In my endless effort to monetize my blog, I've discovered that the one thing whisky drinkers love more than paying for exclusive, limited edition whisky is paying to join a club that lets them pay for exclusive, limited edition whisky. To that end, I'm proud to announce the formation of the Protestant Malt Whisky Society. Now, I'm not Protestant, but I have many friends and a wife who are, and I feel strongly that they should have the same opportunities to pay extravagant prices for access to whisky that my own people do.
Here's how it works. You pay to join the Society at one of our three levels listed below. Then, you have the opportunity to pay more to buy whisky. That's right! You pay now and pay later, a deal you can't beat. Each bottle you receive is guaranteed to be the finest caramel colored, chill filtered whisky, chosen by me personally from the selection at my local Spirits World Warehouse. In addition, each member will receive: (1) a membership card hand-crafted by my half-Protestant children from the finest construction paper; (2) our quarterly magazine, Filtered, which will keep you up to date with Society news; (3) two Glencairn glasses inscribed with "WhiskyLive" or "WhiskyFest"; and (4) a free subscription to my blog!
And while each of our whiskies is chosen to meet all Protestant dietary restrictions, we are ecumenical in nature and accept cash from people of all faiths (additional charges may apply to Scientologists).
Please choose your level:
Methodist Level ($250): The most puritanical level of membership comes with a 100 ml bottle of whisky, which I'm told is enough to last most Methodists for a lifetime. (Also suitable for Congregationalists).
Lutheran Level ($1,500): Nail your thesis to the wall with this exclusive membership for our Lutheran brothers and sisters. Along with two bottles of our finest whisky, you will receive a choice of (1) a six month supply of lutefisk; or (2) the complete Prairie Home Companion recordings on LP, eight track or cassette.
Episcopal Level (known as Anglican Level outside of the US) ($10,000): Be part of a world wide communion of whisky lovers with our ultra-exclusive Episcopal Level. Sure, you'll have schisms from time to time, but you will also be getting 5 bottles of our exclusive whisky as well as a premium selection of incense. You may notice that this is the exact same benefit offered by the Catholic Malt Whisky Society but with less guilt.
What are you waiting for? Operators are standing by and if you call in the next 15 minutes, we will include a chop-o-matic, a set of Ginsu knives and a Time-Life history of the War of 1812 in 38 leather bound volumes.
Order now! And remember, few things mix better than liquor and religion!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
11 comments:
you r on fire! keep em coming
What, no Baptist Level???
You just made my day! As a Lutheran, however, I can say with confidence that we're too cheap to cough up $1500 (but we love the choices that come with a membership)
Hilarious stuff SKU! I'd love to join, but I already signed up with the JSMWS!!! Maybe you can add a Presbyterian level for me and you can send me the empty bottles for nosing. I joined the JSMWS because I think it is a pretty good deal. They are promising some really nice bottlings. We'll see.
Hilarious, Steve! My Catholic wife and I really enjoyed this! Yes, JSMWS is a head scratcher...
I respect the fact that people are curious and want to ever expand their whisky horizons. However, for me the lights went on when I read the very lucid deconstruction of the LVMH strategy that dramming.com did (search "LVMH SMWS" on the site), which includes the LVMH ownership of SMWS. Sorry SMWS/JSMWS/PMWS, I have to pass!
Is bourbon/whisky kosher? Doesn't say anything on the label. I know Tastykakes are.
There's already buzz of an inter-faith PMWS/JSMWS joint exclusive single malt bottling in the works--an organic NAS Bruichladdich finished in a first-fill bespoke Manischewitz cask seasoned with ordinance wine.
Thanks you everyone for your responses. I'm happy to report that interest in the PMWS has been overwhelming. We are working on several new membership categories to accommodate this interest.
As to Baptists, I am thinking they should get a flask shaped like a juice box (so other Baptists don't know what they're drinking), a "Jesus died for our Scotch" T-shirt and an album of electric piano music.
As to Presbyterians, I figured they don't need this because they mostly live in Scotland already.
Anon, most bourbon is kosher, excluding of course, bacon bourbon.
Sku, this is fantastic! Your posts always help to keep a smile on the face. While this wasn't quite what I expected after answering the great questions you sent us a week or so ago (see below), this did nonetheless give me the chuckles I needed this morning. Thank you for taking the time to write this! (and thanks again for your kind words of encouragement in your email to us).
The questions you had asked (for those that might be interested - this will be done in two or more parts as Blogger will not allow for longer comments)
Part 1:
"Josh, et al. This is Steve Ury from Sku's Recent Eats. This is really fascinating. I haven't known anyone who has tried to start their own independent bottling operation before and I wish you the best of luck.
I have some questions (I'm a blogger after all) that I wonder if you would answer about your new society.
1. Will members have a chance to choose the membership bottles or are the bottles picked by you?
Firstly, we plan to choose, then release, whisky that does nothing short of wowing the pants off of us. This said, members that sign on to the White ($180) or Silver ($480) levels will get one or two bottles, respectively, chosen by the society. However, Black level ($960) will have the ability to choose three bottles of whisky within the first year of bottles being available to the society. Our aim to to release between 15 & 20 casks per year. (This number is subject to change.)
2. I take it that the concept here is similar to the Scotch Malt Whisky Society. How do you see this as different from the SMWS? That is, if someone is going to join one whisky club, why yours?
A keen observation, Sku. Our aim is not to have someone choose us over the Scotch Malt Whisky Society. While Seth is not yet a member, both Jason and I are proud, card carrying members of the SMWSA that will continue to promote the society on our separate respective whisky blogs. It is our hope that those who are already SMWSA members might choose to also be a part of our society. On the flip side of the coin, we hope that our members might also find that there are benefits to being members of the SMWSA as well as ours. Both societies will release fantastic whiskies - we plan to pay very close attention to the dietary needs of many in the Jewish community while always releasing whiskies that even the most hardcore of sherry heads will fall in love with. Additionally, we plan to release other types of spirits that will no doubt wow our members - details on that to be released in the not-to-distant future.
3. Can you give any sense of what casks you have and what you plan to offer? Are the distilleries listed on the "bottlings" page placeholders or the actual distilleries you have casks from? This would seem to be a major piece of information necessary to anyone who was thinking of joining at any level.
As mentioned previously, we aim to release whiskies that will meet the dietary needs of many in the Jewish Community (read: ex-bourbon cask, ex-rum, new wood or dechar/rechar casks) but plan also to release the finest ex-sherry/wine/port, etc… casks. We are working with many distilleries/warehouses and the ones shown on our website are a good sampling of some of the folks we are dealing with. We're actually working with more distilleries than those shown on our current "Bottlings" page.
Part 2:
"4. Do the different levels of membership have access to different bottles or is the only difference in membership level the amount of bottles they get upon joining.
The White Level ($180 membership) gets members a full bottle of the Society's choosing. (Don't worry, we plan to choose then release nothing that doesn't wow the pants off of us). This is a one year membership - re-up cost for subsequent years is $36 - members get two of our whisky glasses, a t-shirt and a subscription to Whisky Advocate magazine.
The Silver Level ($480 membership) gets you two full bottles - again of the society's choosing. The Silver level also gets members three full years of membership without having to re-up until the fourth year - members get four of our whisky glasses, a t-shirt and a subscription to Whisky Advocate magazine
Finally, the Black Level ($960 membership) gets members three bottles of THE MEMBERS choosing from three different releases within the first year of their membership. Additionally, their first 6 years of membership will require no re-up fee - they get six of our whisky glasses, two merchandise items of their choosing and a subscription to Whisky Advocate magazine
Our whisky will cost as little as $85 per bottle (which is very competitive for single malt, single cask, natural cask strength whiskies) and upwards of $250 - $400 (think 30 - 40+ year old whiskies). The average price of our whiskies should be between $95 & $145.
5. What legal hurdles did you need to go through to become a bottler? Are you also the licensed importer/distributer?
Current Federal and State laws (and the various hurdles/loopholes we've been overcoming) can be tricky if not downright arcane. Legal hurdles only begin to explain one of the many reasons we've been working on the launch of the society as a business for the past 18 months. Many distilleries have exclusive importers for their whiskies but not all. We will be the distributors for our whiskies.
6. To whom will you be donating your 1% to social justice and philanthropy?
Down the road, it is our aim to let members choose the charities they'd what 1% of their spend to go to. That, however, will require a bit more work than we're prepared to take on at this point. Until then, we're looking at Heifer, American Jewish World Service, Movember and the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation (among others).
Thanks and again, best of luck,
Steve Ury
Sku's Recent Eats
www.recenteats.blogspot.com"
Thanks again, Sku!!
Thanks Josh. Glad to see you're keeping a good sense of humor about it.
Post a Comment