What the Maker’s Mark dilution debacle says about corporate strategy

It got that reputation because of the extreme difficulty of finding it, and it is so difficult to find precisely because they never raised the price, instead creating shortages.

I don't know if they are capitalizing on it. Their youngest is 15 years old, so it'd be a while before increased production would be seen -- but they certainly could.

I'm also not entirely sure how your logic works here. How does reducing the proof on Makers help Skinnygirl Pre-mixed Processed Cocktail Beverage Product in any way? Those products are presumably already marketed to capture profits for markets that don't care about quality.

I buy Beam's explanation of why they did this. They pivoted Makers as a global brand, and in foreign markets (like Australia) were already marketing the product at a lower proof. They were unexpectedly successful, and one sane response to shortage was to unify the product line around the foreign proof.

Obviously, Makers has always controlled the final proof of its product. Bourbons sold cask-strength are sold that way in part because it allows the distiller's customers to buy less water and more booze. The final proof Makers tried to choose wasn't an unusual one for bourbon, either.

Products are diluted and reformulated all the time to save cost. The half-eaten box of Girl Scout Samoa cookies on my desk right now reminds me every year. But why make it such a public thing so loudly? Were they afraid whisky fans would start an uproar and this was a preemptive notice?

2. Other than the julep and perhaps the "whiskey highball" (not drunk nearly as much today as 50 years ago) you should not find many "bourbon drinks" with lots of ice.

The most popular cocktails today made with bourbon are the Manhattan and the Old Fashioned (both arguably better with rye, but whatever). The Manhattan is traditionally served "up" (no ice); the old fashioned is properly served with either one very large cube or a few medium large cubes. Anyone serving with smaller ice (bad idea) is not going to go to the trouble of serving a 50%+ ("~100 proof") ABV barrel- or cask- strength bourbon. And anyway over proper ice a 40% ABV bourbon is just fine, thank you, in an old fashioned.

Another popular bourbon drink would be the whiskey sour, served either iceless or like an old fashioned (ice wise).

3. In no way are whiskey cocktails particularly likely to be icey or watery vs cocktails made from other spirits. Gin has the Tom Collins, Gin Rickey, and Gin & Tonic, all watery enough to compete well against the julep and whiskey highball. Rum has the mojito, for which the same holds true; vodka the Moscow Mule and screwdriver.

Anyway, I agree that this was a dumb move on the part of Maker's Mark, but not because it involves any actual functional issue in terms of mixing drinks. It's dumb because the brand stood for a particular flavor profile, and people paid extra to get that flavor profile, and you don't go changing it out from under them. Life is complicated enough without liquor brands getting all dynamic on us.

..which, of course, would only be making the problem worse, so i don't think it’s a marketing ploy as high demand is the issue here.

How many people will be buying a competitor's bourbon because Makers "decided to do the wrong thing" and now, short of nontrivial research, one doesn't know what's in the bottle now?

There are a lot of other bourbons on those upper shelves.

And I still don't buy Belkin products because of that "replace random web-page requests with ads" router fiasco years ago.