3.22.13
http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2013/03/22/police-man-drank-102000-worth-of-old-whiskey/
GREENSBURG, Pa. (KDKA) – The live-in caretaker of a Greensburg mansion faces criminal charges for allegedly drinking more than $100,000 worth of the owner’s whiskey.
The butler did not do it! Nope! In this case, police have put the finger on a caretaker with a powerful thirst for hundred year old whiskey.
John Saunders, 62, of Irwin, is charged with drinking 52 bottles of very valuable vintage whiskey.
In 1986, Pat Hill purchased a turn-of-the-20th-century mansion on South Broadway in Scottdale.Hill, a New York fashion model who was born in the Pittsburgh area, poured more than three quarters of a million dollars into it, transforming the estate into a luxurious bed and breakfast in the ‘90’s.
Innkeeper Rick Bruckner says that during the renovations a painter made a wild discovery.
“Hidden back in the walls were nine cases of Old Farm Pure Rye Whiskey,” said Bruckner. “The whiskey itself was distilled in spring of 1913 and it was bottled in the fall of 1917.”
Coal baron, J.P. Brennan – the builder of the house – apparently stockpiled the celebrated Old Farm Pure Rye produced at the West Overton Distillery, which was then owned by Henry Clay Frick.
“But they buried it back in the walls and forgot about it,” said Bruckner.
The nine cases, a dozen sealed bottles in each, were stored in John Saunders’ basement apartment. Last year, Hill found that half of the whiskey bottles were empty.
Hill told KDKA-TV by phone that she “is just sick about it.” That when she “asked Saunders what happened,” he answered, “Oh, it must have evaporated.”
Hill took her suspicions to police.
Lab results came in matching Saunders’ DNA with saliva on three of the empty bottles.
The 52 bottles that Saunders allegedly drank we’re appraised at more than $100,000.
Hill told KDKA’s Mary Robb Jackson that he’s known their family for years. They trusted him and that the worst part of this is that he betrayed that trust.
Saunders is scheduled to appear at a preliminary hearing on Wednesday.
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When that "Local", "Craft" liquor you pay big bucks for Is neither : Distilling deceit
Last winter I visited a small new distillery housed on the ground floor of a Dickensian industrial building in a run-down part of an American city, exactly which city doesn’t matter, because I guarantee there’s a building just like it near you. It was occupied by what my friend Karen Rush has dubbed YUTs, or “young urban tradesmen”: that leather-aproned, sepia-tone breed of ironmongers, tinsmiths, papermakers, and the like who have embraced urban industrial homesteading with the same zeal their parents once brought to rural cheesemaking in the sadder parts of New England.
The distillery’s operators, a trio of agreeable, Oliver Twist–ish young men, had just launched a new vodka, which I’d seen in local bars and on liquor-store shelves. But when I looked around, I didn’t see any of the equipment one might expect to find at a vodka distillery, no gleaming column still, or storage bins for grain or potatoes, or even tanks for fermentation.
It’s a little-known fact, but you don’t actually need a still to call yourself a distiller. The vodka makers I visited had adopted a simple and surprisingly common business model: buy a large quantity of potable alcohol from an industrial supplier (one vendor of neutral spirits offers it “in drum, truckload and railcar quantities”), run it through a tall charcoal filter to remove any trace impurities, cut it with water, decant it into bottles, and then slap on a label touting it as a local craft product worthy of its premium price.
For the time being, the craft-distilling movement is basking in the summery sunshine of congeniality: it’s still young, and rising tides are lifting all boats. Eighty-one craft distillers launched last year in the U.S., bringing the total to 315, according to a white paper by Michael Kinstlick, a co-founder of Coppersea Distilling, a new operation in upstate New York.
The movement is following the same upward trajectory that microbrewing blazed some two decades ago, and Kinstlick foresees more than 1,000 small distillers nationwide by 2021. But already some markets are getting crowded. Brooklyn alone is home to at least 10 distillers. A debate is commencing over what constitutes “craft” and what constitutes “local".
“Grain to glass” distillers grow their own grain and do their own distilling, blending, aging, and bottling. That’s an expensive way to make a bottle of liquor, and the product is priced accordingly. So, understandably, they get a bit grumpy when competitors buy alcohol by the railcar and then repackage it as a “vodka handcrafted in Brooklyn” or a “Texas blended whiskey".
“The next phase of the market is going to be distinguishing the makers from the fakers”, Kinstlick predicts.
You might think federal regulations protect consumers from these sorts of misleading claims on labels. But you’d be wrong. Yes, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau is particular about many things that appear on a liquor label, for example, the alcohol percentage, the category of spirit, and the font size used in the mandatory warnings about drinking while pregnant.
But once you meet those requirements, “you can tell whatever story you want,” observes Nicole Austin, the distiller at Kings County Distillery in Brooklyn, which makes whiskey from New York corn.
Austin doesn’t think increased federal oversight would necessarily help. “Any regulation you come up with will be instantly outdated,” she says. Instead, she’s counting on better consumer education to clarify what’s truly local and craft-produced.
“I want people to understand why my product costs what it does and why it’s special,” she explains.
But consumer education is complicated when it comes to spirits, partly because the “craft” in question depends on what you’re making. With gin, for instance, the craft resides in the choice of botanicals and methods used to infuse flavors. For makers of blended whiskey, the art is in the blending of multiple whiskeys.
Some people argue that when it comes to vodka, the true craftsmen are the marketers, not the producers.
That’s a lot to sort out when you’re walking through the liquor store. But Austin says she sees signs that consumers are gradually educating themselves about what they’re paying for, just as foodies do when it comes to artisanal local foods.
“People want to know not just what you produce, but how you’re producing it,” she says. “They’re going to look under the hood. And if you can’t back up what you’re saying, you won’t keep that customer”.
Top-shelf scheme: Authorities raid 29 bars for selling cheap liquor as premium products
5.22.13 Christopher Baxter/The Star-Ledger
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2013/05/top-shelf_scheme_authorities_r.html
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2013/05/operation_swill_nj_officials_c.html
http://news.yahoo.com/nj-caramel-colored-rubbing-alcohol-sold-scotch-200102116.html
State authorities this morning raided 29 bars and restaurants across New Jersey on suspicion that they have been re-filling empty bottles of their most expensive liquors with cheaper alcohol.
Brian Hertenstein, general manager of Blackthorn Irish Pub in Parsippany. "I’m confident that it’ll come back and it’ll be proven we were pouring what’s on the label."
Dan Arroyo, a manager at the pub, said three men and one woman arrived Wednesday morning, inspecting bottles and opening up liquor cabinets.
Dubbed "Operation Swill," the year-long investigation found the establishments fooled customers so they could charge higher prices and bolster their profits, according to a statement released by the state Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control.
The investigation began as a result of complaints, confidential informants and new technology that allowed detectives to test liquor they bought at the bars, officials said.
Operation Swill started after the state began receiving more complaints than usual about possibly mislabeled drinks, said the director of the Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control, Michael Halfacre. An informant with knowledge of the industry contacted the agency in the fall to help in the investigation, he said.
In January and February, investigators went to 63 establishments they suspected were scamming liquor customers. They ordered drinks neat, without ice or mixers, then covertly took samples for testing. As part of Operation Swill, investigators collected 1,000 open bottles of vodka, gin, rum, scotch, whiskey and tequila from the wells of the bars, state Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa said.
Of 150 samples collected, 30 were not the brand as which they were being sold. At one bar, a mixture that included rubbing alcohol and caramel coloring was sold as scotch. In another, premium liquor bottles were refilled with water, apparently not even clean water.
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http://news.yahoo.com/girlfriend-drunk-help-090000910.html
Dear Starshine,
5.31.13
I've been with my girlfriend for four years. She has a drinking problem. Over the years, she has reduced her alcohol intake. But lately she's drinking more. I drink two or three times a year. We fight a lot about alcohol because when she drinks, she gets aggressive, and I've become increasingly impatient about these drunken confrontations. I asked her to stop drinking around me for awhile so we could get along better. She grudgingly agreed, adding a smart-ass quip about how "we might not see each other that much if I can't drink around you." I got invited to a friend's wedding and asked her to join me, reminding her of our deal — but she argued that she can drink if she wants to. I said that if she can't spend one day with me and not drink, I don't want to continue the relationship. She said I shouldn't be so controlling. Am I being unreasonable or unfair? What should I do? I really want her to be more responsible, and show me that she is in control of herself (so that I can propose and start a dang family already!), but she seems to still want to party.
response:
I don't like to label anyone an alcoholic. After all, I've been craving a pomegranate martini since I read the words "wedding" and "drink" above, so that would really be the pot calling the Ketel One. But we both know how this goes: Your girl loves another. And you absolutely can't propose to her or impregnate her or expect her to be anything other than a stubborn sponge until she personally decides to forsake her nefarious liquid lover. Do you know why you told her that if she can't drink around you, you don't want to continue dating? Because it's true. You. Don't. Want. That. And I don't want it for you. In fact, what I want for you is the same thing you want of her: I want you to be more responsible and show me that you're in control of yourself. Let her know that you're not into threesomes, then go find a girl who finds you entirely intoxicating.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have a martini to shake.
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