Holiday II

WPB brought out more Christmas cheer last week. WPBoss Julius Krug declared the second liquor holiday since the ban was imposed in October 1942. Beverage distillers may make whiskey during January, can look forward to more holidays in 1945. Reason: the industrial alcohol reser voir is now 64,000,000 gallons, more than twice minimum, requirements.

The January permit for distilleries should result in at least 38,000,000 gallons during the month. It should immediately release stocks already in warehouses. As in August, most of the output will be used with aged whiskeys to produce blends. At 250,000,000 gallons (after allowing for leakage and evaporation), whiskey reserves are the lowest since 1937.

While pouring out the good news last week, Chairman Krug cagily kept his hand over the label, refused to admit that corn would be released to distillers for bourbon during January. But this year's corn crop is a record 3,258,000,000 bushels, some 61,000,000 bushels more than estimated a month ago, while corn-consuming hogs are down 25% from 1943. If War Food Administration's December announcement releases corn for bourbon, no one will be greatly surprised, few will be unhappy.

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