American Still Life E-Book

F. Paul Pacult

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 360

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

The untold story of the world's premier bourbon and the familythat made it #1 American Still Life tells the intertwined truestories of America's favorite whiskey and the family dynasty thatproduces it to this very day. Jim Beam is the world's top-sellingbourbon whiskey, with sales of over five million cases per year.Not a day has passed in the 207 years of Jim Beam's existence whena Beam family member has not been master distiller. Dedicated toquality, and dedicated to the family legacy, the Beams haveshepherded their particularly American spirit to the top of theirindustry. And they've done it in an industry beset by challenges,from government regulation and prohibition, to changing consumertastes, to fierce new global competition. By creating a brand ofunparalleled quality and consistency, and by tying the success oftheir product with the good name of the family, the Beams haveestablished a lasting legacy as perhaps one of the greatest familybusiness dynasties in American history. Not just a simple historyof "America's native spirit" (so named by an act of Congress in1964) or a simple family history, American Still Life is a story ofbusiness success based on quality and attention to detail, constantinnovation, revolutionary branding and advertising, and adaptationto the business environment. F. Paul Pacult (Walkill, NY) is recognized the world overas his generation's most accomplished and respected authority onbeverage alcohol. He has written for many magazines, includingPlayboy, Wine and Spirits, Connoisseur, Whisky, Drink, Men'sJournal, Cheers, Country Inns, Travel and Leisure, Bon Appetit,Decanter, and Food and Wine. Among his manyaccomplishments, he has hosted and coproduced two syndicatedtalk-radio programs and served as the primary expert on whiskey,beer, and wine for the History Channel documentary AmericaDrinks: History in a Glass.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

PART ONE - The Foundations

Chapter 1 - Jacob Beam and Surviving in a Harsh Land

Stillhouses, Good Manners, and Houses of Worship

Eighteenth-Century Politics and the Coming of the Boehms

Magnificent, Savage Kentucke

The Start of the Beam Saga

Kentucky’s First Bourbon Whiskeys and a Rebellion

The 1790s in Kentucky and Matters of Integrity

Chapter 2 - David Beam and Pre-Civil War Kentucky

Kentucky’s Green Goddess

Cue the Industrial Revolution

... And the Word Was “Bourbon”

Chapter 3 - David M. Beam and the Debris of War

The Third Generation Comes On-Watch

A Nervous State on the Brink

Moonshine, Sunshine, Rebuilding

PART TWO - The Dynasty

Chapter 4 - Jim Beam and the Making of a Bourbon Whiskey Brand

Launching the Second Beam Century

Talking with the Lord

Closing Down and Making Do

Picking Yourself Up, Brushing Yourself Off, and Starting All Over Again

Continuing in the Face of Another World War

Chapter 5 - T. Jeremiah and Carl Beam: Jim Beam Bourbon Steps onto the World Stage

Changes at James B. Beam Distilling Company

Taking the Biggest Leap of All in 1967

Chapter 6 - Booker Noe: Big Man, Small Batch

The Wine and Food Revolution Cometh

Booker’s Bourbon

Booker Noe, Sixth Generation, Unfiltered and Uncut

Chapter 7 - Other Beams: Behind Every Good Bourbon Whiskey

Early Times, Good Times, Sad Times

Beam Generations at Heaven Hill

47,000 Gallons of Bourbon per Day

Chapter 8 - Finding a Crown for the Jewel

Enter Jim Beam Brands Worldwide, Inc.

An Illinois Company That Never Loses Sight of Kentucky

Appendix A - Tasting Notes on Jim Beam Bourbons

Appendix B - The Jim Beam Bourbon Timeline

Bibliography

Index

Copyright © 2003 by F. Paul Pacult. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Pacult, F. Paul, 1949-

American still life: the Jim Beam story and the making of the world’s

#1 bourbon / by F. Paul Pacult.

p. cm.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 0-471-44407-3 (cloth)

1. James B. Beam Distilling Company. 2. Whiskey industry—United States—Kentucky—History. 3. Liquor industry executives—United States—Kentucky—Biography. 4. Liquor industry executives—United States—Kentucky—Genealogy. 5. Beam family. 6. Kentucky—Genealogy.

I. Title.

HD9395.U47J367 2003

338.7’66352—dc21

2003011340

For Sue, forever gratefully connected to.

For Rick, forever gratefully guided by.

Foreword

While I thought I knew everything about my family, American Still Life taught me that you can always learn more about who you are and where you came from. I am proud to invite you into my world to learn about the first family of bourbon—our history and our rich heritage.

As the seventh generation Beam involved in producing awardwinning bourbon, I have a keen understanding of the importance of tradition and heritage. It comes with being part of a family that can trace our bourbon-making roots back more than 200 years. The historical account describes my family’s heritage—capturing our hopes, dreams, and ambitions in the process. American Still Life also offers an important history of bourbon, a history that at times reads like a novel.

Jim Beam is the No. 1 bourbon in the world, but as you’ll see, it is also so much more. Jim Beam is pride, Jim Beam is determination, Jim Beam is quality. Jim Beam is America. And for generations of families working in our distilleries, Jim Beam is, has been, and always will be, a way of life. American Still Life captures this pride and the essence of who we are and what bourbon is all about.

When my great-great-great-great-grandfather, Jacob Beam, brought his first bourbon to market in 1795, he had no way of knowing what he was starting. He was a distiller, hoping to earn an honest living and provide for his family. In many ways, he was just like every other pioneer who had made his way westward in America. He wanted a better life and was willing to work hard to achieve it.

More than 200 years later, Jacob’s bourbon has become an American Icon and the cornerstone to my family’s time-honored bourbon-making tradition. Each generation has contributed to this legacy, adding unique skills and talents. Everyone has played an invaluable part, helping Jim Beam become a successful business focused on producing the world’s finest bourbons.

When I finished this book, I had a terrific sense of pride in my family. I now have an even deeper respect for the challenges my family faced, the risks we took, and the long days we put in to make our whiskey just right.

I learned how to make bourbon from my father, Booker Noe, Jim Beam’s grandson. Growing up, I joined my father at the distillery, watching the Beam craftsmen make the mash and barrel up the whiskey. When I was old enough, I joined in the family tradition working nights on the bottling line. My father taught me the business from the ground up. He also taught me the importance of keeping things honest and straight.

American Still Life is an honest and straight account of my family’s history, our bourbon, and the Kentucky way of life. It celebrates a part of America that is gone and recognizes another part that is still going strong.

It was a pleasure for me to read and I hope you will enjoy it as well.

Fred Noe

Preface

Snapshots from the Album of an American Family

I DIDN’T COME TO appreciate and know whiskey well until 1989. Until that time, I had prided myself on being a wine journalist and instructor, surviving, even thriving in New York City. New York in the 1980s was a remarkable melting pot for the world’s wines. As American consumer interest in fine wines exploded, wines poured in from everywhere: Australia, Chile, Hungary, Argentina, Greece, Washington State, Oregon, Israel. I wrote about wine for various publications, consulted for wine shops in the northeast about what they should buy and how they should sell it, and owned and operated a wine school, Wine Courses International, out of a loft in lower Manhattan. Life was good.

Whiskey, however, was foreign territory, a dark and, in my mind, inhospitable continent. Wine was white or red. Whiskey was, after all, brown.

Then, in the winter of 1989, a friend at the New York Times, Rich Colandrea, who had been attending my wine classes, hired me to create and write a special advertising section on Scotch whisky for the Sunday Times Magazine. To my astonishment, the 28-page section turned out to be an enormous hit with Times readers, advertisers, and the Times staff. The Times requested more special sections on Scotch and other distilled spirits in 1990 and 1991. I provided them. Within two years, I was writing as much about whiskey and distilled spirits in general as about wine. Cognac, Armagnac, Eau-de-vie, Vodka, Gin, Tequila, Rum, Liqueurs, Irish whiskey, Canadian whisky, Bourbon whiskey—all distilled spirits—suddenly fell within the scope of my view-finder. I was sampling and evaluating hundreds of distilled spirits a year on top of all the wines I was still analyzing.

In 1991, I kicked off publication of F. Paul Pacult’s Spirit Journal, my subscription-only, advertising-free newsletter wherein I critiqued distilled spirits of all categories in as much detail as I had previously done with wine. That microscopic attention had evidently never before been afforded to spirits to any great extent. The Spirit Journal—liquor industry people and subscribers told me—finally gave an independent, unbiased voice to spirits, one that had been swamped during the “wine boom” decades of the 1970s and 1980s.

In 1992, I received a call from Jim Beam Brands, who were then, as they are now, headquartered in Deerfield, Illinois. I had come to know Jim Beam Bourbon as America’s flagship bourbon, a hugely popular, iconic brand with a global presence. The previous year, I had reviewed in the Spirit Journal the company’s four elite, super-premium “small batch” bourbon whiskeys, Booker’s Bourbon, Basil Hayden’s, Baker’s, and Knob Creek. The Jim Beam management team asked me if I would consider touring the nation with Booker Noe, Jim Beam’s grandson and the Master Distiller Emeritus of the James B. Beam Distilling Company, to introduce the company’s small batch bourbons to audiences comprised of the public, trade, and press.

At the first opportunity, I hopped aboard the Booker Express. On and off for three years, as my schedule permitted, I toured the United States with this giant, affable man—Kansas City, San Diego, Boston, Miami, Dallas. You name the major city and, most likely, Booker and I were there at some point talking to jam-packed halls, ballrooms, and restaurants.

As I make clear in Chapter Six, the crowds we encountered were not present to see me. Maybe some were Spirit Journal subscribers, but the majority attended because they had heard of this unbelievable gentleman named Booker Noe.

What made Booker so appealing on our tours was his unbridled honesty, boundless enthusiasm for bourbon, and his good-humored, no-nonsense personality. Tall as he was wide of girth, Booker commanded the speaker’s table merely by sitting there. While I would be discussing with each group the merits of Basil Hayden’s, Baker’s, and Knob Creek and describing to them what made the Jim Beam small batch bourbons different from mainstream bourbons, the audience would be itching to hear what Jim Beam’s grandson had to say, what knowledge he could impart about the bourbons, especially his own, the fiery, four-alarm Booker’s Bourbon.

Once Booker started talking in his rural Kentucky drawl about his whiskeys and how to make bourbon, or smoking hams, or fishing, or the spiritual importance of consuming lots of thick-sliced smoked ham on homemade biscuits, only an earthquake could stop him or, for that matter, compel the audience to vacate. The audiences were enthralled and amused by this massive, unassuming man who’d casually answer questions, saying things like, “Do I add water ta Booker’s? At a hunnert twenty-six percent alcohol, you kiddin’? Don’t an’ it’ll blow tha top o’ your head right off. Hell, I pour some Booker’s in a tall ol’ glass ’bout one-third an’ fill the rest with branch water and some ice. Call it Kentucky Tea. Clears the lungs, soothes the stomach ... and lights a fire in your mind. All those things in jus’ one glass. Yes sir, Kentucky Tea. Mighty good for what ails ya.”

The public warmly responded to Booker because he came off as the real deal. He was authentic, unscripted. Booker Noe defined what people thought a Kentucky whiskeyman should be. Though Booker is now retired, receiving guests at his home in Bardstown, Kentucky (Jim Beam’s old home) for lunch or dinner and a glass or two of Kentucky Tea and 10 to 12 smoked ham biscuits per person, he remains, along with his son Fred, the focal point of the Beam legacy.

But the unique story of Jim Beam Bourbon and how it became the best-selling bourbon whiskey in the world is about much more than Booker and Fred Noe and the company’s small batch bourbons. The Jim Beam Bourbon saga, I came to realize over the years, is one part family history, one part riveting fireside tale about the opening of the western frontier, one part American memorabilia scrapbook, and one part international business opus. The Jim Beam Bourbon saga can only be told as a story that is inextricably interwoven into the tale of America becoming an independent nation and, in time, the world’s foremost industrial and commercial power.

The tale begins with Johannes Jacob Beam (originally Boehm of German ancestry), who in the latter years of the eighteenth century left Maryland to homestead in the untamed frontier territory known as Kentucke. Beam’s aim was to farm, distill whiskey, and raise a family. Not necessarily in that order. How a locally produced spirit made mostly of corn and sold by the individual barrel eventually became the world’s number one bourbon whiskey over the course of seven generations and two centuries is a testament to the Beams’ perseverance, ingenuity, and remarkable sense of family loyalty. Enduring frontier hardships, a fledgling country’s growing pains, the Civil War, the temperance movement and Prohibition, financial difficulties, and World Wars, the Beam family story weaves together regional, national, and international commerce; rural American history and intimate family history. No other family in the international whiskey realm has had as deep an impact or has left as illustrious a legacy as the Beams.

A 1965 newspaper story that appeared in the Austin Statesman reported on the 170th anniversary of Jim Beam Bourbon described the adventure of the Beam family best when it said, “The story of the Beam family and its unique contribution to American industry can almost be linked to the progress of America itself. For the Beam family tradition of six generations in one business, in one industry—in a truly American industry—defies parallel.”

An appropriate way to absorb and enjoy this account is to pour yourself a dram of Jim Beam Bourbon cut with mineral water, get comfortable in a big chair, and be time-warped back to when America was rambunctious, raw, adventurous, and the source of unlimited opportunities. The Beams are naturally skilled at keeping things simple, clear, and direct. I hope you find American Still Life as entertaining, genuine, and unaffected as the Beams are.

I recall well a late night dinner with Booker and his wife Annis somewhere in our travels a decade ago. We had just conducted another standing-room-only tasting, people shoehorned into an auditorium. Booker mused about the raucous, enthusiastic reception we had just experienced, saying as he looked at me, “Sometimes ah still don’t see what all tha fuss’s about. Hell, Paul, we’ve jus’ been makin’ whiskey outta corn for a little while. ’S all.” I had come to know Booker well enough by that point to know that he wasn’t being disingenuous. He’s incapable of it.

Here’s to the many future quaffs of Kentucky Tea yet to be shared with Booker Noe, grandson of Jim Beam, and Fred Noe, son of Booker.

F. PAUL PACULT

Wallkill, New YorkJune 2003

Acknowledgments

AMERICAN STILL LIFE WOULD never have happened without the help and support of the following people:

• Sue Woodley, my wife and partner, for proofreading, editing, rewriting, researching, and conceptualizing.

• Richard F. Pacult, for moral support on many fronts.

• Matt Holt, my editor at John Wiley & Sons, who first approached us with the business book idea, made it happen with our topic suggestions, then made many key editorial suggestions.

• Everyone else at John Wiley & Sons who is connected with the book.

• The amiable and able staffs at the Kentucky Historical Society, Special Collections in Frankfort; the Filson Historical Society in Louisville; the librarians at the Margaret I. King Library, University of Kentucky, Lexington; and the curators of the Oscar Getz Museum of Whiskey History, and The Bardstown Historical Museum, Bardstown.

• Flaget Nally, Mary Hite, and Jo Ann Beam for a lovely stroll through a cemetery.

• Max Shapira, Harry Shapira, Jeff Homel, Larry Kass, Parker Beam, and Craig Beam of Heaven Hill Distillery, Bardstown.

• Frank Coleman and Patrick MacElroy of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS), Washington, DC.

Though they had no stake in this book other than the basic storyline and no knowledge of the final content, the Jim Beam Brands Worldwide, Inc., group in Deerfield, Illinois, and Clermont, Kentucky, should be cited for their open and willing assistance with the research. Stephanie Moritz, our primary contact at JBBWorldwide, proved to be indispensable in helping to ferret out archival material, arrange for present and former staff member interviews, track down photos and related data, and assist with fact checking. Rich Reese, chief executive officer and president of JBBWorldwide, enthusiastically embraced the book concept from the very beginning. Other valuable assistance from JBBWorldwide came from Ron Kapolnek, Tom Maas, Tom Flocco, Kathleen DiBenedetto, Harry Groth, and Michael Donohoe of Future Brands, LLC. Linda Hayes, Jim Beam Noe, Jeff Conder, and Jerry Dalton at the Jim Beam Distillery in Clermont; Laura Dihel and Jim Kokoris at JSH&A should also be mentioned. Barry Berish, former chief executive officer of JBBWorldwide, and Norm Wesley, current chief executive officer, at Fortune Brands, Inc. were extremely supportive.

Of course, thanks to Booker and Fred Noe.

F.P.P.

PART ONE

The Foundations

1

Jacob Beam and Surviving in a Harsh Land

THE DISTILLED SPIRIT OF a nation epitomizes its people, its natural resources, and its commercial and political history. While Scotland has Scotch whisky, Ireland has Irish whiskey, France has cognac and armagnac, Russia has vodka, Italy has grappa, and Spain has brandy, the United States of America has bourbon whiskey. More than just a native beverage alcohol made from grain, yeast, and water, bourbon whiskey is presently an internationally recognized emblem of America. One bourbon, in particular, Jim Beam Bourbon, the world’s leading brand, has more than any other come to symbolize the American culture. For over two centuries and seven generations, one family, the Beams, has more than any other whiskey-making clan guided not only the destiny of Jim Beam Bourbon but much of America’s bourbon industry.