Talk:Four Roses

Sept 2018 dispute

I've removed the paragraph about a 2-week strike in September 2018 as its inclusion struck me as WP:UNDUE. Open to discussion if any other editors disagree. Neil S. Walker (talk) 07:54, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

Editing and Updating Products Section

Hello, this is John King. Before I go into my edits and reasoning why, I will disclose my conflict of interest. I work for Bandy Carroll Hellige, an advertising and PR company and Four Roses is a client. That being said, I have updated information for the "Products" section of the Four Roses Wikipedia Page I would like to submit for your consideration. Here it is.. "

In September 2007, Four Roses released a limited edition barrel proof bottle celebrating master distiller Jim Rutledge's 40 years in the industry. Around 1,442 bottles were released and ranged between roughly 98 and 110 proof.

Four Roses released another limited-edition bottle celebrating the 120th anniversary of the trademark of the Four Roses name. Around 2,238 commemorative bottles were released and ranged between roughly 103 and 116 proof.

The Four Roses Mariage Collection was released in 2008 and about 3,500 bottles were produced.

Four Roses Limited Edition Single Barrel
Barrel strength and non-chill filtered
2007 - Jim Rutledge 40th Anniversary - OESO - 13.5 years
2008 - Four Roses 120th Anniversary - OBSK - 12 years
2009 - Four Roses Limited Edition - OESQ - 10 years
2010 - Distillery Building 100th Anniversary - OBSV - 17 years
2011 - Four Roses Limited Edition - OBSV - 12 years
2012 - Four Roses Limited Edition - OESK - 12 years
2013 - Four Roses Limited Edition - OBSK - 13 years
2014 - Four Roses Limited Edition - OESF - 12 years
2016 - Elliott's Select - OESK - 14 years"

Four Roses Limited Edition Small Batch
Barrel strength and non-chill filtered
2008 Mariage Collection
2009 Mariage Collection
2010 Limited Edition Small Batch
2011 Limited Edition Small Batch
2012 Limited Edition Small Batch
2013 125th Anniversary Limited Edition Small Batch
2014 Limited Edition Small Batch
2015 Limited Edition Small Batch
2016 Limited Edition Small Batch
2017 Al Young 50th Anniversary Limited Edition Small Batch
2017 Limited Edition Small Batch
2018 130th Anniversary Limited Edition Small Batch

Four Roses Bourbon. “Bourbons Archive.” Four Roses Bourbon, fourrosesbourbon.com/bourbon/. (King4120 (talk) 18:52, 1 August 2019 (UTC))

References

Personally, I think that lengthy limited-release trivia should not be included in articles about brands. That serves no purpose other than brand promotion and encouraging a niche market in collectors' items and memorabilia. Articles should describe what is important for readers to know about a topic, not such fluff. —BarrelProof (talk) 20:15, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

That was a reply to comments made at 18:52, 1 August 2019‎ (UTC). The remarks they were replying to were somewhat changed after that. —BarrelProof (talk) 09:59, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Without the limited release "trivia" at the beginning it could just state the name of the product, the year that is was released, what recipe was used making it and the age of the whiskey. I personally think that this change would make it fall under objective information, rather than stating how many are out there and trying to drive some sort of collector market. (King4120 (talk)) (King4120 (talk) 15:22, 2 August 2019 (UTC))

Please don't change your comments after someone else has replied to them. That confuses everyone. Please just add newer comments below the older ones. —BarrelProof (talk) 09:59, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

I have restored the comment and heading to as they were when I replied to them. This version has more information anyway. —BarrelProof (talk) 20:34, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Hello, this is John King. Before I go into my edits and reasoning why, I will disclose my conflict of interest. I work for Bandy Carroll Hellige, an advertising and PR company and Four Roses is a client. That being said, I have new information for the "Products" section of the Four Roses Wikipedia Page I would like to submit for your consideration. Here it is.. "

Four Roses Bourbon: 80 proof; Sold in U.S., Europe and Japan
Four Roses Small Batch: 90 proof; Sold in U.S. and Europe
Four Roses Single Barrel: 100 proof; Sold in U.S., Europe and in small volumes in Japan
Four Roses Small Batch Select: Non-chill filtered; 104 proof; Sold in U.S.
Four Roses Black: 80 proof; Sold in Japan
Four Roses Super Premium: 86 proof; Sold in Japan

Four Roses Bourbon. “Bourbons Archive.” Four Roses Bourbon, fourrosesbourbon.com/bourbon/.

(King4120 (talk) 15:45, 2 August 2019 (UTC))

References

I have added that information to the article. I was able to find some of the information on the brand's website. I do not have a copy of the book that you cited, so I cannot see whether it verifies the additional information or not. The aspects that are not verified include the countries in which the products are sold, the small volume of sales for the single-barrel variant in Japan, and the lack of chill filtering for the small batch select. —BarrelProof (talk) 10:16, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

I am surprised to notice that the brand's website seems to suggest serving the single barrel and small batch expressions cold ("Drink straight up or on the rocks."). Most whiskey connoisseurs would suggest drinking premium whisky neat (i.e., at room temperature), perhaps will a few drops of water. —BarrelProof (talk) 22:19, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

I am now confused as to why you will not allow the yearly Limited edition products to be featured on the page. If you look at Jack Daniel's Wikipedia page, there are more than two dozen special or limited edition products that are listed. There are also Limited edition products listed on Maker's Mark's Wikipedia page. These are products that the companies have objectively made that have already been sold and cannot be sold again (legally in the U.S.) by an unauthorized distributor, so no "market" is being created. And even if there are those out there willing to break the law and purchase alcohol illegally through an unauthorized third party, if they can even find the products, the company sees no revenue from those transactions. I am happy to discuss further, but after seeing these products listed on other Wikipedia sights, I strongly believe that they should be listed here. At the least, the content beginning at "The Four Roses Mariage Collection was released in 2008 and about 3,500 bottles were produced." and all the products up to "2018 130th Anniversary Limited Edition Small Batch
" should be listed.

King4120 (talk) 13:52, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

You also begin your counter argument with "In my opinion," which is an objectively SUBJECTIVE way to argue against something. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:9831:E60:187F:297B:588E:CB11 (talk) 23:15, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

I don't know who was being addressed with that comment. I don't see the phrase "In my opinion" in another person's remarks. It is probably best to try to stay on the topic of discussing the article content. —BarrelProof (talk) 23:59, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

I took a look at the "Special bottlings" section of the Jack Daniel's article and I agree that it lists a lot of such limited edition releases. I think that should be deleted. It is mostly unsourced. The "Limited edition collector's sets" section of the Maker's Mark article has somewhat less of that, and it seems better sourced, but it has it too, and I'm not fond of it. Some of it in the Maker's Mark article might be excused as illustrating the themes of Keeneland race track and the big universities in Kentucky, but I think it's over the top. Guidelines that come to mind are WP:NOTCATALOG, WP:INDISCRIMINATE, WP:NOTPROMOTION, and WP:NOTFANSITE. The fact that such stuff is found in some other articles does not mean it should be included here; please also see WP:OTHERSTUFF. I think I'll go delete that section from Jack Daniel's right now and see what happens. —BarrelProof (talk) 23:59, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

It's been about 28 hours since I deleted that section from Jack Daniel's and no one has reversed the action or complained about it yet. Maybe I'll move on to do something similar at Maker's Mark. —BarrelProof (talk) 04:35, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Revisions to "Four Roses" Section

Hello, I'd like to request edits to the "Introduction" — Preceding unsigned comment added by King4120 (talk • contribs) 17:10, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

What edits? —BarrelProof (talk) 03:55, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

"Four Roses is a Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey brand owned by the Kirin Brewery Company of Japan. Effective September 1, 2015, Brent Elliott is the master distiller of Four Roses. The Four Roses Distillery is located in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, and the single-story rack Warehouse & Bottling Facility is located in Cox’s Creek, Kentucky. [1]

The Lawrenceburg, Kentucky distillery was built in 1910 in Spanish Mission-style architecture and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places."

King4120 (talk) 17:21, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

References

I revised the lead and added the information. I don't have the book you cited, and it's not in the catalog of my local library – it must be something pretty obscure. (It is pricey on Amazon and only available from third-party sellers there.) I don't think the name of the master distiller is important enough to put into the lead section – I don't think that's something the average person who wants to know something about the brand would really care about for inclusion in the lead section, but I put it into the article body. The exact date of September 1, 2015, is not found in the accessible sources (the company website provides only the year). The brand's website doesn't say that the warehouse is also a bottling facility, but I'll trust you on that. It also doesn't say that the warehouse is a single-story warehouse, and I'm not sure that's so important, so I left that out. —BarrelProof (talk) 22:27, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

The Legend of Four Roses

Requesting new section, "The Legend of Four Roses" to clear up the "History" section of the Four Roses Wiki Page. This will allow users to distinguish that there is an integral myth, or tale about the product that is important and deeply rooted within the company, but is still a story and should be treated as separate from factual, objective and historical events. This "legend" is as connected with the Four Roses product and company as the Nike Corp. using the legend of Nike, the Greek Goddess of Victory, as an integral part of their products legend.

"The Legend of Four Roses

It began when Paul Jones, Jr., the founder of Four Roses, became smitten by the beauty of a Southern belle. It is said that he sent a proposal to her, and she replied that if her answer were “Yes,” she would wear a corsage of roses on her gown to the upcoming grand ball. Paul Jones waited for her answer excitedly on that night of the grand ball…when she arrived in her beautiful gown, she wore a corsage of four red roses. He later named his bourbon “Four Roses” as a symbol of his devout passion for the lovely belle, a passion he thereafter transferred to making his beloved Four Roses Bourbon. "

King4120 (talk) 18:34, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

References

That seems to be acknowledged as a fake story made up for marketing the product. I hope we can keep out such puffery. I don't think that would "clear up" anything. And the Nike, Inc. article barely mentions the goddess – it just says the company was named after the goddess – that's simply the plain truth. —BarrelProof (talk) 05:40, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Adding recent distillery construction updates to "History" section

Request for updating the "History" section.

"In April of 2019, the Four Roses Distillery completed a $55 million expansion project that coincided with the official launch of Small Batch Select–the first permanent addition to the distillery’s bourbon lineup in 12 years. The distillery’s expansion project began in 2015 and has resulted in the ability to double production capacity.

The expansion project invested $34 million into Four Roses’ Distillery in Lawrenceburg, Ky., and $21 million at the Warehouse & Bottling Facility in Cox’s Creek, Ky. At the distillery, Four Roses added two new buildings and equipment, including a new column and doubler still and more fermenters.

With the duplicate column and doubler still, production capacity is scheduled to increase from 4 million to 8 million proof gallons, enough to fill more than 130,000 barrels a year. Louisville-based architecture firm Joseph & Joseph designed the original Distillery in 1910, and modeled the new buildings after the existing Spanish mission-style structures. "

King4120 (talk) 17:39, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

References

New section request "Awards and Accolades"

• Four Roses 130th Anniversary 2018 Limited Edition Small Batch Bourbon earned the title of World’s Best Bourbon in the 2019 World Whiskies Awards. The honor was announced during the Whisky Magazine Awards New York program on January 30. The World Whiskies Awards judging panel includes leading international spirits journalists and industry experts.
• Judges first selected Four Roses 130th Anniversary Limited Edition Small Batch as Best Kentucky Bourbon and it went on to be named World’s Best Bourbon, with scores topping bourbons made outside Kentucky as well.
• Four Roses Small Batch
  • World Whiskies Awards 2019 Gold Medal – Taste
  • Whiskey Magazine Editors Choice Issue 129
• Four Roses Single Barrel
  • World Whiskies Awards 2019 Gold Medal - Taste

King4120 (talk) 16:18, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

References

I have a somewhat mixed-to-negative view of the value of such listings of awards, although some articles do include some such coverage. Summary and objective information from notable and independent sources are the most valuable.

One issue is that the spirits ratings services often don't seem very objective. Part of their purpose is often to promote the products that are evaluated in their ratings (and to promote themselves). The "World Whiskies Awards" has an "About us" page that says their purpose is to "reward and promote" the producers and products, and they offer producers "Point of sale materials including: stickers and collarets with your award in corporate collars" for product advertising. They only provide ratings for products that are submitted to them by the producer for evaluation, and some such ratings services give out nice-sounding awards to most of the entrants in their competitions. I would be more interested in really independent tasting reports and in aggregate ratings. (Proof66.com used to provide aggregate ratings, but they now appear to be defunct.)

If, for example, Consumer Reports published a rating for a whiskey's taste, that would be worth mentioning, since CR get their funding from consumer memberships and they buy the products they evaluate rather than forming an alliance with the producers as marketing partners (and they accept no advertising, operate on a nonprofit basis, and try to prohibit producers from bragging about the ratings their products receive).

A section about "Awards and accolades" is inherently promotional, since it would list only positive evaluations. Negative and neutral information is just as important to Wikipedia readers as positive information. Spirit ratings organizations tend to be silent about the products that they do not rate highly.

Another problem is that such lists in Wikipedia articles tend to be spotty in coverage, and overly lengthy, and can become a maintenance headache. New ratings are released every year by some of these ratings services, and someone needs to check annually and update the list. The lack of a mention of an award in some particular competition in a particular year might mean the product didn't receive the award that year, or that the product wasn't entered into the competition by the manufacturer, or it might just mean that no one bothered to check what happened and type the information into the Wikipedia article.

Some judgment also needs to be made about what period of history to cover in an awards list. It may not be easy to find records of older awards, etc., but Wikipedia is not intended to just be news coverage of recent events. Something that happened in 1970 or 1950 should be just as important to a Wikipedia article as something that happened last week, if it is equally important to the history of the product, but we probably don't want to try to list every award that has ever been received for a brand in its entire history (and such information would probably be hard to verify).

—BarrelProof (talk) 18:53, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Error in History Section

Hi there, there is an error in the history section that needs to be updated. "Four Roses continued to be unavailable as a straight bourbon in the US market for more than forty years until the brand ownership changed in 2002 after Seagram was purchased by Vivendi," is what the page currently says.

However, Jim Rutledge actually convinced Seagrams executives in New York to bring what was known at the time as Four Roses "yellow label" from European and Asian markets back to Kentucky at the end of 1994. It was available in Kentucky retail stores for the price of $9.95 per bottle. — Preceding unsigned comment added by King4120 (talk • contribs) 18:00, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

References

Now it says "more than fifty years". I'll change it to fit your description and adjust the brand ownership description. I recall seeing some article about that period. It's unfortunate that your cited source is not in the catalog of my local public library. —BarrelProof (talk) 20:05, 2 January 2020 (UTC)