However, those nineteenth-century temperance movements had been gaining momentum, and the whiskey industry was about to confront its most formidable enemy. There are three recipes for making imitation Old Bourbon in Stephens book, one calls for 20 gallons of proof spirit (neutral spirits diluted to 100? Old Fitzgerald whiskey started being marketed in Europe in 1904. . Kentucky whiskey was somewhat lighter than the rye whiskey from the East, and it was a product they could call their own. Suddenly, liquor store shelves were filled with new bottlings of old brands of fine American whiskey, old-looking bottlings of new brands, and a variety of new terms were being bandied about. Leslie Samuels (Makers Mark) reopened his Deatsville distillery in 1933, and sold T. W. Samuels bourbon (named for the first Samuels to open a commercial distillery). " Simply put, whiskey was extremely cheap and extremely available, resulting in a huge spike in American consumption. In effect, Lincoln was urging the temperance group to enlighten the public. Most probably, but the chances of them being used exclusively by one distiller are very remote. The yearbook goes on to note the progress that the drys had made since the Leagues conception in 1893. With its 80-proof variety ranking as one of the top ten best-selling straight whiskeys on the market, this Jim Beam subsidiary has been at it since the 1800s with budget bottles that look like something your old man or his father would imbibe upon. While the United States was searching for an identity, certain families were forming the basis for what were to become major whiskey empires. To have lived during this period must have been similar to people who were born in the 1930s; one minute you get your first telephone installed, and before you know it, you are accessing information from libraries in Budapest. The Molasses Act of 1733 levied five shillings per hundredweight of sugar, six pence per gallon of molasses, and nine pence per gallon of rum. In 1876 Tom Moore and Ben Mattingly bought their first distillery. At one point in 1791, a mob of over 5,000 men advanced on Pittsburgh threatening to burn down the whole city, but they were met by town officials who managed to dissuade them from their mission by promising to banish certain officials and plying the mob with food and, of course, whiskey. The ploy seems to have had the desired effect. Many proofs were bottled, including 113 proof, 121 proof, 122 proof, 123 proof, and 127 proof. And these tables were not present only in the posh bars, working-class saloons offered similar meals, but the fare on their tables--pickled eggs, frankfurters, stews, and thick, hearty soups--was not nearly as sumptuous as that at the Waldorf. Yet it is undeniable that prohibition has in some respects been signally successful. The choice was simple: Let it mold and rot, or change its form as the ancient alchemists did and produce the water of life. (The word whisky is derived from the Gaelic word uisgebaugh, [WEEZ-ga-bochh] meaning water of life. If you say the word quickly enough--or with a substantial quantity of whiskey in your system--it becomes, with a little shortening, WEEZ-ga, a word that was Anglicized to become whisky.), Distilling grain gives farmers two distinct avenues for profit-making: The distillate, by virtue of having a high concentration of alcohol, can be stored almost indefinitely, and liquor is relatively easy to transport--much easier than huge sheaves of corn or rye. Okay, we have whiskey made using corn as the predominant grain, and we have some of that whiskey being aged in charred barrels. 23 gallons of industrial alcohol were required in the manufacture of a Jeep. The aging factor needs a little more investigation. And the law had won. However, they had to contend with a certain Dr. Wiley, head of the Bureau of Chemistry, a part of the Department of Agriculture, and a true believer in straight whiskey. Others turned to supplying grain to families like the Peppers rather than distilling their own products. With the advent of the glassmakers hinged mold, came incised molds that could act as labels to display the distillers name, address, brand name, or another designation. This page is part of a series Liquor in the 20th Century. However, since the majority of brewers and distillers thought of the drys as not much more than religious fanatics, they chose not only to ignore them, but foolishly carried on doing business as usual--a bad move, and one that would eventually lead to their downfall. Everyone knows this, even the powers of the government. They didnt seem to care that these very impurities were responsible for the very flavor of the whiskey. During the post-war years, when many distilleries were being built or rebuilt, Coffeys continuous still became commonplace in the American whiskey business. Heres an example of how it worked according to Martin Gilbert, author of American History Atlas, 1968: In 1752, by which time there were at least 30 legitimate distilleries in Rhode Island alone, a ship called The Sanderson left Newport, with 8,220 gallons of rum on board. When the first immigrants arrived on this continent, their love for alcohol in almost any shape or form led to a chain of events that would culminate in the creation of distinctive American whiskeys. The following year Jack Daniel injured his toe while kicking a safe and, strange as it may sound, the wound led to his death in 1911. We must give a little credit here to the lady; her tactics certainly had an effect on the illegal bars at the time--many of them closed. In fact, the drys had some very serious legitimate issues that needed to be addressed. The company was acquired by United Distillers in 1991. The association felt compelled to keep the government informed of the drawbacks of Prohibition; stressing mainly, that without taxes from alcohol, the economy was suffering; that farmers had lost a market for their grains and the surplus subsequently had brought grain prices down, and that unemployment in related industries was rising steadily. WhistlePig The Bhlden is aged for 21 years in American Oak ex-bourbon barrels and to give it that WhistlePig flair finished . Hamilton had estimated the national debt at about $54 million, and on July 1, 1791, the government started to enforce an excise tax on all spirits--imported and domestic. 1, O.K. Its body gets bigger, its soul develops character, and the sharp, childish bite of *young, raw whiskey become deep, somber declarations of maturity. He died in 1917. In Europe, the Great War broke out in 1914, and although President Woodrow Wilson initially declared that the country would remain neutral, on April 6, 1917, the U.S. declared war on Germany. Though temperance societies had sprung up at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and grew stronger, larger, and more adamant about their quest after the Civil War, gone were the days of espousing moderation. Was this a blended whiskey? In the 1790s American distilled spirits (whiskey, gin, rye, bourbon, etc.) Pulque, or octli is an alcoholic beverage made from the fermented juice of the maguey, and is a traditional native beverage of Mesoamerica. Strangely enough, one of the major beneficiaries of World War II was the rum industry, the very enterprise that, in America, had fallen at the heels of the whiskey business some 150 years previous. Henry Hudson Wathen (whose family kept the Old Grand-Dad label alive in the late nineteenth century) began distilling whiskey in Kentucky in 1788. The straight wooden staves that are used to form a barrel must be heated in order to bend the wood into the familiar barrel shape. They had no points to pay on the closing, no smooth broker taking a percentage, and no rent to pay until the Revolutionary War ended (The Treaty of Paris, September 3, 1783). Only time in wood gives it color, and only time in charred wood results in the crimson-hued tint that is peculiar to bourbon. In 1816, a company, registered in New England, incorporated in Kentucky under the name of the Hope Distilling Company; it was a very big venture--many years before its time. The average bottle of whiskey is around 40 proof. These scalawags blended small amounts of straight whiskey with huge quantities of flavorless neutral grain spirits (distilled out at a very high proof in Coffeys continuous still) and a few flavorings; and yet they sold their product as straight whiskey.. While Presidents Johnson and Grant were going through their personal and political strifes, the excise tax that Lincoln had been forced to impose in 1862 had taken its toll on the whiskey industry. Overall, the Civil Wars effect on the whiskey business, by no means negligible, was to whittle down the number of whiskey distilleries and distillers--a fact that probably didnt upset temperance advocate--and onetime tavern keeper--Abraham Lincoln. The plant produced Tom Moore Bourbon in 1879, and Mattingly & Moore Bourbon by 1896. Some distillers are resting comfortably, knowing that they have been producing fine heavy-bodied whiskeys all along, while others who had lightened their products somewhat in an attempt to compete with gin, vodka, and rum, are now, thankfully, rethinking their position. Enter Colonel Edmund Hayes Taylor Jr. Taylor, the man responsible for giving us Old Taylor bourbon in 1887, was known as a discerning distiller who focused on the high quality of his products. Even the whiskey bottles had to be made to new government standards that called for thinner glass and no unnecessary designs. Corn, an indigenous grain, was also cultivated, and although the immigrants werent used to using it to make whiskey, it was gradually introduced to the process in small quantities. Many others were hauled into court and fined for their lack of cooperation. Consequently, some at least were repeatedly looking for new land to farm. During this time, the liquor was kept under governmental supervision in bonded warehouses. So when did the whiskey-makers start aging their products? Most of these were of the plainest design, though handsome in their simplicity. Greed, of course, was the motivating factor in all these shenanigans, and what the Whiskey Trust didnt count on was that some of the smaller distilleries within the trust would make as much whiskey as they desired, and simply lie about their production figures. The upshot? In 1874 more than 200,000 retailers sold liquor in the U.S., a whopping 120,000 more than just 10 years before. However, the treasury was not to be deterred. They had found that by using only the center cut of their distillate, and returning the end of the run back to the still for redistillation (a method still practiced today), they could remove unwanted bitter flavors from their whiskey. The Sassenach. Frenchman Jean Pierre Brissot wrote of his 1788 trip to Boston (Nouveau Voyage dans les tats-Unis de lAmrique septentrionale, 1791), The rum distilleries are on the decline since the suppression of the slave trade, in which this liquor was employed. Then, in 1807, the Embargo Act restricted the importation of molasses from British ports, and the following year, the importation of slaves was made illegal altogether, completely destroying the triangle trade among the U.S., Africa, and the West Indies. AP Photo Consumption begins to drop. Trade was brisk for the mail-order whiskey suppliers, but dont think for a second that the Prohibitionists were going to stand idly by while thousands of gallons of whiskey were being mailed to their hard-fought-for dry states and counties. It has come to solve the liquor problem.. Not only did the geographical aspects of Kentucky make it a tough area to invade, if Washington had decided to pick on Kentuckians rather than Pennsylvanians, he would have run the risk that the state would up and leave the union and join up with the Spanish, who controlled the land west of Kentucky. However, since it takes 10 full days for the whiskey to travel through all of the charcoal, we think he was referring to his new, though slow, method of filtration. Carson does mention, however, that the log stills were used only for a primary distillation, and the spirit would then be redistilled in a pot still. The famed Carry Nation (almost six feet tall and around 175 pounds) was a member of the Womens Christian Temperance Union, and her antics were recorded by Oscar Getz in his book, Whiskey--An American Pictorial History. It was statewide in some instances, and under various forms of local option (towns, counties, municipalities, or city districts having the right to legislate and enforce prohibition) in others. Trains and Boats and a New Look at Drinking Habits. 7 whiskey won a gold medal at the Louisiana Purchase Exhibition of the 1904 Worlds Fair in St. Louis, and the brand would soon be marketed overseas. Craigs family didnt keep up the tradition of whiskey-making that Elijah started, although a whiskey has since been named for the man. W. L. Weller (W. L. Weller Bourbon), whose grandfather, Daniel, had owned a distillery in 1800, formed a wholesale whiskey business in 1849, using the slogan "Honest whiskey at an honest price.". Around the turn of the century, most saloons were unruly places that served liquor, wine, and beer to almost anyone--young or old, sober or drunk, morning, noon, or night. 1 But the big story of liquor in the 18th century was its dramatic growth as a beverages. Mainly because gin was what the bootleggers had decided to make--and they had good reasons: It is relatively simple to take unaged spirits, straight from the still, add a little oil of juniper, and create gin--not London Dry gin, mind you, a distinctive spirit with myriad natural flavors lovingly distilled into it, but a very crude form of what we now call compound gin, a less-expensive substitute. Weak homebrew beer (typically around 1 to 2% ABV) was the closest thing to potable water in european (and colonial) homes since medieval times. In 1908, she even ventured to Britain and Ireland, where she spread the word of Jesus and His dislike of neighborhood taverns. In 1933, National owned approximately 50 percent of all of the whiskey in America along with a number of notable distilleries, such as the Wathen Distillery (Old Grand-Dad, Old Taylor, and Old Crow), the Overholt Distillery (Old Overholt), and three other distilleries that produced straight whiskey. In the mid-1700s, New England rum sold for around three shillings (0.15) per gallon and was actually used in lieu of currency in what was known as the triangle trade with Africa and the West Indies. Indeed, for every 1,000 bushels of corn used to make alcohol, the leftover mash could feed 30 head of cattle and 15 pigs for 112 days, thus producing 1,000 pounds of beef and 240 pounds of pork. It was too much for the industry to bear. In 1867 the Chapeze brothers founded their first commercial distillery and gave birth to a whiskey that would become known as Old Charter. 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