A while ago I explained in “Lost History of Knob Creek” how American history of whiskey production is tied to slavery.
In particular, Jack Daniel took his recipe from emancipated slaves even though he used his own name for the brand.
Now the man who taught Jack Daniel, “Nearis” Green, is getting his own brand. Proceeds from the sale of this new whiskey are going to fund college education of master distiller Nearest’s descendants
See if you can trace how the story originally flowed from “never a secret” to “embrace, tentatively” to “gauzy and unreliable” to “never be definitively proved”…
Daniel, the company now says, didn’t learn distilling from Dan Call, but from a man named Nearis Green — one of Call’s slaves.
This version of the story was never a secret, but it is one that the distillery has only recently begun to embrace, tentatively, in some of its tours, and in a social media and marketing campaign this summer.
[…]
Frontier history is a gauzy and unreliable pursuit, and Nearis Green’s story — built on oral history and the thinnest of archival trails — may never be definitively proved.
Then a successful writer comes onto the scene and quickly realizes there is a market for trust and ethics, scientifically eroding the structural white supremacist deception and lies that intentionally obscure roots of American innovation.
…when she got to Lynchburg, she found no trace of Green. “I went on three tours of the distillery, and nothing, not a mention of him,” she said.
Rather than leave, Ms. Weaver dug in, determined to uncover more about Green and persuade Brown-Forman to follow through on its promise to recognize his role in creating America’s most famous whiskey. She rented a house in downtown Lynchburg, and began contacting Green’s descendants, dozens of whom still live in the area.
Scouring archives in Tennessee, Georgia and Washington, D.C., she created a timeline of Green’s relationship with Daniel, showing how Green had not only taught the whiskey baron how to distill, but had also gone to work for him after the Civil War, becoming what Ms. Weaver believes is the first black master distiller in America. By her count, she has collected 10,000 documents and artifacts related to Daniel and Green, much of which she has agreed to donate to the new National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington.
So much for the thinnest of archival trails. Congratulations to Ms. Weaver and the Green family for restoring and preserving American history.
A new study that positioned “animals are friends” to Americans had an interesting outcome. Pork became unpalatable by the subjects, while beef was still seen as edible.
…we show that the negative effect of anthropomorphism on consumers’ attitudes and behavioral intentions toward (pork) meat consumption is mediated by increased feelings of anticipatory guilt (Studies 3a and 3c). Nevertheless, no such effect was found with another kind of meat (beef), which indicates that anthropomorphizing meat animals through the friendship metaphor cannot be successfully applied to all commonly eaten species (Study 3b).
While the researchers claim there is some literature angle that may explain the difference, it reminds me of families I know in rural American communities.
They regularly eat cattle they treat as pets. I’ve never heard of pigs treated as pets that see the same end.
The history of the phrase “melting pot” is an interesting one. A “Romeo-and-Juliettesque” play by Israel Zangwill staged in 1908, generally is credited for American usage. It reflected on the life of a Russian Jewish immigrant who searches for a better life after he survived the pogroms that killed his mother and sister.
Imagery of America as a giant pot of refugees notwithstanding, my school teachers used to talk about getting a better stew from more diverse ingredients.
Ford manufacturing plants, for example, were based on immigrant descriptions of assembly lines seen in England’s shipyards during the Napoleonic Wars. Edison famously proved immigration beneficial to his own accumulation of wealth by awarding himself (instead of his country) credit for any innovation made by immigrants he had access to, requiring them to assign to him all rights to their ideas. Perhaps Edison’s first name should have been changed to Stew.
Fast forward to today and National Geographic offers us a tree visualization as alternative, which has the benefit of emphasizing the significance of concentric growth rings.
I also am reminded of “The Trees” by Philip Larkin, which the BBC posted as a visualization
The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.
Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.
Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.
Ronald Reagan’s arrival to office in 1981 was accompanied by a sentiment that the prior U.S. President’s policies should be rolled back, regardless of what they were.
One of the policies ended was the arms embargo on Guatemala, put in place by Jimmy Carter due to human rights abuses by that regime.
Two months after news of the massacre Reagan un-blocked $3.2 million in military support to Guatemala’s army. The unblocking method used was crafty, as Reagan reclassified trucks and jeeps to transport Guatemalan soldiers to commit massacres. Military vehicles known to be used in the massacres no longer were under the human rights embargo.
One might be tempted here to ask “ok, but they’re just trucks and jeeps, so general use, right?” History helps a little, as it reminds us America has made this mistake before, facilitating genocide for profits:
GM’s president, Alfred P. Sloan, knew what was happening in Germany. Sloan and GM officials knew also that Hitler’s regime was expected to wage war from the outset. Headlines, radio broadcasts and newsreels made that fact apparent. America, it was feared, would once again be pulled in.
Nonetheless, GM and Germany began a strategic business relationship. Opel became an essential element of the German rearmament and modernization Hitler required to subjugate Europe. To accomplish that, Germany needed to rise above the horse-drawn divisions it deployed in World War I. It needed to motorize, to blitz — that is, to attack with lightning speed. Germany would later unleash a blitzkrieg, a lightning war. Opel built the 3-ton truck named Blitz to support the German military. The Blitz truck and its numerous specialized models became the mainstay of the Blitzkrieg.
In 1935, GM agreed to locate a new factory at Brandenburg, where it would be geographically less vulnerable to feared aerial bombardment by allied forces. In 1937, almost 17 percent of Opel’s Blitz trucks were sold directly to the Nazi military.
The Guatemalan government was emboldened by the new U.S. President’s support of their killing plans. Thus by early October 1981 the U.S. State Department was talking about Reagan’s ambassador General Vernon Walters meeting with Guatemalan leaders to discuss repression measures. Guatemalan General Fernando Romeo Lucas Garcia “made clear that his government will continue as before that the repression will continue.”
This wasn’t really any kind of secret. Word of violations were published by groups like the Inter-American Human Rights Commission who in October 1981 openly called out the Guatemalan government for “thousands of illegal executions.” The Reagan Administration engaged in whataboutism and deception to avoid addressing why they would sell military aid linked to mass human rights violations; falsely claiming Guatemalan human rights violations were a guerrilla strategy (as I’ve explained elsewhere).
Things escalated quickly after the U.S. government support shifted from embargo to support. The Guatemalan army issued instructions in 1982 that any resistance or incoming fire from a town or village meant everyone in the town is hostile and would be destroyed.
In fact, Reagan’s support led to a fundamentalist Christian taking control of Guatemala in a March 1982 coup d’etat. General Efrain Ríos Montt seized power and announced a policy of “rifles and beans” — either eat beans quietly in obedience to dictatorship or be killed by rifles. In response Reagan described him as “a man of great personal integrity”.
…more than 600 Indian villages in the Guatemalan highlands were eradicated or occupied by the military. The slogan “rifles and beans” meant that pacified communities would get “beans,” while all others would be the target of army “rifles.”
In March 1983, Americas Watch condemned the Guatemalan army for human rights atrocities against the Indian population.
New York attorney Stephen L. Kass said there was proof that the Guatemalan government carried out “virtually indiscriminate murder of men, women and children of any farm regarded by the army as possibly supportive of guerrilla insurgents.”
Three months after the coup was applauded by Reagan, government death squads were unleashed on civilians. And Reagan then increased military aid in 1983 to $6 million despite evidence of civilian massacres increasing at the hands of American-trained soldiers riding in American vehicles, again reported in memos to the White House.
During the height of Montt’s genocidal counterinsurgency campaign, a CONFIDENTIAL cable from Secretary of State George Shultz praised his “impressive progress in human rights”.
(click that document link if you want to help disclose more strange truths from primary source materials)
In effect, the Reagan administration worked to reverse Carter’s human rights policy, centralizing power in U.S. presidency through deception and tricks in order to expedite military support to violent dictators killing democracy.
Within the U.S. government, there was no apparent struggle to reconcile the notion that the Guatemalan government “badly needed” arms with its horrific crimes. There was only a struggle to determine preconditions (which were never met) in order to gain minimal support from Congress so as to circumvent protections against abetting war criminals, which were put into place by the Carter administration.
Ríos Montt wasn’t an isolated case, either. Look into Regan’s support for genocide by Indonesian dictator Suharto, or why Chadian dictator Habre (another recipient of President Reagan’s “product shipments”) was sentenced to life for war crimes.
A Guatemalan former soldier has been sentenced to more than 5,000 years in prison for his role in a massacre during the country’s civil war.
More than 200 people were killed in the village of Dos Erres in 1982, one of the most violent episodes in Guatemala’s brutal 36-year conflict.
Santos López was found responsible for 171 of the deaths.
He was a member of the Kaibiles, a US-trained counter-insurgency force fighting left-wing guerrillas.
López was sentenced to 30 years for each of the 171 killings committed in the village and to an additional 30 years for his role in the murder of a girl who had originally survived.
[…]
The massacre happened during the brief rule of military strongman Efraín Ríos Montt, who was accused of ordering the killing of more than 1,700 ethnic Mayans during a civil war.
He died in April aged 91 while on trial on charges of genocide.
Montt was the first military dictator in Latin America to be charged with genocide in his own country. Ronald Reagan was never charged for his role.
The soldiers shot, strangled and bludgeoned the villagers to death with sledgehammers, and one admitted to throwing a baby into the village well.
In 1994, forensic anthropologists found the remains of 162 bodies in the well, including 67 children less than 12 years old.
The above should be serious food for thought when people now talk about news of migrants walking all the way from Guatemala to the U.S seeking aylum from violence. Imagine what they think when finding out they will be greeted with rifles instead.
It appears to this historian that the current U.S. regime has replaced the “beans and rifle” decision tree of Reagan’s Guatemalan death squads with…just rifles.
The cups, which plug into outlets on cargo planes to reheat liquids such as water or coffee, have a faulty plastic handle that easily breaks when the cups are dropped. And because replacement parts for the cup are no longer made, the Air Force has had to order a whole new cup when the handle breaks.
In an Oct. 2 letter to Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson, Grassley said that 25 replacement cups, each costing roughly $1,280 each, have been bought this year alone, for a total of roughly $32,000.
That’s a latte money.
Congress apparently wants to get a grip on the situation and a brewhaha has started.
Quick, someone introduce these air crews to iced coffee before the bean counters bring the entire program to a grinding halt.
You might be wondering if this post is about raising the physical performance bar for a soldier, and it actually is the opposite. When I say bar I mean food. And by new bar, I mean something tasty like chocolate, which lowers the dangers from physical stress.
“Research showed compliance was better when calcium and vitamin D were provided in a fortified bar,” said Army Maj. Kayla Ramotar, dietitian with the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command. “Trainees don’t get a lot of treats during basic training, and since this bar is made of chocolate, we know compliance won’t be an issue. It’s a lot more enticing than having to swallow a bunch of pills.”
I’m imaginging a poster now that says “Basic training. It’s no treat.”
Bottom line is that bone fractures were causing high numbers of drop-outs after strenuous physical tests. So the military has turned the sage old theory of “milk and cookies before bedtime” into a vitamin D enriched calcium bar. I suppose the tryptophan angle of this could mean people sleep better at night, which stimulates better recovery, but it’s seems like they’re going for the more direct vitamin to bone strength results.
From personal perspective I do believe a high consumption of vitamin D and calcium (I often was drinking a gallon of milk per day) prevented fractures many times over. One day, as I sat up on an examination table and my eyes involuntarily poured water, doctors repeatedly questioned me about incident details because they expected to see fractures where there were none.
This performance bar sounds more convenient than how I managed my diet, for sure, and I am going to wager right now that the study of 4,000 soldiers who eat the bar reveals positive results.
It has been five years since Czech climate change researchers highlighted in a report that there are ancient markers to warn when rivers drop dangerously low:
Hydrological droughts may also be commemorated by what are known as “hunger stones”. One of these is to be found at the left bank of the River Elbe (Deˇcˇ´ın-Podmokly), chiselled with the years of hardship and the initials of authors lost to history (Fig. 2). The basic inscriptions warn of the consequences of drought: Wenn du mich siehst, dann weine [“If you see me, weep.”]. It expressed that drought had brought a bad harvest, lack of food, high prices and hunger for poor people. Before 1900, the following droughts are commemorated on the stone: 1417, 1616, 1707, 1746, 1790, 1800, 1811, 1830, 1842, 1868, 1892, and 1893.
The extreme drought period in summer 2015 enabled the levelling of historical watermarks on the „Hunger Stone” (Hungerstein) in the Elbe in Czech town of Děčín. The comparison of the obtained levels of earlier palaeographic records with systematic measurements in the Děčín profile confirmed the hypothesis that the old watermarks represent the minimal water levels.
Over a dozen of the hunger stones, chosen to record low water levels, can now be seen in and near the northern Czech town of Decin near the German border.
So far 22 grenades, mines or other explosives have been found in the Elbe this year, Saxony-Anhalt police spokeswoman Grit Merker told DW. “We ascribe that to the low water level. That’s pretty clear,” she said.
July was the hottest month in Germany since temperatures have been recorded, while July 31 was the hottest day, with temperatures reaching 39.5 degrees Celsius (103.1 degrees Fahrenheit) in Bernburg, Saxony-Anhalt.
Earlier this week the water level was down to 51 centimeters (20 inches) in Magdeburg, the capital of Saxony-Anhalt. The historical low point was 48 centimeters in 1934.
“If you see me, weep” has a poetic meaning, almost like writing “cry me a river” on the hunger stones, which tourists come to soak up…if you’ll pardon the pun.
Explosives being revealed is such an opposite story, perhaps the Germans soon will inscribe their stones with typically dark humor: “Achtung! Allen Kindern steht das Wasser bis zum Hals, nur nicht Beate, die fängt die Granate.” (Warning! Water too high for children, except for Wade, who found the Grenade.) It expresses that drought brings war for poor people.
Former CIA director John Brennan, whose security clearance you revoked on Wednesday, is one of the finest public servants I have ever known. Few Americans have done more to protect this country than John. He is a man of unparalleled integrity, whose honesty and character have never been in question, except by those who don’t know him.
[…]
I would consider it an honor if you would revoke my security clearance as well, so I can add my name to the list of men and women who have spoken up against your presidency
Those are the very choice words by the famous William H. McRaven, retired Navy admiral, commander of US JSOC from 2011-2014 including the 2011 raid in Pakistan that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden
I am reminded, of course, of General Beck’s lament in 1938, which history warns us was done far too late and far too dependently on foreign intervention (Beck estimated Chamberlain’s cautious approach was evidence domestic German resistance could not count on UK support):
Also I have been told these “More Becks” beer ads in Germany in the decades after WWII were no coincidence:
After decades of seeing activists lay out the obvious economics of meat, and reading research by economists confirming the obvious, it looks as if the market finally is shifting. Eating meat is by far the number one impact to climate change and executives are starting to execute on the meatless menu, as you will see in a minute.
It always has seemed weird to me that if you wanted to remove meat from your work meals, or airplanes for that matter, you had to check a special box. Really it should be the other way around. If someone wants to add meat, let them be the “special” case.
I suppose executive dinners and board meetings should have something like this:
please check box if you want a major global catastrophic impact from your meal
Makes little to no sense to have meat automatically, and people should have to choose to accelerate global destruction, rather than set it as the mindless default.
Let me be clear here. I’m not saying I would never check the box. I’m not saying there would never be need for meat. I would always want the default to be meatless. When I say make it rare I mean it both ways. The economics of why are obvious, as I will probably say continuously and forever.
For example, years ago I was running the “Global Calculator” created for economic modeling, and reducing meat consumption undeniably had more impact than any other factors.
The Global Calculator is a model of the world’s energy, land and food systems to 2050. It allows you to explore the world’s options for tackling climate change and see how they all add up. With the Calculator, you can find out whether everyone can have a good lifestyle while also tackling climate change.
A sad and ironic side note here is the fact that meat consumption is the top factor in the “extinction crisis“, as 3/4 of earth’s animal population is disappearing at an alarming rate.
climate change
agriculture
poaching
pollution
disease
I think it still may be counter-intuitive for a lot of folks when they hear they should stop eating meat to reduce climate change to prevent extinction of animals.
If you really like meat you will eat it rarely. Get it?
Thus a logical approach to solving many of the expensive problems people face today and into the future is to limit meat consumption within commercial space, because that’s where some expansive top-down decisions easily are made.
Imagine Google removing meat from its school-lunch-like program for its school-campus-like facilities for its school-children-like staff running its school-peer-review-like search engine. Alas, that probably means real executive leadership (not exactly what you get with kids trying to stay in school forever) where someone issues a simple order to reflect a principled stand (pun intended).
The first step on this path really should be Mar-a-Lago converts to vegan-only menus and becomes a research center for climate change, but I digress…
…told its 6,000 global staff that they will no longer be able to expense meals including meat, and that it won’t pay for any red meat, poultry or pork at WeWork events. In an email to employees this week outlining the new policy, co-founder Miguel McKelvey said the firm’s upcoming internal “Summer Camp” retreat would offer no meat options for attendees.
“New research indicates that avoiding meat is one of the biggest things an individual can do to reduce their personal environmental impact,” said McKelvey in the memo, “even more than switching to a hybrid car.”
It’s crazy to me that someone is calling out new research here when there is so much legacy work, but I guess that covers the question why they waited so long to do the right thing.
To find the most compelling climate change falsehood currently influencing public opinion, van der Linden and colleagues tested popular statements from corners of the internet on a nationally representative sample of US citizens, with each one rated for familiarity and persuasiveness.
The winner: the assertion that there is no consensus among scientists, apparently supported by the Oregon Global Warming Petition Project. This website claims to hold a petition signed by “over 31,000 American scientists” stating there is no evidence that human CO2 release will cause climate change.
The study also used the accurate statement that “97% of scientists agree on manmade climate change”. Prior work by van der Linden has shown this fact about scientific consensus is an effective ‘gateway’ for public acceptance of climate change.
Bring out the facts! I’ve noticed security professionals often ignore climate change harm and need facts as a gateway to accept that there are risks. Maybe a good time to drop facts on these self-proclaimed risk management elites is when they head to Las Vegas this summer…observe them carelessly gorging on meat while claiming to care about threats to their environment, and hand them an invite them to an exclusive WeWork party.
A friend recently went through my liquor cabinet and pulled out a mostly-empty bottle of Knob Creek. I had forgotten about it, although in the early-1990s it had been a favorite. It was introduced to me by a Milwaukee bartender in an old dark wooden dive of a bar on the city waterfront.
“I’ll take whatever” meant he poured me a glass of seltzer, stirred in a spoonful of very dark jam, threw an orange peel twist on top and told me “enjoy life, the old-fashioned way.” It sounded corny (pun not intended), especially when he also growled “this ain’t a bright lights and gin or vodka type place” (pre-prohibition, not a speakeasy).
“What’s with the jam?” I asked. He threw a thumb over his shoulder at a cast-iron looking tiny pot-belly stove against a black wall under a small brightly-lit window. I squinted. It was almost impossible to focus on except for its small red light. Steam was slowly rising from its top edges into the bright window. “Door County cherries” he said as he wiped the bar “pick’em myself. That’s my secret hot spiced mash.” This was an historic America, with heavy flavors from locally-grown ingredients, which contrasted sharply with what “popular” Milwaukee bars were serving (gin or vodka).
It was a very memorable drink. For years after I continued to have Knob Creek here and there, always thinking back fondly to that waterfront dive bar, and to the advice to avoid “bright lights and gin or vodka”. Knob Creek wasn’t exactly a replacement for the rye I really wanted, yet it was good-enough alternative, and I didn’t drink it fast enough to worry about its rather annoyingly high price of $15 a bottle.
Ok, so my friend pulls this old bottle of Knob Creek out of my cabinet. He’s drinking it and I’m telling him “no worries, that’s an old cheap bottle I can grab another…”. He chokes. “WHAAAT, nooo. Dude the Knob is one of Beam’s best, it’s a $50 bourbon. It’s the really good stuff.” Next thing I know my old Knob Creek bottle is in the recycling bin and I’m on the Internet wondering if I should replace it.
African-American Distillers May Have Invented Bourbon
A lot has changed in the world of American whiskey marketing since Knob Creek was $15
All the research I had done on Prohibition, a notoriously anti-immigrant white-supremacist movement targeting Germans and Irish, did not prepare me sufficiently for Jack Daniel’s recent adoption of its own history.
This year is the 150th anniversary of Jack Daniel’s, and the distillery, home to one of the world’s best-selling whiskeys, is using the occasion to tell a different, more complicated tale. Daniel, the company now says, didn’t learn distilling from Dan Call, but from a man named Nearis Green — one of Call’s slaves.
The real kicker to this Jack Daniel PR move is that it explains master distillers came from Africa, and slavery meant they ended up in regions that give them almost no credit today:
“[Slaves] were key to the operation in making whiskey,” said Steve Bashore, who helps run a working replica of Washington’s distillery. “In the ledgers, the slaves are actually listed as distillers.”
Slavery accompanied distilling as it moved inland in the late 18th century, to the newly settled regions that would become Tennessee and Kentucky.
[…]
American slaves had their own traditions of alcohol production, going back to the corn beer and fruit spirits of West Africa, and many Africans made alcohol illicitly while in slavery.
It makes sense, yet still I was surprised. And after I read that I started to pay attention to things I hadn’t noticed before. Like if you’ve ever watched “Hotel Rwanda” its opening song is “Umqombothi”, which has lyrics about a tradition of corn-mash used for beer in Africa.
Both the use of charred casks and corn mash foundations are being revealed by food historians as African traditions (even the banjo now, often associated with distilleries, is being credited to African Americans). Thus slaves from Africa are gradually being given credit as the true master distillers who brought Bourbon as a “distinctive product of the United States” to market.
Slave owners were not inclined to give credit, let alone keep records, so a lot of research unfortunately still is required to clarify what was going on between European and African traditions that ended up being distinctly American. That being said, common sense suggests a connection between African corn mash and master distiller role of African slaves that simply is too strong to ignore.
Prohibition Was Basically White Supremacists Perpetuating Civil War
If we recognize that master distillers using corn mash to invent Bourbon were most likely slaves from Africa, and also we recognize why and how Prohibition was pushed by the KKK, there is another connection too strong to ignore.
My studies had led me to believe anti-immigrant activists were behind banning the sale or production of alcohol in America. Now I see how this overlooks the incredibly important yet subtle point that master distillers were ex-slaves and their families on the verge of upward social mobility (Jack Daniel didn’t just take a recipe from Nearis Green, he hired two of his sons). The KKK pushed prohibition to block African American prosperity, as well as immigrants.
Let’s take this back a few years to look at the economics of prohibition. Attempts to ban alcohol had been tried by the British King to control his American colonies. In the 1730s a corporation of the King was charged with settling Georgia. A corporate board (“trustees”) was hoping to avoid what they saw as mistakes made in settling South Carolina. Most notably, huge plantations were thought to be undesirable because causing social inequalities (ironic, I know). So the King’s corporation running Georgia was looking at ways to force smaller parcels to create better distribution of wealth (lower concentrations power) among settlers. The corporation also tried to restrict use of Africans as slaves to entice harder working and better quality of settler and…believe it or not, they also tried to ban alcohol presumably because productivity loss.
These 1730s attempts to limit land grabs and ban slavery backfired spectacularly. It was the South Carolinian settlers who were moving into Georgia to out-compete their neighbors, so it kind of makes sense wealth was equated to grabbing land and throwing slaves at it instead of settlers themselves doing hard work. It didn’t take more than ten years before the corporation relented and Georgia regressed to South Carolina’s low settler standards. The alcohol ban (restricting primarily rum) also turned out to be ineffective because slaveowners simply pushed their slaves to distill new forms of alcohol from locally sourced ingredients (perhaps corn-based whisky) and smuggle it.
By the time a Declaration of Independence was being drafted, including some ideas about calling their King a tyrant for practicing slavery, it was elitist settlers of Georgia and South Carolina who demanded slavery not be touched. Perhaps it’s no surprise then 100 years later as Britain was finally banning slavery the southern states were still hung up about it and violent attacks were used to stop anyone even talking about abolishing slavery. While the rest of the Americas still under French, British, Spanish influence were banning slavery, the state of Georgia was on its way to declare Civil War in an expansionist attempt to spread slavery into America’s western territories.
So here’s the thing: the King’s corporation heads inadvertently had taught their colonies how slaves, alcohol and land were linked to wealth accumulation and power. White supremacists running government in Georgia and South Carolina (aspiring tyrants, jealous of the British King) wanted ownership for themselves to stay in power.
Prohibition thus denied non-whites entry to power and ensured racial inequality. Cheaters gonna cheat, and it seems kind of obvious in retrospect that prohibition by both the British King and the US government were clumsily designed to control the market.
The current era of bourbon enthusiasm is based on the products of about seven US distilleries. But before Prohibition, the US had thousands of distilleries! 183 in Kentucky alone. (When the Bottled-in-Bond act took effect in 1896, the nationwide count was reportedly over eight thousand). Each distillery produced many, many different brands.
Prohibition destroyed almost all of those historic distilleries.
From 8,000 small to 7 monster distilleries because…economic concerns of white supremacists running US government.
The KKK criminalized bourbon manufacturing. Thousands, including emancipated master distillers, were forced out of their field. Also in that Bottled-in-Bond year of 1896, incidentally, southern white-supremacists started erecting confederate monuments to terrorize the black population. By the time Woodrow Wilson was elected President in 1912 he summarily removed all blacks from federal government, which one could argue set the stage for a vote undermining black communities, and restarted the KKK by 1915. Prohibition thus arose within concerted efforts by white supremacists in America to reverse emancipation of African Americans, deny them social mobility, criminalize them arbitrarily, and disenfranchise them from government.
What’s War Got to Do With the Price of Knob Creek?
Otho H. Wathen of National Straight Whiskey Distributing Co. points out: “The increase in 1934 (in drunken driver automobile accidents) for the entire country was 15.90 per cent. The increase in the repeal states, which included practically every big city where traffic is heaviest, was 14.65 per cent. …in the states retaining prohibition the increase was 21.56 per cent.”
Knob Creek was first in use in 1898, by the Penn-Maryland Corp. I have looked through our archives here (I have the old history books from the companies we acquired when we purchased National Brands)
The blog even shows this “Cincinnati, Ohio” label as evidence of its antiquity:
This is an awkward bit of history, when you look at the origin story told by the Jim Beam conglomerate:
When the Prohibition was lifted in 1933, bourbon makers had to start from scratch. Whiskey takes years and years to make, but the drinking ban was overturned overnight. To meet their sudden demand, distillers rushed the process, selling barrels that had hardly been aged. Softer, mild-flavored whiskey became standard from then on. Full flavor was the casualty.
But we brought real bourbon back. Over 25 years ago, master distiller Booker Noe set out to create a whiskey that adhered to the original, time-tested way of doing things. He named it Knob Creek
They’ve removed the text about Knob Creek being a physical place. When I first bought a bottle it came with marketing that referenced Knob Creek Farm, a non-contiguous section of the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park. That’s definitely no longer the case (pun not intended) as all the marketing today says white distillers of Jim Beam are resurrecting pre-prohibition traditions, without specifying the traditions came from slaves.
From that perspective, I’m curious if anyone has looked into the Penn-Maryland decision to name its whiskey after an Abraham Lincoln landmark. Does it imply in some way the emancipation of distillers, which Beam now is claiming simply as pre-prohibition style? More to the point, if Jack Daniel is finding slavery in its origin story and making reference to the injustices of credit taken, will Beam take the hint or continue to call Knob Creek their recent innovation?
My guess, based on reading the many comments on the “post-age” Knob Creek now being made (the bottles used to say 9 year), Beam is moving further away from credit to master distillers who were emancipated by Lincoln. So I guess, to answer my original question, buying another bottle of Knob makes little sense until I see evidence they’re giving credit to America’s black master distillers who invented the flavor and maybe even that label.
In the meantime, I’ll just keep sipping on this 1908 Old Crow (Woodford)…
