So the company behind Maker’s Mark beat a quick retreat from their dilution plans. I’m sure the damage to their brand help them overcome whatever supply problems they were having.
Part of what stunk about the whole thing was the horrid disingenuousness of the whole thing. It all starts with the rampant shortages of a product that I had no problem finding. Fair enough, that’s just anecdotal. The other part was the ‘3%’ lowering of the alcohol content. This was a language play as the product deals in Percentages. The only way that the alcohol content could be lowered by this amount would be if it were 200 proof. If you had $45 and someone steals three, they didn’t steal 3% of your money, they stole nearly 7%. It’s not just semantics either; does anyone doubt that if they boosted the alcohol content from 45% to 48% that the company would be bragging about a 7% bump?
Confusing the issue is that unregulation has left the production of spirits in the hands of a few huge conglomerates. I’m sure the fact that the production company would more than likely pick up any dissatisfied Maker’s Mark customers factored into their decision (you can also picture some marketing clown declaring “win-win”!)
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