Whiskey Women: The Untold Story of How Women Saved Bourbon, Scotch, and Irish Whiskey Hardcover – October 1, 2013

I have quite an extensive collection of books on every type of whisky, but every once in a while a book comes along that shed a whole new light on a subject that I thought couldn't be explored any differently. Fred Minnick has explored and documented the history of spirit & whisky, and has uncovered facts that even some of the featured whisky brands did not know about their own history, even though it was resting in their very archives. The writing is fun, succinct and fast paced. The passion that Mr. Minnick has placed in his writing and uncovering something that is long past over due. After you read his book, you will be asking yourself why whisky is not more associated with women than with men? Page after page gives evidence to the wonders of how women worked, created, sold, promoted and literally saved whisky, much to the relief of the rest of us. Speaking for the entire whisky drinking world...Thank You!

"Whiskey Women: The Untold Story of How Women Saved Bourbon, Scotch, and Irish Whiskey" is so important that
I own(ed) 3 copies of it. I have carried it around with me for months, inhabiting it. I have consumed a pre-release publisher's timed self destructing electronic edition (based on my Amazon reviewer status), a signed hard cover (destroyed in an accident), and finished with a kindle edition. I consider it an important book - the kind that can change your view of the world. Or at least of the whisky world - and, in my view, that counts for a lot. The particular view that "Whiskey Women" undoes is the notion that whiskey is a man's drink and that, after that fact, it's OK for women to like it too. The "it's OK, honey, I'll scoot over for you and make room for you on this bench on the whiskey express" notion that is embodied in such facts as whiskey marketing people developing extremely light whiskies to be marketed to women and developing flavored whiskies specifically to appeal to the women's market. For example:

"Though industry officials don’t like to talk about it, it’s no secret that one initial aim of the [flavored whiskey] bottlings was to bring women into the whiskey fold. “I do think it’s a major effort to go after female drinkers in an aggressive way,” Mr. [Dave] Pickerell said."
-- from the 2013/06/26 Times article in the Dining section titled "Flavored Whiskeys Expand The Market".

This point of view is nothing new. In fact it is very old and well nigh universal - but it doesn't square with a reality where women invented and were the ones to practice the art of brewing beer in the earliest eras of civilization and where women invented the art of distillation and where women were the first and traditional practitioners of the art. Whiskey was born as a home made agricultural product as an outgrowth of the kitchen, and as a medicine that emerged as part of a woman-centered tradition of folk healing. Fred Minnick documents all of this in Whiskey Women in a careful and authoritative way. He does so in a way that isn't all that common in whiskey books. Minnick takes us back to ancient source materials, Sumerian cuneiform tablets, medieval illuminated manuscripts, and a host of other source materials in a mature approach that melds scholarship with journalism.

But, as Minnick takes pains to show, this feminine locus of domestic whisky production was a duel edged sword in the culture wars that raged around whiskey in its initial rise from locally produced agricultural product to highly political source of tax revenue and then focus of industrial revolution mechanization and economies of scale. In this era women distillers were demonized, hunted, exploited, and ultimately displaced. Women making whiskey as part of traditional folk healing became connected with witchcraft and women distillers were burned at the stake as witches. In the American culture that followed in the 19th century whiskey become intimately connected with prostitution and gambling and addiction. It was a culture that produced strife and the women-led temperance movement which gave rise to Prohibition. This movement portrayed whiskey as part of a complex of sinful anti-family activity on the part of men that included the image of whiskey bearing women as temptresses. This created the great trope of women in bars as lures to a dissipated and destructive path. This ultimately resulted in general banning of women from working in bars in many parts of the country for decades in the period from Repeal to the 1950s and 60s.

Prohibition was a time of organized bootlegging and here women, once again, played a major role. Minnick is on solid ground here with the fantastic stories of lady bootleggers, both high and low such as Gertrude, "Cleo" Lythgoe, "The Queen of the Bootleggers". This stuff is fun. The next historical moment is the movement for Repeal which was also led by a woman, Pauline Sabin. And then the rise of single malt Scotch, greatly influenced by the woman who owned and ran Laphroaig, Bessie Williamson. Bourbon's resurgence is connected with a number of fascinating women, as is the current global explosion of whiskey popularity. We meet women master blenders, executives, brand creators, taste makers, and owners. This cast of characters will be familiar to many whiskey enthusiasts. There's plenty of #WhiskyFabric here.

And so we end up in the current day and into the ironic situation where women are becoming leaders of the whiskey world and the bar and cocktail scene and it's presented as though it is a "new thing". Fred Minnick shows us this couldn't be further from the truth. We have it backwards. Women gave whiskey to the world and men took it from them, soiled it with big money, bloodshed, vice and greed and painted it as the very juice of the "Y" chromosome. This is a fictional recasting of what whiskey actually is - something originally made in a kitchen that is part of the attributes of hospitality, medical and emotional care, and social interaction and there is nothing inherently male about any of it. Get inside this idea and you'll understand why the Women In Academia Report listed this book on of the "Recent Books That May Be of Interest to Women Scholars" page. "Whiskey Women" will change the nature of scholarship on the subject and I cannot see how it will not ultimately change the modern view of whisky's history and how it is told in the future.

Having a nice drink became more enjoyable when I opened the pages of this book and learned that women have had a bigger hand in the process than most people knew.

It isn't just a history of whiskey, but the history of women in whiskey and all they learned, taught and "invented", that most will find interesting and the next time you enjoy your drink, you too will realize the smoothness, the texture, and even the aroma of so many great brands, came alive, like so many other important things, through the working hands of a woman.

Fred Minnick filled the pages with everything one needs to enjoy the book and the drink. Everything, that is, except the glass.

Fascinating viewpoint of how women were and still are so important in the whiskey industry. I especially enjoyed the sections about American women and their relationship to bourbon, prohitbiion (from both sides), and modern times. My daughter had no idea that women could not serve liquor in a public place until the 70s because they were considered prostitutes. We ladies have come a long way. A quick read with lots of great information. Well written.

Haven't finished this book yet because I can pick it up and read it whenever. So far, it is really interesting. All women must learn to appreciate the contributions women have made throughout history in keeping their families fed and dealing with adversity. We should be proud of ourselves.

If you are interested in whiskey, history, and learning about a tradition rich with strong women, then you should definitely read this book. I was amazed with the amount of research that went into this book.

I love reading about history and this is an interesting book. I thought it covered prohibition but it actually goes further back historically and was very enjoyable to read!

A wonderful job of careful and entertaining research! Thanks Fred for honouring so many women in the whisky world and keeping our presence and efforts alive and acknowledged. Beautiful work and many thanks for your detail and dedication.