pre-pro whiskey

[silverfish]

Over on the Whisky forum, a member who claims his company

has "...one of, if not THE, largest collection of pre-prohibition

whiskey in the world." posted a photo of some old bottles. I

thought some of you might enjoy seeing these:

1911 JB Beam

NV Yellow Label Rye (probably around 1920s)

1916 Pebble Ford (bottled 1933)

NV Bellows Hotel Berkeley Special Reserve Rye

1912 Old Crow Rye (bottled 1920)

1900 Boone's Knoll (photocopy label)

1898 Golden Wedding Old Rye

[unclebunk]

Wow. That's an awesome photo. I wish I could stumble into a collection like that!

[bourbonv]

John and Linda Lipman have a much larger collection. I would bet they have 50 or 60 pre-prohibition bottles in their collection of over 700 bottles (Only about 150 unopened since John and Linda likr to drink whiskey instead of just look at it.)

Mike Veach

[silverfish]

John and Linda Lipman have a much larger collection. I would bet they have 50 or 60 pre-prohibition bottles in their collection of over 700 bottles...

Well the poster did say that the bottles shown were

"Pulled a few for a client order and took a picture..."

so those might only be a sample and not the extent

of the collection.

[dridge11]

Hey guys....that's my post over on the other forum, silverfish pointed me over here. I'm getting a little bit of a scotch/bourbon collection going at home and always found forums a great way to gain knowledge and read about other people's experiences.

That collection at work is quite fascinating. Just to sort of qualify my statement about the size of the collection, it currently takes up about 6 pallets. For example, I believe there are about 70 bottles of just the 1911 Beam, and 100+ bottles of the "Yellow Label". There is probably 1 pallet worth of old Eau de Vie, strange flavored liquor, cognac, and probably 50 bottles of pre-embargo rum.

I've been fortunate enough to try several of them...1904 Stewarts Rye, the NV Yellow Label, Virginia Gentleman, one called Applejack something, Old Hermitage (which I think is an 1890s bottling), Old Overholt, Johnny Rebel, and some Kentucky Caves.

[silverfish]

Welcome, dridge. Glad you decided to join up!

Can you explain what your work/job is? Just my

curiosity as to what kinda place has pallets full of

old-time whiskey laying around.

And if you ever have to pull bottles for other clients,

I'm sure the folks here (including me!) would appreciate

seeing photos.

[dridge11]

I work for a high end wine retailer doing a bit of everything. Mainly working with a very few clients to help them develop their wine collections. Before I started with the company, the two founders came into this collection of whiskey/spirits and jumped on it with the intentions of "figuring it out later". So, it's something we're sitting on for a while and have only sold a few bottles here and there to our very top clients. 98% of what we do is wine.

I'll certainly do more photos as we pull them out, though those occasions are pretty few and far between. We are going to take on a project next year to make some nice reprinted labels (noting on the labels that they are not originals) for those that are very badly torn and rewaxing the tops on many as well, documenting everything along the way.

[cowdery]

Prohibition-era bottlings like the Pebble Ford are pretty common. I've always considered it ironic that so many bottles survived unopened from a period when liquor was supposed to be so hard to get.

I've always been surprised that we don't see more pre-Prohibition bottlings, since undoubtedly a lot of people stocked up before Prohibition went into effect, yet very few bottles from that era have surfaced.

One explanation could be that Prohibition-era bottles tend to appear in small groups, somebody who had and kept one or two bottles. Stashes of pre-Prohibition hooch may be in larger quantities...like the 70 bottles of Jim Beam. Someone in possession of such a collection and wanting to sell it would be wise to do so discretely.

[spun_cookie]

Someone in possession of such a collection and wanting to sell it would be wise to do so discretely.

....and I can be contacted at any time via PM, phone, email, morse code, Ham radio, smoke signal or any other form you wish to use...

[AntiqueBourbon]

I have 9Bottles

Sunny Brooks Rye 1890's

Old Taylor BIB 1915/1920

Belle of Anderson County 1916/1924

Dowling Bros. BIB 1916/1924

Cream of Kentucky BIB 1916/1931

Old Grand-Dad BIB 1916/1931

Old Taylor BIB 1916/1933

Old Overholt 1916/1933

Special Old Reerve 1916/1933

Sunny Brook and Belle of Anderson is very Good Taste.

Old taylor 1933 and Old grand-dad1933 is very woody.

Special old reserve is bad condition,

Left 4bottles is unopened.

[cowdery]

Technically, it's only "pre-pro" if it was bottled before Prohibition. Everything you have, except the Sunny Brook, was bottled during Prohibition and is, therefore, considered Prohibition-era medicinal whiskey. Still a nice collection.

[AntiqueBourbon]

Hi, Cowdery

Sunny Brook is pre-pro,other is medicinai whikey.

I have a LINCOLN INN whikey,but label was left.

When was it released?

Please teach it if I know it

Thanks.

[cowdery]

pre-pro.com is the best place to research pre-pro brand names.

[Dutchie66]

http://www.pre-pro.com/midacore/view_vendor.php?vid=YUL11774