Wild Turkey Lures China Reporters to Kentucky, Seeks Asia Sales

 Qiu Diwen takes a sip of Woodford Reserve’s premium bourbon, lifts it up to admire its hue and offers a complaint to her drinking companions.

“Why can’t we have whiskey like this in China?” she asks, praising the soft touch and easy finish of the Brown- Forman Corp. liquor. “In China, you always find a young, sharp whiskey.”

“That’s why you’re here!” three U.S. bourbon industry executives exclaim in unison, breaking into large smiles.

It’s not yet noon on the second day of a week-long tour that Qiu, a columnist for the Chinese magazine Vino Vogue, and five other Chinese journalists are taking of American whiskey makers. The trip to Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia includes a talk with the master distiller of Pernod Ricard SA’s Wild Turkey brand, a private bluegrass concert at Fortune Brands Inc.’s Jim Beam House and rabbit risotto at one of Louisville’s best restaurants.

The U.S. government is picking up some of the tab. All the journalists need to do in return is write an article praising American-made spirits.

“We hope for a lot of good press for these companies,” says Valerie Bowles, the U.S. Department of Agriculture official responsible for the government program that funded last month’s tour.

New Customers

The goal is new customers for American distilleries facing economic malaise at home. China has been a fast-growing U.S. export destination for goods that provide the building blocks for its industrial might: electrical machinery, trucks, scrap metal and cotton. Now, even though China’s economic growth is slowing, the estimated 200 million consumers with disposable income are still considered a promising market for U.S. whiskey.

The slowdown “should not alter the current demand projections,” says Maurice House, deputy administrator of the UDSA’s Office of Global Analysis, who helped prepare an August 2007 report on the subject. “Taxes are low and the middle class will continue to grow.”

So far, Scottish whiskeys such as London-based Diageo Plc’s Johnnie Walker and French cognacs including Remy Cointreau SA’s Remy Martin are the favorite foreign spirits of China’s nouveau riche. High-end imports account for 10 percent of the $25 billion Chinese market, according to the UDSA report.

While American producers sent only $5 million of their whiskey to China in 2007, shipments were up 24 percent in the first eight months of this year, according to U.S. government data. That helps offset expected flat sales for 2008 at home.

Emerging Markets

“Growing interest in Western-style spirits in emerging international markets -- which include China, Russia, India and Brazil -- provide excellent growth opportunities for companies like ours,” says Bruce Carbonari, chief executive of Deerfield, Illinois-based Fortune Brands, which also owns Maker’s Mark.

Imported products such as Jim Beam and Jack Daniels, another Brown-Forman liquor, “symbolize luxury, prestige and high social status” in China, according to the USDA report -- and the department is doing its part to promote them there.

It gave $150,000 of its $200 million in annual grants to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, which used the funds to finance the Chinese journalists’ trip and visits by U.S. distillers to China and Russia. Taxpayers also sponsored an excursion by Chinese journalists in 2007 to vineyards in California.

Whisky Trail

The reporters on this year’s American Whiskey Trail tour represent Chinese versions of Cosmopolitan, For Him Magazine, Food and Wine, Good Housekeeping and Betty’s Kitchen. Together their magazines publish more than 2 million issues a month, tapping a young, independent and luxury-minded generation of consumers. Also along are writers working on stories for U.S. publications ranging from American History magazine to Penthouse.

On the first stop, the journalists travel down one-lane Kentucky roads past Virgin Mary bathtub shrines to Loretto, population 623 and home of Maker’s Mark bourbon.

Bill Samuels, the chief executive and son of the founder, gives each reporter a hearty handshake and follows behind as they tour the family home, open-vat brewing tanks and distillery. Crowded into a 19th-century rickhouse -- the storage facility where charred-oak barrels of bourbon are aged -- the group has its first tasting of the week.

The visit pays one immediate dividend.

“Maker’s Mark is very special,” says Chen Junfeng of For Him Magazine. “It’s very historical.”

Home-Cooked Lunch

Later, over a home-cooked lunch of ham, candied carrots and twice-baked potatoes, Frank Coleman, who organized the trip as vice president of the Washington-based Distilled Spirits Council, points to the stack of Chinese magazines the journalists presented to Samuels.

“There’s your future right there, Bill,” he says.

Samuels doesn’t need convincing: He already put his son and likely heir, Rob, in charge of export promotion and tells Coleman he now wants to go on an industry trip to China in 2009.

Later that night, Jim Beam reopens its welcome center after hours just for the group, offering them a 35 percent discount in the gift shop -- where some purchase commemorative license plates -- and a special chance to taste its premium products at a private room in the family homestead.

Each brand has limited supply because bourbon -- distilled from grains that include at least 51 percent corn -- must age for six years or more.

“If we get hot in India or China, we’re going to run out,” says Bernie Lubbers, an entertainer and Jim Beam’s self- proclaimed Whiskey Professor.

Judging from the group of reporters, Woodford bourbon may get hot soonest. At the tasting the next morning, the first sip is followed by a burst of excited conversation in Chinese.

“Can we do some shopping and buy some of this whiskey?” translator Barbara Lee asks.