If You Don’t Know White Whiskey, Don’t Write About It
By Richard Thomas
(Credit: Joana Thomas)
Imagine that a wine and travel magazine, such as Wine Spectator or Food and Wine, wanted to do a piece on the rose wines from Ibizia, and how they were so enjoyable in the hot climate there and would therefore be just as enjoyable in similar places in the United States. Now imagine such a magazine giving the assignment to a writer who is on the record for despising rose wines. The results would be predictable, so it’s hard to imagine those magazines assigning a writer who hates the topic, let alone publishing his work if they did so.
Yet this is exactly what happens in many, if not most, instances when I read an article about white whiskey and legal moonshine. Indeed, it is practically a badge of honor among many of the whiskey writers who occupy so much screen and page space in the mainstream media to disdain unaged whiskeys, and yet despite their obvious bias, their editors keep on printing them.
Take Reid Mitenbuler, whose new bourbon book has been getting such a gigantic push in the mainstream media that you’d have to be living in a cabin with no electricity in Montana down the road from where Ted Kaczynski hung his hat to not know about it. Back in 2013, he declared for Slate that all white whiskeys were bad. The year before that, some were openly praying the white whiskey trend would just go away.
(Credit: Richard Thomas)
Not all the writers in this class hate white whiskey. Geoff Kleinman did a refreshingly fair write-up of 20 unaged or barely aged whiskeys for his own blog in 2011, but he is an exception. As a result, when you see the subject of unaged whiskeys discussed in major media outlets by an actual whiskey writer, the result is almost invariably negative. When it isn’t, it’s likely because a general purpose journalist wrote the article in place of a drinks writer.
Going past Kleinman, at The Whiskey Reviewer three out of seven of the current staff are white whiskey fans. What is more, white whiskey and legal moonshine are still running strong, contrary to the years-long wishes of the haters. Some people genuinely like the stuff, and not just in cocktails.
So, this is my common sense advice to the editors of this world. You would never send a guy who hates beer to cover Oktoberfest, for the obvious reason that he would pan the event without thinking twice about it and bitterly offend most who read his work. Apply the same standard to unaged whiskeys. If the guy you’re working with hates the stuff, find someone else to do the work. There really are plenty of us out here.
What would be a good one to try?
Whiskey Acres Distilling Co. outside of Chicago makes an award winning white whiskey that they also sell with a simple bottle-aging kit for those who prefer charred oak. They are a new certified farm distillery and grow all their own grain too.
John — I live in North Carolina, and we’re fortunate to have access to the great product turned out by Troy & Sons out of Asheville, NC. If you can get some, it’ll make your day.
Slate’s drinks articles used to be excruciatingly painful. They were part of the reason I stopped reading Slate.
I was asked to provide historical context for a recent Slate piece on whiskey and was considering doing just that until it came to light that it was a commissioned piece to promote a particular distiller, at which point I declined.
Journalism? I think not.
Sam — I didn’t know Slate was doing native content. Certainly there is nothing wrong with accepting advertising, so long as it is clearly noted as such (“paid supplemental” and so forth). I have never seen them make such a disclaimer, and I used to read them quite a bit. These last few years, not so much. Now I have to wonder about their ethics, on top of their mediocre work.
I appreciate the nod in this article. I think good spirits writers can appreciate quality spirits, no matter what the category its in. I’m not a huge Absinthe fan, but I know good absinthe when I have it. (But to your point, I don’t really seek out Absinthe to review as I don’t really care for it.)