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David Nicholson revived


Stu
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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.

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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 ....

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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...

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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 reference that says 1849. Then there is this old thread.

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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".

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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.

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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?

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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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  • 6 years later...

BUMP!  Too much good information for this thread to be lost in history.  Plus, I bought some DN 1843 today and feel obligated to share.

 

Montgomery County MD has a sale (through 30 June 2017) on the David Nicholson 1843 (100 proof wheated) which is on shelves and the DN Reserve (100 proof rye forward bourbon) which is sold out right now.  Price for the wheated ($22 regular, $19 on sale) is fair, especially considering OWA @ 107 proof is unfindable if you aren't standing there when it is delivered and Larceny is 92 proof at about the same price ($22).  Rumor has it that Luxco (which bought the brand from the Van Winkle family in 2000) buys its wheated distillate from HH which makes and sells Old Fitz and Larceny.  Since I can't find Old Fitz BIB anymore, I figured . . .

 

For me, it starts a little hot on the first sip; I don't associate that with bonded wheateds other than Old Fitz BIB.  Mouthfeel is like Old Fitz BIB (I think I remember that).  Honey, butter, some vanilla, but not as complex as, say, a rye forward BIB bourbon. Not bad for a 100 proof wheated bourbon at $19-22 per 750.

 

AND, I CAN FIND IT!

 

Some British resale sites "say" it is 7 years old although the bottles are not so marked, the DN and HH sites don't say so, and the British sites don't give a reference.  I do note that Bernheim, a wheat whiskey (50+% of the primary grain is wheat instead of corn) is made by HH and is age stated as 7 years.  I just pulled out my open Bernheim (90 proof), and it does NOT taste like a slightly diluted 1843.  Indeed, they are NOT similar.

 

I've seen sites (and Virginia ABC) selling it for up to $30.  I don't think I'd pay that unless I was tired of drinking my regular bourbons at that price.  But at $22?  With hot weather coming up?  Cheaper than MM?  You bet.  Disclosure - I get no compensation for saying nice things; I was surprised at how much I liked it.

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I picked one up about 2 years ago for something like $12, and it's still sitting around in the back of my cabinet. It has a quite overpowering funk similar top wt101, but different. I have to believe most people will either love it or hate it based on the funk.

Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk

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I find DN 1843 to be an excellent 'blending bourbon' (or mingling, if the word blending offends).    It is so "non-character" (to my paste buddies, all corn syrup and a bit of caramel corn), that it can be used to moderate one with too much age (oak) without just watering it down, since it is 100-proof.   Thinking about it in this way, I find it a useful brand to have around.    The older iterations actually had a little more going on; but the newer stuff doesn't have much depth, and is therefor useful in this way.

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12 hours ago, b1gcountry said:

I picked one up about 2 years ago for something like $12, and it's still sitting around in the back of my cabinet. It has a quite overpowering funk similar top wt101, but different. I have to believe most people will either love it or hate it based on the funk.

Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk
 

Agree on the funk completely.  Very earthy.  Different than WT to me (which I love).  Not a fan of this one.  Those who like earthy bourbons will probably like this quite a bit

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Agree on the funk completely.  Very earthy.  Different than WT to me (which I love).  Not a fan of this one.  Those who like earthy bourbons will probably like this quite a bit

Yeah, it's funny because side by side they taste very different, but when I have the DN, it just reminds me of the WT101
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On 6/20/2017 at 9:07 PM, Harry in WashDC said:

BUMP!  Too much good information for this thread to be lost in history.  Plus, I bought some DN 1843 today and feel obligated to share.

 

Montgomery County MD has a sale (through 30 June 2017) on the David Nicholson 1843 (100 proof wheated) which is on shelves and the DN Reserve (100 proof rye forward bourbon) which is sold out right now.  Price for the wheated ($22 regular, $19 on sale) is fair, especially considering OWA @ 107 proof is unfindable if you aren't standing there when it is delivered and Larceny is 92 proof at about the same price ($22).  Rumor has it that Luxco (which bought the brand from the Van Winkle family in 2000) buys its wheated distillate from HH which makes and sells Old Fitz and Larceny.  Since I can't find Old Fitz BIB anymore, I figured . . .

 

For me, it starts a little hot on the first sip; I don't associate that with bonded wheateds other than Old Fitz BIB.  Mouthfeel is like Old Fitz BIB (I think I remember that).  Honey, butter, some vanilla, but not as complex as, say, a rye forward BIB bourbon. Not bad for a 100 proof wheated bourbon at $19-22 per 750.

 

AND, I CAN FIND IT!

 

Some British resale sites "say" it is 7 years old although the bottles are not so marked, the DN and HH sites don't say so, and the British sites don't give a reference.  I do note that Bernheim, a wheat whiskey (50+% of the primary grain is wheat instead of corn) is made by HH and is age stated as 7 years.  I just pulled out my open Bernheim (90 proof), and it does NOT taste like a slightly diluted 1843.  Indeed, they are NOT similar.

 

I've seen sites (and Virginia ABC) selling it for up to $30.  I don't think I'd pay that unless I was tired of drinking my regular bourbons at that price.  But at $22?  With hot weather coming up?  Cheaper than MM?  You bet.  Disclosure - I get no compensation for saying nice things; I was surprised at how much I liked it.

Harry, I bought a bottle last last year.  I didn't like it at all.  I gave it away.  I would be very surprised if it is anywhere near 7 years old.  I'm glad you found some pleasure in it.  Maybe I didn't give it enough of a chance.

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10 hours ago, meadeweber said:

Harry, I bought a bottle last last year.  I didn't like it at all.  I gave it away.  I would be very surprised if it is anywhere near 7 years old.  I'm glad you found some pleasure in it.  Maybe I didn't give it enough of a chance.

THX, but maybe you DID give enough of a chance.B)  At $22, I figured I'd try it and had no expectations and found it worth the price to me.  Like Rich mentioned above, I also found it works in cocktails.  On hot days when I've been working outside, though, rye forward bourbons without ice sometimes taste "off" to me.  Wheateds less so.  This bottle will get a workout over the next two weeks due to the heat.  Upon reflection, I do like Bernheim better even at $10 more, but as a filler at $22, it is ok with me. 

 

EDIT - For those of you thinking of trying it, I recommend buying ONLY one bottle even if it is on sale if you can't find it by-the-drink.

Edited by Harry in WashDC
free, but exceptionally good, advice added
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  • 2 weeks later...

I picked up a bottle today for $11.99.  It's one of the new bottles with the cork stopper. Before this I had only tried the infamous BIB (that's not BIB) version.  For the price I paid this is a very good bourbon. When perusing the bottle shelf this is the bottle to reach for. 

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  • 6 months later...

A bottle of DN 1843 has shown up around here recently that is labeled BIB and clearly states DSP-KY-16 on it.  I've read that they were bottled for quite a period with that label after they were no longer actually BIB or SW. Are there any dates to the "infamous BIB" timeline?

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My guess is you found a bottle from maybe 2 or 3 years ago (distilled at DSP-1)

I believe DSP-16 stopped distilling in 1992.

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