In February, Maker’s Mark bourbon announced that it planned to dilute its product to 42 percent alcohol by volume from 45 percent - producing 84 proof whiskey instead of 90 proof. Maker’s Mark President Bill Samuels Jr. was upfront about the reasons - watering down the bourbon would allow Maker’s Mark to produce more whiskey, and since they didn’t intend to lower the price, more money. He insisted that whiskey drinkers wouldn’t notice the difference. Heck, not even the expert tasters at Maker’s Mark could tell the difference.
Less than a week later, after hearing from “thousands and thousands” of bourbon drinkers, Maker’s Mark admitted defeat. Plans to change the recipe were scrapped.
Maker’s Mark contends that its plan to water the whiskey was driven by potential shortages, and wasn’t merely a way to increase profits. And it may well have been.
There’s no clear correlation between a whiskey’s proof and its quality (80 proof is the minimum for bourbon - Wild Turkey makes an 80 proof product and the Jim Beam white label is 80 proof), but most “sipping” whiskies rate at 90 or above. And while I routinely check the proof on bottles, I’m not sure many people do. For most mass-marketed whiskies, proof is sort of an artificial metric - whiskey comes out of the barrel a little stronger than its label proof. Water is added to bring it to a uniform level. Ice or a mixer in a glass also changes the percentage of alcohol you consume.
Yet it’s fair to say that proof content is more important in something like bourbon because the amount of alcohol contributes to the flavor. People who don’t want flavor in their drinks tend to drink vodka or to drown their booze in cola or juice. I’m not sure I could detect a drop from 90 to84 proof in a glass of straight Maker’s Mark, but I’m incredulous of reports that Maker’s Mark experts couldn’t.
I doubt they would have experienced such a backlash if they’d just quietly changed the proof. This happens. Jack Daniels has lowered the alcohol content of its “Tennessee whiskey” from 90 to 86 to 80 proof over the years. And Kahlua, the venerable coffee liqueur, quietly dropped its percentage of alcohol from 26.5 percent (53 proof) to 20 percent (40 proof) in 2004. But the Kahlua sold in Ohio has apparently always been 21.5 percent alcohol.
That’s a huge drop in alcohol content. To put it in perspective, the proposed three point percent dilution (from 45 to 42 percent) of Maker’s Mark that everyone got so excited about represented a 6.7 percent decrease in the volume of alcohol, while the 6.5 percentage points that the makers of Kahlua shaved off their product represents an almost 25 percent reduction in the real volume of alcohol in the liqueur.
Yet nobody noticed.
I have a theory as to why. While there undoubtedly are people for whom Kahlua - a rich, dark brown liqueur made from Mexican coffee, fine cane spirits and a hint of vanilla - is a staple, most of us can keep a bottle in our bar or cupboard for at least a few months. Left to my own devices, I might keep a bottle around for a decade. But Karen likes Black Russians so we always have a coffee liqueur around, although she professes to prefer rougher, rawer and cheaper brands like Kamora or Copa De Oro to industry leader Kahlua. (The discontinued Starbucks liqueur was her favorite.)
So I would, like any number of online sources I checked, probably assume that Kahlua hadn’t changed substantially since it was introduced into the United States in the 1950s, had a friend not told me his story. When he went looking to replenish an old bottle of Kahlua, he compared the (pre-2004) label on his old bottle to the current one. And he found that Kahlua, formerly a “Coffee Liqueur” (or “licor de cafe”) was now a “Rum and Coffee liqueur.” And the proof had changed. When my friend told the liquor store owner that he wanted the old Kahlua, the store manager responded that the Kahlua on their shelves was the same they’d been selling for 30 years.
See what you can accomplish if you don’t send out a news release?
I don’t have an established taste baseline for Kahlua, although I have noticed that the line has expanded dramatically in recent years. There are at least nine products on the company’s surprisingly unhelpful website, including two 70 proof models, Kahlua Midnight and Kahlua Especial, both of which are promoted as being less sweet than the original Kahlua. (And they might well fill the niche of the old 53 proof product, but if you’re just looking to hit the number, Tia Maria coffee liqueur is 53 proof. Like the new Kahlua, Kamora is also 40 proof, while Copo De Oro is 44.)
Or you can make your own, as a young - but of legal age - friend recently did. He has given us permission to reprint his recipe: Christian Huisman’s Coffee Liqueur Recipe 5 cups of water 3 cups of white sugar 1/2 cup of finely ground coffee (try your favorite flavor for best personal results) 1 bottle (750 milliliters) of Arkansas Lightning (or vodka or any other strong flavorless alcohol) 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
Directions: Stir the water, sugar and finely ground coffee together in a saucepan over high heat until the mixture boils. Take off of heat and let cool (30-45 minutes). Once cool, stir in alcohol and vanilla extract. Pour mixture into clear jugs (growlers work great as do the bottle the alcohol came in) and place in refrigerator for one month. For best results, shake mixture at least once per day. At the end of one month, strain the mixture using cheesecloth and enjoy!
And one more thing before I go. It deserves more space than I can give it here, but Amy Stewart’s recently published The Drunken Botanist: The Plants That Create the World’s Great Drinks (Algonquin Books, $19.95) is a fascinating and highly readable examination of the agricultural roots of spirits, fermented and distilled. It will likely be a valuable and extensively used addition to the drinkies desk’s reference library.
E-mail: pmartin@arkansasonline.com blooddirtandangels.com
Style, Pages 46 on 04/07/2013