Drain Pour Whiskey, Drain Pour Human

When you are tasteless, making whiskey is probably a bad idea.

Photo Courtesy Nate Woodruff, @WhiskeywithaView

Trying a Saturday drop for the newsletter this week—I see many of you end up reading on Saturdays, and I’m open to moving this to a Saturday drop. If this is more ideal, I may stick with it. If you prefer reading Whiskey Beat on Friday to run out the clock, let me know that too! On to the content!

Tell Me You’re Bitter and Washed Up without Telling Me You’re Bitter and Washed up.

Drain pour (noun): a whiskey best poured down the drain rather than into a glass; a poor quality product not worthy of purchase or consumption.

It’s been a bad week for a “whiskey” brand called Slapdick. The owner, it appears, has a habit of messaging putrid stuff to women who don’t like his product “Coach Jason Brown’s Slapdick Real Agave Whiskey,” which is whiskey flavored with agave, I guess.

Take a look at a more detailed account of everything that has happened here.

Long story short, the whiskey community has spent the better part of this week dunking on this guy. And there’s a lot of reason to take those shots.

Brown is a former college coach and washed up NFL-er, who had a brief stint on a Netflix show before being confined to Boomer obscurity: a self produced podcast and some licensing deals. He has a long history of being kind of a piece of s—t. Even before this event he was spewing at people who don’t like his whiskey. It appears that he’s returned with renewed energy after having four counts of felony blackmail and some identity theft charges dropped in the spring.

He’s made a tiny audience for himself as a shock jock, but the good ones tend to know how to make a point, or at least a joke. They also, ultimately, know when to move on.

This guy didn’t, and as his foot-in-mouth moves finally had some buyers pledging not to sell his products, he resorted to claiming bullying against the people making sure that it’s clear what kind of person he is.

I know this is stating the obvious, but this guy is bad at business.

Forget his miserable personality for a moment. Criticism is the opportunity good business folks long for: it’s the chance to educate and talk branding. This all started with someone asking what the hell his whiskey was. He had every chance to make a pitch, and pick up some customers. Instead, he became defensive, angry, and attacked anyone who doesn’t want to tell him how great a job he’s done. Image

I’ve spent many years of my life operating within the spheres of influence of douchebags like this. People like Brown squeeze their bloated bodies into cargo shorts and a Hard Rock Tampa shirt, and then will sit there without a gram of irony and lecture you on what a real man is.

I don’t know enough about this guy’s definition of manhood to tell you everything wrong with it. But I know that a “real” man doesn’t spend his time harassing women on social media. When Jason Brown was a kid, a “real man” would’ve been expected to beat the s—t out of him for what he said.

Anyway, I’ve had quite a few drain pour whiskeys in my time. I’ve encountered very few drain pour people.

Purchasing Under The Influence

Another study came out this week showing that the pandemic has been bad for our online shopping habits. The study saw 70 percent of its respondents admitting that they’d made at least one purchase while intoxicated or stoned. And apparently, men ended up spending more than women.

Millennials and Gen Z folks were the worst offenders, while boomer buying didn’t rise much. But if my parents are representative of the sample size, my guess is that they are only lagging because of technology issues.

Scotch has Been Hurting Since Brexit

Felipe Schrieberg put together a really comprehensive piece on how the last two years have sucked for the Scotch industry. The pandemic and tariffs from the U.S. certainly didn’t help, but Britain’s breakup with the European Union seems to have been far more damaging.

It’s not just that selling product to European markets has become more expensive. Many UK retailers aren’t even able to ship to the E.U. right now. Factor in the fact that many UK whisky makers import their glass cardboard and even certain grains from the European Union, and you understand why they’re being burned from both ends.

This is all in addition to some general global concern as China cracks down on drinking to regulate an “explosion in middle class wealth,” according to The Drinks Business.

Dessert Flight

1. Gabbie Pharms, who is one of the most prominent experts on Texas whiskey writing today, tasted eight Texas bourbons blind and rated them. There’s a good chance that most if not all of these brands may be new to you—see what she recommends.

2. Jim Beam is launching a whiskey subscription club where they’re going to be releasing cool innovation projects that only exist in small quantities. I had samples of a few potential releases and can only say what I tasted was great. It’s fairly limited as to who can join (and where you can live) but if you’re able, I would definitely suggest getting in on this.

3. This story by Aaron Goldfarb chronicling the absolute scummery of ‘90s drinking, including the free “Ladies’ Night” drink antics that will get creepier as he unpacks them. Take ten minutes to treat yourself to this one.

One Quick Request

Hey, send me whiskey questions you have. I’m going to start adding some Whiskey for Beginners stuff to the weekly and since you’re the people reading it, you should probably tell me what questions you want answered.

You can ask anything—there are no weird or stupid questions. If I can’t answer it (I probably can’t) I’ll go find some answers from the right women.