View Full Version : David Nicholson revived
OK, I did my research and still have a question. I was recently in IL and a friend had 2 bottles (ltr) of David Nicholson 1843 bourbon, one we sampled and he was kind enough to sell me the other. It says on the back label "distilled and bottled by Stitzell-Weller". It also says "original 43 recipe". He said the guy who gave them to him (years ago) knew Julian I, and got them from him. He also said it was distilled in MO at one time. I found it a delightful whiskey, but it didn't taste like a wheater to me (but SW OF doesn't taste like a wheater either). I'm sure in 1843 there were no wheat whiskeys, or am I wrong? Did SW ever make a rye based whiskey? Last question, was it ever made in MO and if so when? Thanks for the help guys and gals.
Thanks Chuck. do dah, do dah
I've got a bottle of 'David Nicholson 1843' BIB 7yo S1960-F1967 in my bunker. It was my belief that this brand from this era was a private label bottling of S/W.
I need to open that puppy and try it ....
BourbonJoe
08-16-2010, 10:04
I thought it was Stitzel-Weller also.
Joe:usflag:
It clearly states Stitzel Weller on the back. My two questions remaining are: 1) Did SW ever make a rye based whiskey? and 2) Were there wheat bourbons in 1843?
I don't know if anyone can say definitively that SW made rye-recipe bourbon but we've always assumed they probably did somewhere along the line.
We really know very little about how wheated bourbons began. We don't even know for sure that SW started making wheated bourbon right away. One thing that we know did happen right after Prohibition is that bourbon makers went right back to making bourbon exactly as they had before the drought. When that whiskey matured, many consumers didn't like it. They had gotten used to the lighter, milder whiskeys from Scotland and Canada that they had been drinking. The bourbon producers scrambled to produce a lighter product and it may have been then that SW started to make wheated bourbon.
As for who made wheated bourbon before Prohibition, we assume it was made but we don't know by whom. There are some suggestions in the record but nothing definitive.
One thing we do know is that SW was making wheated bourbon before Maker's Mark started, so wheated bourbon was not 'invented' by Maker's.
p_elliott
08-17-2010, 08:59
One thing we do know is that SW was making wheated bourbon before Maker's Mark started, so wheated bourbon was not 'invented' by Maker's.
My god man are you trying to rewrite bourbon history by the gospel of Bill Samuel's.
I don't know if anyone can say definitively that SW made rye-recipe bourbon but we've always assumed they probably did somewhere along the line.
We really know very little about how wheated bourbons began. We don't even know for sure that SW started making wheated bourbon right away. One thing that we know did happen right after Prohibition is that bourbon makers went right back to making bourbon exactly as they had before the drought. When that whiskey matured, many consumers didn't like it. They had gotten used to the lighter, milder whiskeys from Scotland and Canada that they had been drinking. The bourbon producers scrambled to produce a lighter product and it may have been then that SW started to make wheated bourbon.
As for who made wheated bourbon before Prohibition, we assume it was made but we don't know by whom. There are some suggestions in the record but nothing definitive.
One thing we do know is that SW was making wheated bourbon before Maker's Mark started, so wheated bourbon was not 'invented' by Maker's.
Thanks Chuck,
I guess my questions will only be answered by a best guess. I do appreciate your taking the time to respond.
StraightBoston
08-17-2010, 13:54
I believe that Julian (III) has confirmed elsewhere that David Nicholson was identical to Old Fitz, but in a different label. Not private label per se, but definitely targeted at the St. Louis market.
I think it still exists under Luxco as a variation of today's Rebel Yell...
jburlowski
08-17-2010, 16:01
I don't know if anyone can say definitively that SW made rye-recipe bourbon but we've always assumed they probably did somewhere along the line.
We really know very little about how wheated bourbons began. We don't even know for sure that SW started making wheated bourbon right away. One thing that we know did happen right after Prohibition is that bourbon makers went right back to making bourbon exactly as they had before the drought. When that whiskey matured, many consumers didn't like it. They had gotten used to the lighter, milder whiskeys from Scotland and Canada that they had been drinking. The bourbon producers scrambled to produce a lighter product and it may have been then that SW started to make wheated bourbon.
As for who made wheated bourbon before Prohibition, we assume it was made but we don't know by whom. There are some suggestions in the record but nothing definitive.
One thing we do know is that SW was making wheated bourbon before Maker's Mark started, so wheated bourbon was not 'invented' by Maker's.
I thought that wheated bourbon went back at least as far as Wiliam Larue Weller (the distiller) Here's one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Larue_Weller) reference that says 1849. Then there is this old thread (http://www.straightbourbon.com/forums/showthread.php?p=28912).
Wasn't Weller just a rectifier? Pappy was just pedaling glorified GNS for awhile.
Later Stitzel Bros made the Mammoth Cave and W.L. Weller whiskies for Weller(DBA). Weller had warehouse receipts with Stitzel. Stitzel made Modamin and Merryland Rye for themselves. I assume Mondamin was a wheated bourbon, maybe not. Stitzel also made whiskies for other clients . Probably made various recipes.Weller(Pappy) later bought the "Old Fitz" label from the Hurbst fellow. This was important because OF was a big seller and commanded a premium price. Note they just bought the label, not the whiskey or any recipe.When Prohibition ended, Pappy joined Weller in building the Shively, Ky plant and promoted the Old Fitz,Weller,Cabin Still and Farnsley's Rebel Yell.
S-W also sold warehouse receipts(for cash flow) and a big customer was Oscar Conrad (Conrad Grocery in St. Louis). S-W bottled the whiskey for them under the "Nicholson 1843" label. What goes around comes around.
Stitzel Bros and the father, Jacob Stitzel were masters at distilling and most likely perfected the Wheated Bourbon, but that is just my assumption.
This info was obtained from Sam Cecil's book and the PVW "BAFB".
Buffalo Trace made a short-lived attempt to push the idea that W. L. Weller originated wheated bourbon but there is zero evidence to support the claim. Buffalo Trace is usually very good about responding to my questions. They may refuse to answer if they consider the information proprietary but they respond. When I asked them how they could support the claim, they didn't even respond. If evidence was ever discovered that it did originate with Weller it would be a hilarious coincidence, since the people making the claim made it up out of thin air.
According to Veach there is evidence that Weller owned at least one distillery, but that doesn't make him a distiller. Of course, Pappy Van Winkle wasn't a distiller either.
I don't know that Julian Van Winkle has ever expressed an opinion but his sister, Sally, who literally wrote the book on SW, has said she believes it came from the Stitzels.
Certainly by the end of Prohibition distillers knew you could use wheat instead of rye and they knew what happened as a result. It wasn't a mystery. I believe it was known that a rye recipe bourbon would be palatable at a younger age and that may be why Will McGill made at least some wheated bourbon in those early days after 1933. It's possible that many companies did. By the time Pappy Van Winkle began to brag about it we can assume there weren't many distilleries still doing it, because he positioned it as a point-of-difference for Old Fitzgerald.
To me it's more likely that SW was simply the last of many making a wheated recipe rather than the one-and-only until Maker's came along.
Just perusing the Sally Van Winkle "Pappy " book again. She states that the Old Fitz(Herbst's Old Judge version) was produced on a special sour mash formula. Was this the wheated recipe? And did this pass along to PVW with the purchase of the label? And by 1937 there was a 17yr old Old Fitz ready for mint juleps. Was this Old Judge whiskey( there was some in the S-W warehouses, having been bottled by them for Herbst during Prohibition)?
Plus in the book you can see Will McGill testing some whiskey. Behind him is a bottle of Mammoth Cave Rye. Another indication of the various whiskies made at Stitzel-Weller. If they made Straight Rye, why not a Rye grain Bourbon?
It has long been suspected, though I forget why, that Henry McKenna was wheated when it was made by the McKenna family.
Sally Van Winkle does not suggest, in the book or elsewhere, that Herbst's Old Fitzgerald was ever wheated. Nor is there any evidence suggesting that wheated bourbon was ever made at Old Judge. Although I don't recall the family name at the moment, the family who did all the distilling at Old Judge was never associated with wheated bourbon.
That doesn't prove Old Fitzgerald wasn't wheated before Prohibition, there's just no evidence either way.
But, yes, we know SW made straight rye, so why wouldn't they have made rye-recipe bourbon too? Also, we know that from 1910 to 1920, Stitzel made rye-recipe Tennessee whiskey.
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