Cork Pulled

Although liquor sales have fallen 26% since the war, there have been no dramatic price cuts. Last week distillers went on a small bender.

Kinsey Distilling Corp., Continental Distilling Corp. and W. A. Haller Corp., all subsidiaries of huge Publicker Industries, Inc., pulled the cork by cutting whisky prices an average of 10% in ten states. They planned similar reductions in nine additional states by July.

The reductions were made, said Continental President L. J. Gunson, because of the "postwar readjustment" (gobbledygook for falling sales) and the prospect of increased supplies. Schenley Industries also cut the price on one smaller-selling blend.

Other distillers stood firm, saying they planned no cuts. But they may soon have to change their tune. Some 68 million gallons of four-year-old whisky, made in the first distilling months after V-E day, will be ready for the market between July and December. This will bring the supply of aged whisky, now short, into line with current demand.

By year's end, when four-year-old whisky is expected to be plentiful, liquor men will face a big sales problem. During wartime, when aged whisky was scarce, distillers stretched the supply by blending it. (i.e., mixing it with grain alcohol). They plugged blends so well--and straights were so hard to get--that now six bottles of blended whisky are sold for every one bottle of straight (compared with a prewar ratio of one-for-one). Distillers will have to do more than cut blend prices; they will have to lure drinkers back to straight whisky, probably by bringing bonded straight whisky prices (U.S. average: $6.90 a fifth) more in line with good blends (about $4.05).

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