The “drunk monkey” hypothesis suggests humans evolved from primates that ate fermented fruit.A recent article in The Economist features this headline: “How humankind’s 10m-year love affair with booze might end.”“Alcohol is poison” has become a po…
Major brands in the portfolio of Suntory Global Spirits.Whiskey is unlike most manufactured products in a way that even close watchers of the business have trouble grasping. Unlike most things we buy, whiskey made today will not be sold next week…
Fred and Freddie Noe at the Beam Distillery in Clermont, Kentucky.As reported today by the Kentucky Herald-Leader, Louisville Business First, and other sources, Suntory Global Spirits, parent company of Jim Beam, has issued the following statemen…
Typical warehouse shot but I took this one myself.Pretty sure it’s Barton 1792.Janet Patton and the Kentucky Herald-Leader are indispensable if you want to stay current with the American whiskey industry. Today’s headline: “Bourbon production is …
Jack Daniel’s brand family (2025)The photograph above was used today by the Kentucky Herald-Leader to illustrate a story about quarterly results from Jack Daniel’s parent company Brown-Forman. As a public company, Brown-Forman’s quarterly results…
Finished last night after I got home from the Marty Stuart concert in Skokie.I have a running joke with another writer on the whiskey beat. When we contrast our experiences with producers, she inevitably quips, “yes, but you’re Chuck Cowdery.”That I am…
Karl liked his brewski as much as the next guy.According to etymologists, the word ‘socialism’ has its root in the Latin sociare, which means to combine or to share. To many on the political right, ‘socialism’ is a word they use to scare people, …
That’s a wrap.Some of you figured this out before I did. The last post on this blog was August 4th, more than two months ago. I’ve never posted on a regular schedule, but two months is a long break. I knew I was wrestling with some things and did…
In 1991, in anticipation of 200 years of Kentucky statehood, which occurred in 1992, the Kentucky legislature appropriated money for the state’s public television network, KET, to award grants to independent producers to create original programs …
Stamping Ground is a small town in Kentucky’s Scott County (pop. 780). It is about 25 miles northwest of Lexington and eight miles from Georgetown, the county seat. Settled in 1790, it was named for the bison-trampled earth around a fruitful spri…
