Prohibition

[AntiqueBourbon]

12/05/1933, The prohibition was finished.

In prohition, What distilleries were made a medicinal whiskey?

I think that 6 distilleries were made a medicinal whiskey.

Four Roses,Brown-Former,Buffalo Trace,What is another 3 distilleries?

My favorite whiskey in prohibition is a Belle of Andeson county:grin: .

[bourbonv]

The distilleries that sold during prohibition were: Brown-Forman, Glenmore, Frankfort Distilleries (Four Roses now), Schenley, American Medicinal Spirits (became National Distillers in the late 20's, now owned by Beam) and A. Ph. Stitzel Distillery (W.L.Weller amd Sons piggy backed on their license before the formal merger after prohibition).

Mike Veach

[AntiqueBourbon]

The distilleries that sold during prohibition were: Brown-Forman, Glenmore, Frankfort Distilleries (Four Roses now), Schenley, American Medicinal Spirits (became National Distillers in the late 20's, now owned by Beam) and A. Ph. Stitzel Distillery (W.L.Weller amd Sons piggy backed on their license before the formal merger after prohibition).

Mike Veach

Thanks,Mike Veach

http://chuckcowdery.blogspot.com/2008/12/bt-launches-repeal-day-tour.html

Buffalo Trace was one of four distilleries that remained open legally during Prohibition, to sell whiskey for "medicinal purposes."

What is this mean?

Schenley is Buffalo Trace?

Let me know please.

[bourbonv]

The Geo. T. Stagg distillery was part of the Schenley organization. Schenley was selling their whiskey during prohibition, but did not purchase the distillery until prohibition was almost over.

For the record, nobody was legally making whiskey in the United States from 1918 when WAr Time Prohibition went into effect until 1929 when the government allowed 3 million gallons of spirits per year to be produced to renew the stocks of medicinal spirits sold in pharmacies. The Stagg distillery did produce for Schenley during that time (1929-1933) when prohibition was in affect.

Mike Veach

[shoshani]

For the record, nobody was legally making whiskey in the United States from 1918 when WAr Time Prohibition went into effect until 1929 when the government allowed 3 million gallons of spirits per year to be produced to renew the stocks of medicinal spirits sold in pharmacies. The Stagg distillery did produce for Schenley during that time (1929-1933) when prohibition was in affect.

I've also read that Stagg produced for both Frankfort Distillers (Four Roses) and Brown-Forman during that time. Brown-Forman, of course, has since passed this favor on to another distillery when it leased its facilities to Heaven Hill after the fire.

[bourbonv]

Actually it was A. Ph. Stitzel Distillery that distilled for Brown-Forman in 1929 and Frankfort up to the time they sold Frankfort Distilleries the Story Avenue distillery when they opened Stitzel-Weller.

Schenley was large enough that all of the Stagg capacity was used for their needs. Schenley was slightly smaller than National by 1929 and would briefly surpass them when prohibition was repealed.

Mike Veach

[cowdery]

Hey, Mike. Can you fill in a couple blanks for me?

Who owned Stagg until Schenley bought it?

Who actually distilled after 1929. Stagg and Stitzel did; did anyone else?

Three millions gallons per year was permitted, but how much was actually made?

[bourbonv]

Chuck,

I don't recall the exact names of the people, but Stagg was owned by a group of investors who acquired it as prohibition began. I believe Blanton was involved with them.

Stitzel, Stagg, Glenmore and I assume one of the National Distillers distillery - Sunnybrook in Louisville or Old Grand Dad in Frankfort, maybe both. I am judging this from whiskey made that year on the Liberty national Bank inventory list from 1934 showing whiskey of that age in the warehouse. Stitzel had letters in the Van Winkle collection discussing the terms for distilling for Brown-Forman and Frankfort so I know they did the distilling in 1929 for those companies.

I would say all 60,000 barrels were made each year.

Mike Veach

[shoshani]

(A. Ph.) Stitzel had letters in the Van Winkle collection discussing the terms for distilling for Brown-Forman and Frankfort so I know they did the distilling in 1929 for those companies.

Really, could it get much better than wheated Old Forester? :-D

What's really interesting to me is how all the post-Prohibition distillers had a number of younger brands, usually 90 proof, to sell alongside the flagship BiB. Some are straights, some are bourbon blends, and I'm surprised at how much blended whiskey was sold by the BiB giants. There is a terrific collection of ads starting from about 1936 here:

http://graphic-design.tjs-labs.com/table-view?keyword=WHISKEY&match=EXACT

We would not think of, for example, Brown-Forman today as anything but the producer of top-quality Old Forester and Woodford Reserve, plus middling Early Times...but in the late 1930s and early 1940s they were selling Old Forester BiB as a premium bourbon, 90 proof Early Times KSBW as "real man's whiskey", 90 proof Bottoms Up KSBW as a budget whiskey, Old Tucker as a blend of four straight bourbons, and King as a blended whiskey. Glenmore, Schenley, National Distillers - it seems that everyone in the industry was doing this with the exception of Stitzel-Weller. I can't find an S-W blend being advertised in this collection; the lightest whiskey they show is a 1959 advertisement for Cabin Still, which was apparently in several expressions because the ad says it's 86-91 proof.

I can only presume that this was done a) because of insufficient quality aged stocks due to Prohibition, so that if the BiB whiskeys were slow sellers they could still move the product in blends, and c) to try to recapture the market from the "white spirits" category by creating slightly lighter, "milder" whiskeylike products.

Today's market is different; BiB has a stodgy image that the distillers are trying to get away from, but unlike distillers of 70 years ago their direction is toward older expressions of higher proof. 70 years ago whiskey that didn't sell was dumped into blends, while today it sits in the barrel until it's 10...12....18....23 years old, after which it's bottled and sold as a premium expression. Good for the distiller and good for the consumer.

[bourbonv]

Stitzel was distilling to the requirements of Brown-Forman and was not making a "wheated Old Forester."

You are right about the blends for the most part. Everybody had a blend that tied them over by stretching their aged stocks of whiskey. Stitzel-Weller had "Carolina Club" as their blended product. Of course the blended products were a business necessity until about 1951 when aged whiskey became plentiful in the market.

Mike Veach

[shoshani]

The line about wheated Old Forester was only partially facetious, but I was unaware that one distillery would be working with the requirements of another distillery. That's something that does not come readily to my mind in this era of trade secrets.

Plus, I was under the possibly misguided impression that during Prohibition those who were selling brands would just be bottling whatever they could get their hands on and selling that as their brand. IE, Brown-Forman bought Early Times in 1920-something to get their stocks of whiskey; I just assumed that they were selling Early Times distillate as Old Forester so that they could keep the trademark alive.

Sort of like when a distillery (say, Wild Turkey) augments their stocks by buying in from another distillery (say, Buffalo Trace); they aren't buying whiskey that was made specifically to their specs, although the specs may be close enough to match. And the BT distillate becomes Wild Turkey even though it wasn't distilled at Ripy.

[bourbonv]

To a certain extent you are correct in your beliefs. The distillers were purchasing whiskey from other companies to keep the brand alive. They were also bottling whiskey for companies that had thir brands in the consolidation warehouses and simply charging a storage fee, a bottling fee and a small sale commission.

For example: Stitzel sold Henry McKenna brand during prohibition. They never owned the brand or the whiskey, but the McKenna's had their whiskey in Stitzel's warehouse. Stitzel (and W L Weller and Sons since they were sharing the license) would sell Henry McKenna at a sales fee of $1.00 per case. Stitzel charged the storage fee for the barrels and the bottling cost (material and labor) out of the sales as well. The McKenna's ended up with about 55% to 60% of the money.