Bourbon Whiskey King Kamehameha

Hallo,

Recently, I have seen a picture with a bottle of an Hawaiian Bourbon Whiskey with the name King Kamehameha. Has anybody ever heart of this whiskey?

Peter

I have heard of the king, but not the whiskey.

Tim

Are you by any chance also known as "Mr. Bourbon" over at the Tiki Central site?

If not, then there are two dogs on the scent.

Here someone named Kono claims to have one.

Yours truly,
Dave Morefield

Yes, if have posted there under this name because webfreak wasn't be available. In that forum I got the tip to post my question in this forum.

Nevertheless, currently without any success.

Someone has seen a bottle of this whiskey in Japan. Unfortunately, the shop wasn't open. Therefore, he only took a photo an sent it to me.

Now I trie to find this whiskey as hard as possible ...

Peter

Hi,

I try to post the label of this bottle. Perhaps, somebody has an idea where to look for this kind of whiskey ...

Peter

http://www.hunsnet.de/king_kamehameha.jpg

This is certainly very interesting. I don't think anyone here was aware bourbon whiskey was (is still?) produced in Hawaii.

Could this be a bottle from the 1970's or earlier when such whiskey was still made there?

If this bourbon is still produced in Hawaii, what is the name of the distiller, surely it must appear on the label? A web search might reveal further information, e.g., is this a new microdistiller? Or is it a longstanding company that has not been noticed previously by those here?

Gary

Hi,

unfortunately, I don't have more information than I have posted. On the label is neighter a hint of the distillery nor of the time when this whiskey was produced? Perhaps, it could be a fake in Japan but it isn't really probable. A web search using different search engines hasn't been successful ...

Peter

Thanks, I searched too and did not find anything specific. I did locate an article in Honolulu Advertiser. In short, a new joint venture is putting out (or will soon) a version of the traditional native spirit of Hawaii (I can't recall the name and it is hard to spell!). It seems a starchy root and other fermentables enter into its composition.

The company that is making it is a joint venture of a gentleman called Thompson, who formerly was a senior executive at Brown-Forman (which makes bourbon and Jack Daniels) and a company called Le Veque which is a California wine and spirits distributor. Le Veque according to the report bought in the mid-1980's a distiller in Hawaii called Hawaii Distillers. That company from the mid-70's on also made a version of the traditional Hawaii spirit but its production ceased a while ago. The new recipe being made or to be made by the joint venture (I am not clear if production has started) is said to be more authentic than Hawaii Distillers' 1970's-era version. The story pictured Mr. Thompson next to a shiny small copper still which looks like a pot still.

I am wondering if maybe this joint venture may be making the King Kamehemha bourbon. Or maybe it was a product of Hawaii Distillers (either before or after its sale in 1987) and bottles are still around. The news story did not speak of bourbon.

Anyway both the Hawaii native spirit (to be sold in two different strengths) and this bourbon sound very interesting. I would like to sample them both.

Gary

It could also be one of those "for export only" brands.
It was mentioned that it was seen only in Japan.

Might it be 'okolehao', or Hawaiian 'whiskey' -- distilled from 25% ti root, 20% rice and 55% cane sugar?
Here's a Kamehameha decanter (sixth item down):
http://www.ukulele.com/hawbrew.html

and here's a story about a distiller who planned to reignite distilling a few years ago:
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/ar.../ln/ln05a.html

I've seen a handful of bottles of this stuff come up occasionally on eBay, but haven't paid a lot of attention to them. Sure enough, there's (an empty) one there now:
http://cgi.ebay.com/KING-KAMEHAMEHA-...QQcmdZViewItem

Oops, never mind:skep: -- just saw your label pic. I wonder if that's from the Sandwich Islands Distilling which planned the new okolehao release.