The Waterbury Democrat., 1934-02-13
Drastic Cuts Coming?

According to information issued from Washington last week there will shortly be demand placed on all engaged In the 1iquor business, distilleries, manufactur- CTS, wholesalers, importers, and retailers. to bring their prices within the reach of purses of majority of people, In view of the fact that there is much agitation Ill prohibition circles for increasing efforts to change the liquor laws again, we sin cerely hope that such an order from Washington will carry sufficient weight. All that is needed to make the present laws work is a revision of the price sched- ules now effective. They are far too high.
 With prices arranged on different scale there will be more business for the legitimate dealer in liquors and less for the man who sells without license or who buys his stock through illicit chan nels and not from the legally authorized distillers and wholesalers. This will not mean the end of whiskey blends which seem to be causing considerable confusion right at the moment. Blends will always be sold in the United States for the peo- ple of this nation have been educated to them. Unfortunately wrong impression has been created, whether purposely or unintentionally we don't know, of recent months.
 Actual government figures will show that in the immediate years preceding passage of the 18th amendment there was more so-called blended than straight whiskey sold Now we are compelled to fall back on blends due to the fact that bonded stocks are soon depleted. During the dry years the production of Whlskey in bond was not as considerable as prior to prohibitions advent. AS result stocks are low. Therefore it behooves us either to import immense stocks of Whls- keys or to utilize the blends. A good blend is a far preferable product than many of the so-called whiskeys that were sold during the prohibition days.
 Distillers are as one in declaring that whiskey blending itself is as much scl- ence as is whiskey distillation. And health authorities and scientists claim that blending of mature whiskey with raw young whiskey is not proper blend ing. Mature whiskey should only be- blended with purified spirits to procure true blend. The pure spirits are the product of one of the series of dlstlllatlon processes through which any grain must be put to procure the alcoholic liquor that we call whiskey. Usually the spirits re- tained for blending processes are the pur- est output or the process, coHIalHllS aI least 90 per cent alcohol. In the trade they are known as neutral or cologne spirits. Their use in blending whiskey reflects on the manufacturer and adds to the repute of the manufactured product.
 However, blends or no blends the na- tion will not for long countenance the present run of prices which run as high as $7 for imported wines. Those are purely profiteering. prices. Import duties haven't caused the prices to advance to such figures as these. And manufactur- ing costs right now are not sufficient to make good reliable brands of whiskey sell as high as $4 and $5 a quart. It's high time the officials at Washington ap- piled little pressure. We'll have an- other amusing noble experiment. on our hands the first thing we know. And we've had enough of them to know that they pail in a short time.