The Business of Spirits: How Savvy Marketers, Innovative Distillers, and Entrepreneurs Changed How We Drink [Hardcover]

Noah Rothbaum (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 4, 2007

Walk into a liquor store today and you’ll be faced with an unprecedented variety of vodka, gin, whisky, cognac, rum and even tequila. In the past decade, the amount of spirits sold in bars, stores and restaurants has climbed nearly sixty percent.

 

Celebrating the acumen of the businessmen and craftsmen responsible for this phenomenal sales growth, The Business of Spirits: How Savvy Marketers, Innovative Distillers, and Entrepreneurs Changed How We Drink, is a cocktail of history and insight into a rapidly growing industry. Journalist Noah Rothbaum takes readers from the cellars of Cognac, France, to the Scottish Highlands to the agave fields of Mexico to find out what’s now driving this age old industry. The book explores new production techniques, cutting-edge marketing campaigns and introduces a new crop of crafty entrepreneurs.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this slim book, journalist Rothbaum explains how the liquor business has engineered a new golden age. As with so many industries, conglomerates have soaked up the small distilleries, improving global distribution, while increasing connoisseurship spurred partly by pop culture vehicles like Sex and the City has turned on consumers to super-premium vodkas and rum distilled from hand-harvested sugarcane. Among those he profiles is impresario Sidney Frank, who transformed Jagermeister from an obscure herbal elixir to frat-boy staple, and opened his Grey Goose vodka distillery not in Russia, Poland or Scandinavia but in France's Cognac region, gaining easy access to excellent water, local distilling expertise and a unique and luxurious-sounding provenance. He eventually sold the brand to Bacardi for more than $2 billion, but not before me-too brands popped up to lure imbibers, with ever more complex backstories and filtration processes, not to mention flashier bottles for the tasteless spirit. Rothbaum devotes a chapter to applauding the revival of the pre-prohibition craft of quality cocktails, a trend distillers celebrate as well. The text is sprinkled with informative sidebars—perhaps too many, given its slender size—like a guide to artisan cocktail bars in New York, London and Prague, and a thumbnail history of rye whiskey. An industry cheerleader, Rothbaum tells his story well, but it could have benefited from more social context regarding the roots of today's hard alcohol renaissance. (Sept. 4)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

From LIBRARY JOURNAL:

"Journalist Rothbaum's expertise in the alcoholic beverage category has been featured in trade and business media. His book briskly moves readers through relevant history from Prohibition to the present. Though the book is organized by drink categories, e.g., whiskies, vodkas, cocktails, including the latest trends, Rothbaum's common thread is the move away from the temperance movement toward more sophisticated lifestyles that demand 'premium' brands. Many books address the experience of drinking particular beverages from the perspective of the consumer. This book is just as educational but provides a broader context about trends over decades and the profit motive that impacts why there are so many products on the market. For example, vodka brands are everywhere because it can be produced, marketed, and enjoyed within a year, compared to Scotch, which commonly takes 12 years before it is consumed. Other books, such as John Kobler's Ardent Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition or The Business of Wine: Industry Insiders on the Production & Delivery of a Premium Product from Vine to Table, offer more focused glimpses into aspects of the booze business. Rothbaum connects his research to today's realities and does not assume professional production knowledge. His book is so well written and covers so many different topics that it would be a valuable addition to libraries of all kinds in their marketing category or with books on wines and spirits-or even in general history collections." --Stephen Turner, Turner & Assocs., Abington, PA

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 189 pages
• Publisher: Kaplan Publishing (September 4, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1427754756
• ISBN-13: 978-1427754752
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #688,838 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's easy to see a lot of hard work went into this book, September 10, 2007

By 

Stephen Visakay (upper grandview new york) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: The Business of Spirits: How Savvy Marketers, Innovative Distillers, and Entrepreneurs Changed How We Drink (Hardcover)

It's easy to see a lot of research and hard work went into this book.
It's insightful, interesting and fun to read. Lots of great interviews. enjoyable reading of How & why the cocktail has made a comeback in the last few years. An insiders look at the big business of Spirits.
Fascinating to see how Premium spirits were created and how they have become a significant part of our cocktail culture. An intriguing read all the way.
stephen visakay,
author Vintage Bar Ware, collector books, 1997
founding member The Museum of the American Cocktail

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars interesting read, September 17, 2010

By 

Edward A. Palmer "lynx421" (Syracuse NY) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Business of Spirits: How Savvy Marketers, Innovative Distillers, and Entrepreneurs Changed How We Drink (Hardcover)

The book is a quick read on how the liquor industry really works. I found it interesting, engaging, and attention holding.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Whiskey Jim's Review, June 24, 2010

By 

jyo - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Business of Spirits: How Savvy Marketers, Innovative Distillers, and Entrepreneurs Changed How We Drink (Hardcover)

This thin volume contains an overview of the American spirits industry that manages to be very concise and to-the-point at the same time that it provides a broad look at the world of distilled spirit production, marketing, and consumption. Throughout the book Rothbuam provides historical information on the American booze biz, highlighting various trends in drinking from the pre-Prohibition era through to the modern day. Alongside this historical narrative of the overall industry, Rothbaum delves into the specific worlds of several individual types of spirits with chapters on Scotch, Vodka, and others. The author also tells the stories of the various mixed-drinks, bar-trends, and other factors that have shaped the public's demand for spirits over the years...
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