Weaker Proof

If some troubled drinkers think they are getting less belt from their highballs these days, they are right. Many liquor companies have been putting more distilled water and less alcohol into whisky and gin. During the past 20 months, the distillers of more than 100 labeled brands, including Seagram's 7 Crown, Four Roses, Hiram Walker's Imperial American blended whisky and Jim Beam bourbon, have reduced the proof from 86 to 80--without lowering the price or advertising the fact beyond printing the new proof on bottle labels. (Proof is twice the percentage of alcohol: an 86-proof whisky contains 43% alcohol and an 80-proof brand 40%.) Gordon's and Gilbey's gins were reduced from 90 proof to 86 in 1974. Now Gilbey's is following the latest trend and test marketing an 80 proof potion in selected markets. Standard & Poor's calls 80-proof whisky "the emerging industry standard."

Distillers claim that they are trying to serve the changing tastes of U.S. drinkers, who for a generation have been shifting away from the stronger native spirits, like 100-proof bourbon (still generally available), and buying more of the lighter-tasting Scotch and Canadian whiskies. Sam Chilcote, a spokesman for the Distilled Spirits Council of the U.S., calls the move toward lower proof "a marketing decision reflecting ... preference habits of consumers," and Carmel Tintle, vice president for corporate affairs for American Distilling, refers to it as part of a "trend toward moderation." All this may sound eminently reasonable, but the evidence is something less than compelling. So-called light whiskies, weaker in taste than the standard brands, though of the same proof, were introduced by U.S. distillers in 1972 but have been a severe sales disappointment; in the past year, most distillers have quietly stopped promoting them.

The real point is that distillers have been suffering a financial hangover: liquor sales have risen 4% or less a year for the past five years, costs have soared for everything from barrels to bottle tops, and the companies have been afraid to raise whisky prices because a boost might drive customers to drink more beer and wine. Liquor prices rose only 3.6% last year. By reducing the proof, says Gerald Mooney, trade, press-and executive-relations manager of Hiram Walker, "we get what amounts to a price increase without passing that along to the consumer." Lowering the proof reduces both manufacturing costs and federal taxes. The tax is $10.50 on each 100-proof gallon, $9,03 on 86 proof and $8.40 on 80 proof.

Stern Limit. Although distillers claim that they are merely responding to a change in consumer preference, they also assert, paradoxically, that most drinkers cannot tell the difference in taste between 86-proof and 80-proof whisky anyway. Consumer resistance to the change, they say, is small. Still, some brands have not joined the trend. Schenley Industries, for example, is running ads pointing out that its Ancient Age bourbon is still, at 86 proof, as strong as ever. Also, there is a stern limit to the watering-down trend: 80 proof is the lowest the Federal Government will let a distiller go and still call his product whisky.

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