Seagrams

Is it wrong to drink spirits that come from a plastic bottle? That's the general rule among the people I know, and I tend to follow it myself, but there comes a point where you realize that drunk people are using your bottle of Jim Beam Black or Vat 69 with a can of Coke, and suddenly you have no fine liquor in the house. So when a plastic bottle of Seagram's 7 just happens to be on sale, I think the mixers I know will survive just fine. Really they have no choice :)

Anyway, while at the store I started thinking about something; just who the hell makes Seagram's products? The name can be found on well known whiskeys and gin, as well as a few vodkas and even ginger ale. Usually a distillery focuses on just one spirit (thought they may make various flavors and qualities), but Seagram's has its name on several disjoint products. Could one honest to goodness company be responsible for all of these drinks? I decided to do some research on the legendary brand, which I guess just goes to show you how young I am.

My results are far more mysterious than I imagined they would be. Wikipedia gives a history of the company and how they rose to greatness in post-Prohibition North America, eventually getting ridiculous in the modern decades as they tried to scoop up everything from oil companies to entertainment divisions. As of today, it looks as if multiple alcohol conglomerates scooped up rights to the brands they acquired, while Coke and Pepsi grabbed non-alcoholic brands. A fascinating look at the rise and fall of Seagram's, but it still doesn't answer my question; were they an older version of Diaego or Pernod Ricard, scooping up little guys to add to their collection, or did the Seagram's Distillery(ies) originally make all the stuff with their name on it?

I wasn't finding much luck elsewhere. There seems to be no official site for Seagrams' whiskey, either Seven Crown or Vo. A search of Everything2 coughed up the URL seagrams7.com, but that now points to thebar.com, Diaego's massive drink supersite which doesn't even list any Seagram drinks (outside of Crown Royal).

Time for a close look at the bottle. Seems that the smaller Diaego owned company that actually makes the juice now is called the 7 Crown Distilling Company. Googling this brings up nothing of great worth. Finally, it was a desperate attempt to type segrams.com, which lead to Pernod Ricard (which owns the Gin).

So I suppose my search failed. Seagram's today seems to exemplify the entire wines and spirits industry; despite the old fashioned label that boasts some vintage heritage, just about every drink you can find in the store is owned by some gigantic mega-consortium or holding company. They may still actually make it in some single building distillery, but chances are a lot of them are massed produced in who knows what area of the world, hopefully following a traditional recipe.

At the very least I managed to discover what Seven Crown is made of. Looks like a pretty good drink for a blend, with actual whiskeys rather than a lot of grain neutral spirits put in as filler. Though these days, who can you trust?