While recent reports of a bourbon shortage include plenty of speculation as to why (and why now), one theory the conspiracists overlooked was maybe women were the cause. They make up 27% of whiskey sales in the US according to latest Nielsen Research. Research from
Beam
Suntory shows 37% of US whiskey drinkers are women. The current whiskey story is a good one. According to Nielsen, whiskey sales in all US outlets are almost $4 billion as of November 2014 (versus $3.5 billion in 2013). The drivers, say the experts, are an increase in channels as well as the booming cocktail culture (a boozy fallout from Mad Men). Then there is the female factor and while celebrity-centric marketing (like using Mila Kunis and Christina Hendricks to promote Jim Beam and Johnnie Walker) may be one strategy for bringing in the ladies, Fred Minnick, a journalist and longtime contributor to Whisky Magazine, doesn’t buy it. “The growth in female consumption is purely organic. Women were in whiskey at the very start and they are leading it today.” A Mini US History In Whiskey Women: The Untold Story of How Women Saved Bourbon, Scotch, and Irish Whiskey (Potomac Books 2014) Minnick chronicles women’s roles in its production, sale, distribution and consumption. While the book explores the story of an industry, it also provides a glimpse into America’s complicated relationship with alcohol through shifting landscapes--economic, political, moral and social—and women’s changing roles throughout. The early US whiskey story centers around prostitution in the 1800s, a time when women sold more than $2 million of whiskey per year primarily in brothels. “While it wasn’t illegal for women working in brothels to sell sex, it was illegal for them not to pay their whiskey tax and they were notorious for this,” says Minnick.
This prostitution connection, the Temperance Movement and a host of other events resulted in distilling industry executives agreeing not to market to women. In the 1950s, over a decade after Prohibition, women of the Temperance Movement reappeared trying to ban alcohol advertising (which would have devastated the news, magazine and burgeoning television industries). While the Temperance women went before Congress many times in an attempt to get a law passed, the alcohol industry went on the offensive, assembling a counter women's group to challenge team Temperance. The industry won out, in essence, short-circuiting a second Prohibition. Why Women & Whiskey The 1990s was the decade when women entered the industry in earnest, often on the production side or as blenders or tasters. Today, women populate the executive ranks at the major spirits companies, including
Diageo
Brown-Forman
Jim Beam and William Grant & Sons. On the consumer side, the whiskey story doesn’t follow the classic pop culture narrative. Unlike the Sex & the City effect that prompted a surge in Cosmopolitan (and vodka) sales, whiskey’s popularity is linked (in part) to the number of women who have worked in the industry: They started organizations and were often behind whiskey-focused events. Today, women-only whiskey clubs and tastings occur across the US. Women also have started distilleries and are blogging the praises of a good sip. Also, unlike the Cosmo, whiskey is a more complex and, some may say, acquired taste. “Women apply a certain connoisseur-ship to whiskey. They buy heavily-peated scotches and they have great palates and noses, much better than men’s,” says Minnick. For example, bourbon has a tremendous fluctuation of flavor profiles while also generating heat (due to the distilling process). “Once women get past the heat they find these incredible floral characteristics; they also get caramel, vanilla, hints of smoke and all these complexities that you will never find in vodka.” While the science isn’t conclusive on this, he believes women are better tasters, which may be why many of them are tapped for the job at major companies. “Women ruled this industry in the past,” concludes Minnick, “and probably will in the future.”
