Firefly's Mint Sweet Tea Vodka, and other Gold Medal Winning Spirits

Due to the close proximity of in-laws who might frown on such boozifying, M Randolph can not post this link in person. So the task has been put to myself, and I will do my best to post with all the energy and feeling my mortal shell can produce.


150 liquors in two days


Wow, posting with that much vigor took a lot out of me. I'm worn out now.


You want a drink? I'd love a drink!

What's in a name?

That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet. But Shakespeare neglected to have Juliet explain that the contrapositive is not necessarily true. Just because you call something a rose, doesn’t mean it smells sweet. Try it the next time your dog takes a crap or you drive past some ripened roadkill. Ahh… the smell of roses. Doesn’t work does it?

But that doesn’t stop people from trying. I just came back from a new deli in town (no names, they were nice people). It was a very classy looking joint. Fancy sponge-painting effects on the walls, expensive ingredients proudly on display, clean, tidy, friendly, treats for your dog if you brought him, even a scented candle flickering on a wooden display unit. I purchased a "Five-cheese Panini With Bacon". The place was expensive and we had come on many recommendations. What culinary masterpiece did my immediate future hold for me? I brought it back to the office, and proceeded to chow down on what I’d have to call a kind-of shitty grilled cheese sandwich with some crumbled bacon in it. So if it wasn't really that good, why had people told us this place was amazing? Fancy sponge-painting effects on the walls, expensive ingredients proudly on display, clean, tidy, friendly, treats for your dog if you brought him, even a scented candle flickering on a wooden display unit.

What does this all have to do with booze? Patience, grasshopper.

Mr. Dicks just posted a preemptive rant about (rī)¹, the whiskey so cool it can’t even spell its own name. He hasn’t tasted it yet, but he suspects shenanigans are afoot. And as much as I love Jim Beam, I have to concur. The outlook isn’t rosy. So often in the liquor business, they try to wow you with their image and not their product. Two huge examples of this are Grey Goose and Michael Collins. They are the brain-child of marketing wizard Sidney Frank. He imported the finest French blah blah and distilled it in a yawn, who gives a shit. The end result, as I’ve ranted about before, is flavorless Everclear cut with mineral water, forever reducing the public image of vodka from an exotic alcoholic beverage to a more efficient way of delivering drugs to the bloodstream. Kind of like crack. Where was the real innovation? The price. He set the price well above the existing top-shelf vodkas like Stolichnaya and Absolut. It was so expensive, it had to be good, right? Throw a few ads in some magazines, bribe some rappers to include it in their lyrics, and then you sell the whole puppy farm to Bacardi for $2.2 billion. And as I said before, Grey Goose isn’t shit and even has a place in my home bar, but is it really worth what you pay for it? Before his death, Sidney followed up this (and many other) success(es) with Michael Collins Irish Whiskey. This time, he was less successful because the existing niche market valued flavor. And not just flavor, but a very specific flavor. Sure, it was dressed up fancy and put on the top shelf just like Goose, but once the Irish Whiskey lovers of the world sipped it, the cat was out of the bag and the brand failed to perform as anticipated.

There are, as I stated in my comment on Richard’s post, top-shelf brands that don’t follow that plan at all. Jim Beam itself has Booker’s, Baker’s, Basil Hayden, Maker’s Mark, and Knob Creek; all bourbons, all value the flavor of the product over the image, and none of which shun their bourbon heritage one bit. One look at the bottles, and you know what’s inside. Hell, the company's motto is “The stuff inside matters most” and I’ll drink to that with any of their bourbons. But something about the sleek, minimalistic, hip packaging of (rī)¹ gives me doubt. And just to make sure I’ve made my point, let’s have a little visual demonstration of what I’m talking about:

You pickin' up what I'm puttin' down? It's a slippery slope, people. When you concern yourself with appearance, it's easy forget that what's inside is what really counts. It's easy to be lulled into the false belief that you can just slap a label on a dog turd that says "Rose" and everyone will say it smells terriffic. Sure, some people wearing fuzzy orange visors might, but not everyone will. And if you've completely missed the mark - if your product has no merit other than its packaging, you might just go down in flames. Not having tasted (rī)¹, I can't say for sure if this is the road they've chosen to go down, but I sure hope it isn't. I hope when I take my first sip of it, I sputter and cough a little bit, Richard and Paddy laughing at me before taking sips and doing the same. I hope it's strong. I hope its bold. I hope spicy and kicks you in the teeth just like spirits distilled from fermented rye should. I hope Jim Beam Brands Co. hasn't forgotten their own motto: The stuff inside matters most.

Ultra-Premium Rye, an Oxymoron?

A couple of weeks ago I was in the liquor store, when I by chance came a cross a bottle of (ri)1 (pronounced rye one) Ultra-Premium Rye Whiskey. The very first thing I said to myself was "oh God, no." I don't know why. I love rye whiskey. In fact, the other thing that popped in my head was "you bastards stole our idea." You see, my friends and I have always though that starting our own Pennsylvania Rye distillery would be a kick-ass idea. And nobody makes a Pennsylvania rye anymore (the secrets out, damnit!).

I Guess seeing this new whiskey on the shelf bothered me for two reasons. One, I don't care for the phrase "ultra-premium" attached to anything I drink. I usually find the product to be of slightly above average quality, and highly above average in price. It's a buzz word that has no meaning, unless you've got the balls to back it up. I've seen many ultra-premium liquors fall short of their namesake. Second, I just don't see the words "ultra-premium" and "rye" going together. They just don't fit with my image of what rye is supposed to be.

Let's first skip past Canadian whiskey, which is often called rye whiskey for some reason, but usually has no rye in it at all. When it does, it usually accounts for a small amount of the blend. Rye whiskey came out of the foothills of the Appalachians in rural Western Pennsylvania. It was the drink of the common man when rum fell from grace after the American Revolution. Rye was the only distilled spirit that was born 100% from American sweat and labor. Rum relied heavily on molasses imports from the West Indies, and gin usually was made with spices from around the globe. Both were also distilled primarily in the urban coastal cities. Rye on the other had was a hard drink, made by hard men, who just wanted to supplement their income with their excess grain. It was harsh and peppery. A bold drink. America's fire water.

Rye was the only real whiskey anybody drank prior to prohibition. Bourbon? Barely anybody touched the stuff. It existed, but wasn't really popular until after prohibition. When you watch an old western on TV and somebody orders whiskey, they were ordering rye. Rye has this grittiness to it, this classic mystique of the old days, the harder days. Rye is dirty. Rye burns the throat, and hard men drink it. There is nothing ultra-premium about rye.

I looked at the elegantly tapered bottle on the shelf before me. I take note of its clean simple label. This wasn't rye that I was looking it. In my eyes, it was a gimmick. What right did it have to come out of nowhere, and just declare itself champion over all other ryes, without being tested in the fires.

It wasn't until just recently that I discovered that (ri)1 is actually made by Jim Beam. I suppose that offers some merit to it. I definitely will have to try it. But is it really worth $50 a bottle. This shit is expensive. Being a lover of rye whiskey, I am definitely taking a biased stance on this one. I love Jim Beam, and I hope that this whiskey is spectacular, but their marketing campaign and image for this one just doesn't sit right with me. I don't think it ever will. Rye doesn't belong in a fancy bottle with all the top shelf booze. It belongs buried in the back, and when the bartender takes it out to serve a lone, grizzled, old man, sitting in a dark corner of the bar, fingerprints can be seen in the dust that has collected on the bottle.

Half a crate...

And if that's not enough for you, you can click here, but there's not nearly as much drinking involved, so we can't officially condone doing so.