order their own custom-made spirits from another distillery or to buy and blend the existing wares of several distilleries. Many of these outfits use considerable expertise to produce excellent products, so saying that Michters being Distiller of the Year is a mistake is not a dig at Michters or any other non-distiller.

Instead, it points to the sloppy distinctions and lack of spirits expertise at Wine Enthusiast, as well as at other publications.  Wine Enthusiast understands the importance of these distinctions very well, since they apply them in their wine-related awards.

While hardly the worst instance of a publication blundering badly on the subject of whiskey, this case is hardly trivial. If Whisky Advocate or Whisky Magazine were to start dabbling in wine articles and handing out wine awards, and went on to make a hash of terms like “vinter,” “winery,” and “negociant,” I’m sure the wine media establishment would pillory them for it. And justifiably so.

3 comments

  1. I can see wine guys commenting on port or grappa… you know, the stuff still comes from grapes. But rum? Whiskey? Vodka? Where is the connection?

    I’ve always thought wine magazines were out of their depth doing whiskey. It shows in their stupid ratings.

  2. This is what comes from letting wine snobs go on about whiskey. That they would lump rum, vodka, gin, whiskey and whatever together is a douchey thing to do, then this? I’ll never take their ratings seriously again.

  3. I had never thought of that before. Usually when I read about Michter’s, people give Michter’s crap for this. I think you’re right. Wine Enthusiast made the mistake, not Michter’s, so it’s the magazine’s bad.

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