How Long Does It Take?

Two weeks ago I posted about how the PLCB inventory accuracy rate is getting worse. As I mentioned then, I wrote them an email with the link to the story, explained what their mistakes were, and gave them the official government regulations that explain how to determine what spirits should be called. If I gave them any more help, I would have to fix the inventory myself.

Anyone with moderate typing skills could make these corrections in about three minutes. Two weeks should surely be enough time, even with supervisory oversight. Let's see how that worked out.

PLCB - third-rate data entry.

1. 510608 Berkshire Mountain Distillers Bourbon Whiskey - This one is pretty easy. If it's a bourbon, it's not a blend: it's a bourbon.
NOT FIXED: The PLCB still calls it a bourbon, but still categorizes it as a blend.

2. 153 Brixton Bourbon Whiskey Mash Destroyer - I could almost forgive this one, because it's a 'blend' of bourbon and rum; where do you put that? But they couldn't even get the name right! It isn't Brixton Bourbon Mash Destroyer, it's Brixton Mash Destroyer. Why do they constantly add words that aren't there? Put this in SPECIALTIES, but it's not BLENDED WHISKEY.
FIXED: While still in the Blended whiskey section they did fix the name and changed the description enough to show that at least an effort was made.

3. 31328 Clyde May's Bourbon Mash Whiskey - There is no Clyde May's "Bourbon Mash Whiskey." The Clyde May brand has a Straight Bourbon -- which is a bourbon -- and a "Alabama-style Whiskey" -- which is bourbon with apple added, which makes it SPECIALTIES -US, or WHISKEY...
FIXED: Amazingly, the PLCB not only corrected the description but put it in the correct category too.

4. 608012 Crater Lake Rye Reserve- Again, not blended. It's RYE. Pretty simple. Who's making mistakes this simple and stupid? Sorry/not sorry: there's no other way to describe that.
NOT FIXED: The PLCB didn't do anything.

5. 559141 George Dickel Whiskey Single Barrel - Reading comprehension and product knowledge required; no wonder the PLCB got it wrong.  If it is single barrel, what are you blending it with? Imagination? There should be a TENNESSEE WHISKEY category. Most other Tennessees are in WHISKEY, which is such a catch-all it's all but worthless.
TOSS UP: They didn't fix it...but they didn't keep the listing either. The item has disappeared.

6. 528555 Hooker's House Organic Rye Whiskey - There is no record of a "Hooker's House Organic Rye Whiskey" on the Internet...except connected to this mistaken PLCB record. Again, why are you adding words that aren't even there? In any case: RYE, not a blend. Okay?
NOT FIXED. Is two weeks just not enough time? This was one of the easy ones!

7. 34278 Jack Daniel's Sinatra Select Tennessee Whiskey 90 Proof - Given their track record, is anyone really surprised that there's a Jack Daniel's bottling on this list? I've been mentioning this particular one for a few years now. Jack Daniel doesn't make blended whiskey, but that doesn't stop the PLCB from getting it wrong for the past 3 years.
NOT FIXED: Was there any doubt the PLCB would continue to screw up this entry? It is part of their DNA to have at least one Jack Daniel's product wrong.

8. 504228 Jim Beam Eight Star Kentucky Whiskey 8 Year Old - They almost got this one right: it is a blend! But as I mentioned over a year ago...it is not 8 years old. Where is that on this very simple label? Nowhere that I can see.
FIXED! I wonder who had to read the label and make the command decision that it doesn't say 8 years old.

9. 446 Wigle Phil's Shadow Rye Whiskey Finished in Maple Syrup Barrels - Not a blend. Again, at the very least, a RYE.
NOT FIXED: Not one of the three ryes on the list were fixed. Does Rye confuse the PLCB?

It's ONLY been two weeks!

Pretty weak track record. Two weeks, ten whole work days, and only three entries fixed, four if you want to be generous. I guess none of the managers are the "hands on" type, and not very good motivators. Typical PLCB.

There are undoubtedly THOUSANDS of bad entries in the PLCB inventory; I haven't even looked at the wines. If they can't fix even half of a small sub-group when given all the information...imagine how badly they are doing when they have to find out and correct these things through their own means.

This access to 'all the wine and spirits in the entire system' is supposedly one of the advantages of the State Store System of Stores. You don't have to chase supply and price through hundreds of individual stores, like in those terribly disorganized "free" states. If the database is so badly disorganized that you can't find what you're looking for...where's the advantage?

There is none. Privatize now.

They only fix it if you poke them with a stick

Eighteen months ago I wrote in "PLCB Stupid Inventory Part 100" how five out of only 53 items in the "Blended Whiskey" category of their product database were...in the wrong category, about a 10% error rate. If you got 10% of your job wrong every day, would you still have that job? Would your boss who accepted that rate of failure have his job?

That's when I wrote that post; I started poking them with a stick.


So 18 months later...the PLCB error rate in Blended Whiskey is now over 13.8%. Way to go, guys. The PLCB has two ways to look up things. The so-called flat file inventory that I use here, which has everything in one place, or the slower, seemingly less accurate one on the FWAGS website, which is just as bad, in its own way. The flat file inventory also allows you to look up things by type, which is what I'm doing below.

Tell you what. I'm feeling generous today, so I'm going to list a few items that they can't seem to figure out and tell them why they're marked wrong. I'll even send them the list. But you know...I'm pretty sure the next time I check, they'll still be wrong, and there will be new things wrong too. But maybe they'll learn. Maybe.

All the federal regulations that pertain to whiskey classification can be found online in the Electronic Code OF Federal Regulations. That's how you know what kind of whiskey you have, and how it's going to be labeled. Maybe somebody in the PLCB has read it, but I have my doubts.

Most of these won't even require a reading of the regs. They're pretty simple. Let's have a look at what's wrong with these entries in the Blended Whiskey category.

Now this is bourbon!

1. 510608 Berkshire Mountain Distillers Bourbon Whiskey - This one is pretty easy. If it's a bourbon, it's not a blend: it's a bourbon.

2. 153 Brixton Bourbon Whiskey Mash Destroyer - I could almost forgive this one, because it's a 'blend' of bourbon and rum; where do you put that? 
But they couldn't even get the name right! It isn't Brixton Bourbon Mash Destroyer, it's Brixton Mash Destroyer. Why do they constantly add words that aren't there? Put this in SPECIALTIES, but it's not BLENDED WHISKEY.

3. 31328 Clyde May's Bourbon Mash Whiskey - There is no Clyde May's "Bourbon Mash Whiskey." The Clyde May brand has a Straight Bourbon -- which is a bourbon -- and a "Alabama-style Whiskey" -- which is bourbon with apple added, which makes it SPECIALTIES -US, or WHISKEY...
Which leads you to ask: why does this database have a LIGHT WHISKEY category that has no entries, but no WHISKEY (FLAVORED) category...in 2019? 

4. 608012 Crater Lake Rye Reserve- Again, not blended. It's RYE. Pretty simple. Who's making mistakes this simple and stupid? Sorry/not sorry: there's no other way to describe that.

5. 559141 George Dickel Whiskey Single Barrel - Reading comprehension and product knowledge required; no wonder the PLCB got it wrong.  If it is single barrel, what are you blending it with? Imagination? There should be a TENNESSEE WHISKEY category. Most other Tennessees are in WHISKEY, which is such a catch-all it's all but worthless. 

6. 528555 Hooker's House Organic Rye Whiskey - There is no record of a "Hooker's House Organic Rye Whiskey" on the Internet...except connected to this mistaken PLCB record. Again, why are you adding words that aren't even there? In any case: RYE, not a blend. Okay?

7. 34278 Jack Daniel's Sinatra Select Tennessee Whiskey 90 Proof - Given their track record, is anyone really surprised that there's a Jack Daniel's bottling on this list? I've been mentioning this particular one for a few years now. JD doesn't make blended whiskey, but that doesn't stop the PLCB from getting it wrong for the past 3 years.

8. 504228 Jim Beam Eight Star Kentucky Whiskey 8 Year Old - They almost got this one right: it is a blend! But as I mentioned over a year ago...it is not 8 years old. Where is that on this very simple label? Nowhere that I can see.

9. 446 Wigle Phil's Shadow Rye Whiskey Finished in Maple Syrup Barrels - Not a blend. Again, at the very least, a RYE. 

I bet the answer is down here - I've looked nowhere else!

So there you have it, PLCB. The gauntlet is tossed. Clean 'em up. Oh, and don't fall back on the old excuse that you are told by your suppliers what these are. Just read the freakin' label, and copy it into the database without editorial additions. Easy-peasy. Get it done, or I'll have to get that stick out again. 

Redacted for your benefit...

Just yesterday I wrote about how the PLCB finally managed to get down to one minor inventory mistake on their listings for Jack Daniel's. That was based on checking their "database" the week before. But I spoke too soon. Never ones to rest on their laurels or maintain high standards, the registraters and data enterers have corrected their excellence. This week's database iteration shows a 200% increase in bad JD data. Back to "PLCB normal."

We have been telling the PLCB — and showing them! — EXACTLY what some of the mistakes were for five years. We aren't trained specialists like they have at the PLCB, but we do know a thing or two about whiskey. Apparently we know about twice as much as the 40 year vet of the PLCB's Chief Executive Of Doing Things Wrong, Charlie Mooney. The buck doesn't stop with with Chuck so much as it kind of blows onto the floor and slips under a desk where you can't see it...problem solved!

But we did learn something from inside the Forbidden City at 910 Capital Street. Remember that 1792 Full Proof bourbon I wrote about yesterday? The one that both the online Product catalog and the "Fine Wine and Good Spirits" (the money they paid for that name, we should use the whole thing!) website didn't show?

It isn't missing because the PLCB doesn't have it in stock, OR that they don't have the information entered yet. One of our secret army of disgruntled and fed up clerks sent us a screenshot of the secret employee version of that same page. Check this out:

Well whaddya know, there is 1792 Full Proof, just like it used to be listed on the consumer site! You know, the one ordinary citizens have to use. I know the PLCB has products in inventory that are licensee only, things that they not only don't want you to buy, but make sure you aren't allowed to buy, because they know better about what you the consumer wants than you do. A lot of that stuff isn't available for general purchase mainly because if it were someone up in Potter County might actually want to "Special Liquor Order" it — you know, like the PLCB's supporters always say is so important, the right to access to special booze in Coudersport! — and they'd lose money on the deal. Of course they would, that's what they do.

Our source didn't know why we couldn't see these "regular" and "luxury" items that are available for sale to the consumer, but he thought it was because the system was "broken,"  his word, not ours.

But we agree wholeheartedly. The system is broken, and not just the website: it's the entire agency and its reason for existence. From the preamble of The Almighty Liquor Code: "for the protection of the public welfare, health, peace and morals of the people of the Commonwealth and to prohibit forever the open saloon," or as Governor Pinchot put it, to "discourage the purchase of alcoholic beverages by making it as inconvenient and expensive as possible."

It is broken, it always has been broken, and always will be broken so long as there is a monolithic, monopolistic, and inevitably incompetent bureaucracy, run by people with no real industry experience, little to no oversight, doing any harebrained things that their crazed bosses come up with (wine kiosk, anyone?). This agency has no vision, no insight, no real knowledge of what consumers want, and does not want to hear anything about that from any well-meaning and industrious folks out in the individual stores. They only follow, like sheep, as real leaders in the booze business move forward with new ideas. How good can any police-enforced monopoly be, especially when they not only don't want entrepreneurial thinking, but have laws in place to prevent it!

When everything is broken, you can't fix it. You start over...and in Pennsylvania's case, you start over where you should have started in the first place: Privatize. No matter what the PLCBniks say about "well, if we were starting back in 1934, sure, this system isn't what we'd want, but now that we have it —"

Hey. Stop right there. This system isn't what we want. Let's go with that icy chunk of truth. Privatize now. Fix what's broken: everything.

April Inventory Idiocy

I'm a Scotch guy, and I know a fair amount about it. Although they have a statewide monopoly on selling it, the PLCB doesn't...and I'm going to pick on them for that.  How incompetent/stupid/'we don't care' are they this month? Let's take a look.

I'll start off with Glenmorangie single malt Scotch whisky. The PLCB lists 25 bottlings of Glenmo on their website between on-line, in-store, SLO, and of course, "out of stock." So how many do you think you could actually get?

Well, there are nine out of stock, some of which we will never ever see again; inventory padding, really, just like the Jack Daniel's examples I pointed out here. So that leaves sixteen...right? Not exactly. The PLCB likes to double count the exact same item that they have on the shelf...and what they can supposedly only get by SLO.

Here are two examples. First, the Quinta Ruban:

It would seem that cutting and pasting the picture is beyond the ability of the people who do the inventory, and why is the price different? And before you even ask; no, there's only one expression of Quinta Ruban.
 
Next! The Nectar D'Or [a favorite of Lew's ...but not bought from the PLCB!]:

They still can't figure out how to post the exact same picture in two different places, but at least the price is the same this time!

So now we are down to fourteen. Whoops! One is supposedly "Coming Soon," so we're down to thirteen. Now how many do you think you can actually get?

Well, two are listed as "On-Line Exclusive," which may or may not mean you can find one or two in a store. (The PLCB has made that mistake more than a few times.) Are they really there? Looking at the inventory listed in the current Product Catalog, they aren't listed at all, but other out of stock online exclusives are — like the Glenmorangie Signet which the Product Catalog says is available,  but SLO and the FWAGS website says it isn't. So which is it?

Then there is the 18 year old New World which FWAGS says is out of stock but the Catalog says is available. Do these people have any idea what they're doing?

We really don't know HOW many of these are actually available. Who can say, since the inventory, like the rest of the PLCB, is entirely screwed up.

Why do we continue to put up with this incompetently-run "business" which can only make a "profit" with a police-enforced monopoly and by gouging the people they are supposed to serve with artificially high costs and variable pricing?

End the insanity, Tell your Representative to support HB 1075 and get the state out of this mess and back to what is considered normal by the vast majority of the states.

After 80+ Years...There are Some Things You Should Know

Looking at the PLCB's inventory sometimes gives the impression that they never learned to read the simple information on a liquor label. If you call them on it, they are usually pretty quick to blame the vendors, saying they are supposed to provide this information. But passing that buck just proves they don't really care if the information the public gets is correct or not.

Let's see how stupid they were this week.

I can't even begin to come up with any excuse why this isn't filled out correctly; maybe they can't read and type in the same day.

This one is a little trickier because, uh, you know, it's a long way from the 1st to 4th line.

This one is simple if you've been in the liquor business long enough to get your first paycheck: Scotch can only be made in Scotland. Period. The Scotch Whisky Association, the EU, and the US government all agree. In fact, there are a number of these types of spirit; I'll list the others as a service to the PLCB, in case they get confused again.*

• Bourbon can only be made in the U.S. - so that means it is all domestic.
  
• Cognac can only be made in the Cognac region of France - that means they are all imported.
• Armagnac and Calvados can only be made in France -  also all imported.
• Irish Whiskey can only be made in, yup, Ireland - again, imported.
• Brandy de Jerez can only be made in Spain -  so they'd be imported.
• Tennessee Whiskey can only be made in Tennessee - that means it is all domestic.

Now I know it will take some time to fix this (although a real business could probably do it in a week, or less). So I'll keep posting examples just so they don't forget or ignore it, like they have been for the last 20 or 30 years. You know..."in the public interest."

Went to see the chairman, strangest I could find,
Laid my proposition down, laid it on the line.
I won't slave for beggar's pay, likewise gold and jewels,
But I would slave to learn the way to sink your ship of fools.

We deserve better - PRIVATIZE NOW.


*If you have any questions about this you should have asked them decades ago but just in case - here is the U.S. Department of Commerce's Office of Trade Agreements Negotiations and Compliance letter on the subject.