Or How Just A Little Knowledge Becomes A Sad Thing…

By Richard Thomas



One of the bedrock conceits taught at journalism school is that a trained journalist can take on any topic and write an intelligent story. That might be true in theory, because in theory a writer can spend the time to become sufficiently educated on a subject so as to not embarrass himself. In practice, that industry arrogance produces plenty of what are best described as snafus, since the first two letters of that acronym stand for “situation normal.” It’s so normal that this is our fourth installment on bad whiskey writing, and we fully expect to have enough to do a fifth later this year!

Missed By A Mile

The Motley Fool has a track record for bad whiskey writing, and its coverage of the recent Tennessee whiskey fracas lived up to our low expectations. John-Erik Koslosky’s article there completely misunderstood the Diageo vs. Brown-Forman contest in Nashville as being about Diageo’s American products, when in reality it was about Jack Daniel’s vs. Johnnie Walker. Not seeing that is pretty damning for a business and investment piece. He also didn’t seem to realize that George Dickel was already in full compliance with the law. However, the single worst part of the article is that it was published days after the whiskey law dispute came to an end, but doesn’t mention that critical development!

Still, Koslosky shouldn’t feel too bad. He seemed very well-informed indeed compared to Craig Schlesinger at The Daily Caller, whose piece on the Tennessee whiskey law dispute reflected an ignorance of the subject that was as complete as it was lamentable.

You Should Have Known Better

Somehow it’s worse when a high profile writer who does a lot of whiskey work blows it. Take Clay Risen. Outside of the whiskey pundit backscratching circle and the New York media establishment, Risen’s book American Whiskey, Bourbon, and Rye has received some criticism for getting basic facts wrong and for the poor production values seen in one of its printings. Not having read the book, I cannot confirm or deny the sharp difference in opinion on that work, but I can say Risen sometimes makes elementary mistakes, such as when he claimed most American moonshine is made from “apples, peaches, or pears,” and not from corn, nevermind sugar.

On the subject of knowing better, this piece by Time magazine on where to go for American-owned bourbon in the wake of Suntory’s purchase of Beam Global made me queasy. On top of a slew of minor factual and typographical errors (Angel’s Envy isn’t a distillery yet, let alone at the time; it’s “KY,” not “K.Y.”), the fact is that Beam’s acquisition by a Japanese company brought out a truly ugly nexus where the Internet Fuckwad Syndrome met whiskey fandom. The jingoists certainly didn’t need further encouragement from Time magazine.

Drink More, Write Less

Even people who devote a lot of time and energy to whiskey issues make mistakes, but what happens when a tyro enters the picture is often downright distressing. During the Tennessee whiskey law debate in Nashville, The Whiskey Reviewer took a handful of calls from the television and print media from producers and reporters in search of an “expert voice” to provide background for their work. We were pleased to give that, even when we weren’t quoted. The diligence shown there is a lesson more people in the wider media world might profit from.