Old Overholt Barrel Proof--First of its Kind?

[jinenjo]

Here's one for the history books.

This glorious whiskey came into my possession not too long ago. I ended up splitting the bottle with one of our East Bay Study Group members (he kept the bottle, wooden box and cellophane stuffing that it came in). However, I saved some photos of it and thought it would be important to help get closer to settling the question of which modern distillery was the first to produce a barrel proof whiskey. This one was labeled as being at 121 proof. I think I read another thread here or somewhere else that had a different proof, but sounded like the same era bottling. Now that the bottle itself is out of my hands, I can't remember exactly what year it was from---either 1940 or 1941, I think. Odd how it came out at a time when the U.S. was not on firm economic ground. At any rate, this unusually potent, mighty whiskey may be the first of its kind.

As for the taste...oh man, was it good. Only had one tasting of it and that was before Christmas. No notes taken at the time, but I remember it being like berries and cough syrup--raspberries, maybe. So damn rich. There was the question of whether or not it would be any good at all because from what I was told it was stored on its side, and it did have a cork top. The wooden box it came in was horizontal in orientation, leading its owners to simply store it that way. Fortunately, none of us detected any off notes. When I try it again (who knows when that'll be), I'll surely go slow with it and gather some formal notes. In the meantime, its resting quietly in a '70s era Overholt pint bottle---with a screw cap!