Whiskey Makers Court Jewish Market

An alternative arrived suddenly in the form of a new one-night event, held on the eve of WhiskyFest. Despite little time to advertise, it drew a crowd of 250 to its unlikely Manhattan location: the West Side Institutional Synagogue.

These whiskey devotees, it turned out, were Jews shut out of the big event because they observe the Sabbath. And to drive home the point of the tasting, its founder, the fledgling Jewish Whisky Company, called it Whisky Jewbilee.

Whiskey has numerous fan bases, but few are more devoted — and arguably less noticed by the press and public — than Jews, particularly observant Jews. Synagogues are increasingly organizing events around whiskey, and whiskey makers are reaching out to the Jewish market.

Retailers have long recognized Jews as valuable customers. “Jewish men are very interested in the selection of whiskey available at a wedding or bar/bat mitzvah,” said Jonathan Goldstein, vice president of Park Avenue Liquor Shop, a Manhattan store known for its whiskey selection. “They very often will pick up a special bottle to offer close friends or relatives.” Of the Friday before the Jewish holiday of Purim, last February, he said, “It was like Christmas in here.”

Part of the spirit’s appeal to many Orthodox Jews is that most whiskey is naturally kosher. In contrast, wine, owing to its long connection to Jewish tradition, must satisfy many regulations to earn a hechsher, the symbol of kosher certification.

But that hasn’t stopped prominent Scotch producers like Glenrothes, Glenmorangie, Ardbeg, Bowmore and Auchentoshan from courting the Jewish consumer by obtaining official kosher certification for certain bottlings.

Bourbon producers have even less to worry about, because by federal law their spirits must be aged in new casks, rather than in the sherry, port or wine barrels that some whiskey distillers use, and that give some kosher drinkers pause because of their exposure to wine. Yet the Buffalo Trace Distillery in Kentucky recently enlisted the help of the Chicago Rabbinical Council in laying down more than 1,000 barrels of three styles of whiskey, all certified kosher and set for release in five or six months.

In a smaller-scale but similar enterprise, the Royal Wine Corporation, a New York producer of kosher wine and grape juice, asked Wesley Henderson two years ago if he would be interested in making a kosher-certified version of his boutique bourbon, Angel’s Envy. “We were looking for a bourbon line in general,” said Shlomo S. Blashka, a wine and spirits educator at Royal, also the New York-area distributor of Angel’s Envy. “The Jewish community is a very big bourbon community.”

Mr. Henderson did not have to be told. “You’d have to be blind not to notice it,” he said. “I thought, if you had a kosher bourbon, that would be a great thing. It seemed a no-brainer.”

For the new whiskey, Angel’s Envy was aged for six months in barrels that had held Kedem kosher port for 20 years. The run sold quickly, Mr. Henderson said, and may become a permanent addition to the bourbon maker’s line.

In 2011, Jason Johnstone-Yellin and two partners founded the Jewish Whisky Company, which has bottled barrels from six Scotch distillers. “We had the opportunity to purchase casks, where not everybody would have that opportunity,” said Mr. Johnstone-Yellin, who was born in Scotland and whose American wife is Jewish.

During a recent trip to the Victoria Whisky Festival in British Columbia, he said, he buttonholed a representative of a well-known international whiskey distillery and asked if it would let the Jewish Whisky Company bottle one of its casks.

“The response was: ‘We’re very protective of our brand. We don’t do that,’ ” said Joshua Hatton, another partner in the business, who also founded a popular blog, Jewish Single Malt Whisky Society — now renamed Jewmalt.

Mr. Johnstone-Yellin, not giving up, gave the man his card and pointed to the word “Jewish.” “This is our market,” he said. “These are our customers and members.”

The man paused, he said, then agreed to talk to them.

The bond with whiskey goes way back. Mr. Blashka said early Jewish immigrants to America, unable to trust the provenance of local wines, turned to certain distilled liquors, including whiskey. “Because the wine was an issue, typically spirits was their avenue for drinking,” he said.

As recent decades have ushered in a revival in Scotch, bourbon and other whiskeys, Jews, like many other groups, have moved beyond the usual blends and have developed more sophisticated tastes. “Now we have many whiskeys that we know are kosher,” said Rabbi Aaron Raskin of Congregation B’nai Avraham in Brooklyn Heights, whose preferred whiskey is the smoky Laphroaig, a single malt from Islay. “It is used to add to our joy.”

“And it helps attendance at synagogues,” he added.

Whiskey-centered events at temples are a lot more common than they used to be, said Joshua London, a lobbyist for the Zionist Organization of America who regularly writes about whiskey for Jewish publications. For the last three years, Mr. London has been asked by his Orthodox synagogue in Potomac, Md., to pull together bottles for an annual pre-Passover whiskey and barbecue night.

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