The Drought Breaks

The great American whiskey drought was broken last week. WPB, which has long clouded up with plans to let U.S. distillers resume whiskeymaking, finally promised a drizzle. During the month of August, distillers will be permitted to make whiskey or neutral spirits for blending--for the first time since the October 1942 ban.

The news promptly brought out supplies of whiskey which had been hoarded in stores across the nation. And many a retailer whose shelves are loaded with such substitutes as tequila, vodka, rum and Cuban gins hastily cut prices to clear the way for American whiskey and gin. In Manhattan, prices dropped 50-c- a bottle. On the West Coast, the drop was as great as 30%. The industry gossiped that distillers would open the whiskey spigot wider immediately, letting out as much as 15% more of their precious stocks.

One ingredient will still be missing in the WPB cocktail: bourbon. By far the most popular U.S. whiskey (70% of all sold in prewar years), bourbon is scarce now, will be still scarcer because it is made from corn, now in the shortest supply of all U.S. grains. WPB--and the War Food Administration--banned the use of corn for distilling during the holiday. But they assured distillers of an adequate supply of wheat and rye. Distillers expect to turn out about 25,000,000 gallons of 190-proof neutral spirits and whiskey, enough, with blending, to add a four-month supply to present U.S. liquor stocks.

The break in the drought was caused by a sudden improvement in the industrial-alcohol supply. For months, WPB has gloomily predicted that the U.S. would fail by some 20,000,000 gallons to meet this year's requirements. The reason: the synthetic-rubber program was swallowing far more alcohol than estimated, mainly because the petroleum process plants were getting into production so slowly (TIME, Feb. 14). But a fortnight ago Rubber Boss Bradley Dewey lopped 20,000,000 gallons off his estimated needs. Barring unexpected war demands, further improvement in the production of rubber-from-petroleum may mean another whiskey dividend to distillers. They look forward to an extension of the August holiday, or to another holiday this winter.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.