Maker's Mark waters down bourbon to save supply

Increasing global demand for Kentucky's spirit of choice is leading to tough decisions for distillers.

You call that a Manhattan? With Maker's Mark dropping its alcohol by volume from 45% to 42%, that's a Hartford or Newark at best.

The folks at Quartz intercepted an email sent to Maker's Mark customers from parent company Beam (BEAM -0.21%) on Saturday saying that the bourbon's alcohol content would be reduced "by just 3%" to offset shortages and meet rising global demand. However, the company later clarified that it would be reducing alcohol content by three percentage points and actually dropping its potency 6.7% from 90 proof to 84 proof.

The Samuels family that produces Maker's Mark -- the bourbon of choice for a bitters-laced Manhattan cocktail -- isn't taking the reduction lightly. Rob Samuels and Bill Samuels Jr. put it plainly to Maker's Mark fans in their email that "we've made sure we didn't screw up your whiskey," but noted that increasing worldwide demand for their product means this is a change everyone will have to live with.

According to the Distilled Spirits Council liquor trade association, whiskey made up a whopping 70% of the $1.5 billion in liquor the group estimates the U.S. exported in 2012. That's triple the nation's beer exports and $250 million more than its overseas wine shipments.

Meanwhile, the Kentucky Distillers' Association notes that bourbon accounts for 35% of all spirits produced in the U.S. Bourbon fuels $2.5 billion in sales in the U.S. and in the 126 countries where it's exported and makes up the majority of U.S. whiskey exports.

While the Samuels family isn't comfortable with watering down its prized product, Rob Samuels told Louisville, Ky., radio station WFPL on Sunday that complaints about the new alcohol content "pale in comparison to the feedback that we've received with the shelves being empty" in Florida, California and elsewhere.

It's also not as if they're the first to do so. Back in 2004, Brown-Forman (BF.A +1.90%) lowered the strength of its flagship Old No. 7 black label Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey from 43% alcohol by volume to 40%. That's a full 10 percentage points lower than what it was in 1987, when Jack Daniel's first had its potency reduced from 90 proof to 86 proof.

The purists muttered and cursed to USA Today then just as they now disparage Beam's Maker's Mark decision as “cheap business practice” in the New York Post. However, the trend worldwide is toward less alcohol content. The Times of India notes efforts in the United Kingdom to get brewers and distillers including Heineken and Diageo (DEO +0.45%) to produce more low-alcohol beers and spirits. Besides, doesn't less alcohol give fans more time to enjoy the bourbon they love?