Saturday, July 9, 2016

A Little Bit More About David Nicholson 1843



Thursday's post about the revival of David Nicholson 1843 was mostly based on information from Luxco, the brand's current owner, but the connection of the Van Winkle family's Stitzel-Weller Distillery to this small St. Louis brand seemed interesting, so I reached out to family members with direct knowledge for the rest of the story.

The first thing that struck everyone as wrong was the year Luxco acquired the brand. Luxco says it was 2000. The family says it was more like 1984 or 1985 when they sold the brand to the David Sherman Company. (The David Sherman Company was renamed Luxco in 2006).


They also explained that while Nicholson may have started out as a grocery store in 1843, it eventually became a large grocery products wholesaler whose lines included whiskey. They were a major outfitter for the wagon trains heading west from St. Louis. As the advertisement above shows, they also did business in the east, including in New York City.

The St. Louis distributor of the David Nicholson 1843 bourbon brand was the Peter Hauptmann Company, whose chief executive was Roger Anderson. Initially, there was a different distributor in Illinois and, in fact, the brand did a lot of its business on the Illinois side of the river.

After Prohibition, Hauptmann was owned by McKesson. Roger Anderson served in the 82nd Airborne Division of the U.S. Army in World War II, then went to work for McKesson in sales. In 1968 he became General Manager of McKesson's Peter Hauptmann wholesale liquor division in St. Louis. He retired from that position in 1993 or 1994 and died in 2013.

Until 1967, the Hauptmann company owned the David Nicholson 1843 bourbon brand. In that year, Foremost Dairies acquired McKesson-Robbins and the Hauptmann division was forced to sell the Nicholson brand due to cross-ownership rules. Separate from their ownership of Stitzel-Weller, the Van Winkle/McClure family acquired it.

It was a somewhat complicated relationship. The family owned the label and leased the '1843' name and label design (Gold '1843' and green thistle design) back to Hauptmann so they could continue to sell it as one of their 'premium in-house brands.' It was popular in St. Louis, MO; East St. Louis, IL; and Alton, IL. Hauptmann bought the whiskey from Stitzel-Weller and paid Stitzel-Weller to warehouse and bottle it. When the whiskey was shipped, the Van Winkle/McClure family was paid a royalty for use of the brand on a per-case basis.

The contract had an annual renewal but since it was a seven-year-old product, that meant there would be seven more years of agreement so there would be seven more years of whiskey in the warehouses at Stitzel-Weller. If it was not renewed, then the contract would actually terminate after six years.

In the 1970s, they introduced a 'Black Label 1843' that was down-proofed to 92° to reach a lower price point. This was the period when bourbon, especially premium bourbon, was dying all over the country.

This arrangement continued after 1972, when the Van Winkle/McClure family sold the Stitzel-Weller Distillery and most of its brands to Norton-Simon. Old Fitzgerald was the distillery's leading brand so Norton-Simon changed the distillery's name to the Old Fitzgerald Distillery. That distillery stopped producing in 1992 and production of its wheated bourbon was shifted to the new Bernheim Distillery. When United Distillers (which became Diageo) sold Bernheim and the Old Fitzgerald brand to Heaven Hill in 1999, it retained the then-mothballed Old Fitzgerald Distillery, which became known as Stitzel-Weller again.

Although it never distilled again after 1992, Old Fitzgerald/Stitzel-Weller remained active as a maturation and bottling facility. Eventually the bottling house was closed and bottling was transferred to Owensboro and a large, modern bottling house United Distillers acquired when it bought Glenmore, also in 1992. The Owensboro facility, which also includes maturation warehouses, was sold to Barton and later acquired by Sazerac, which owns it today.

In the Glenmore acquisition, United Distillers also got the Medley Distillery, on the other side of Owensboro. When New Bernheim opened they stopped distilling at Medley too and sold the facility to its last Master Distiller, Charles Medley, who never reopened it. Last year, Terressentia bought that distillery and renamed it O. Z. Tyler.

Diageo stills owns the Stitzel-Weller facility, which it uses for maturation and blending, and as a 'homeplace' for its Bulleit Bourbon brand.

At its peak, David Nicholson 1843 sold about 40,000 cases a year. When the David Sherman Company bought it in 1984-85, volume had declined to about 6,500 cases a year. In 1999-2000, the David Sherman Company acquired the Rebel Yell brand and Heaven Hill bought the Bernheim Distillery, which is probably when Heaven Hill became supplier of the whiskey. (Which no one, of course, will confirm.)

Apparently, the David Sherman Company bought Hauptman about the time of Roger Anderson's retirement in 93-94. Anderson remained active in the business until his death and was the St. Louis broker for J. P. Van Winkle and Son.

This is all very inside, of interest to only a few people, but we work hard to get this stuff right and appreciate everyone who generously helps.

20 comments:

  1. Great research, Chuck. So it would be reasonable to suspect that HH is not cooking different wheat recipes, but that David Nicholson, Rebel Yell, and Old Fitzgerald/Larceny are quite likely the same mashbill and distillate and just differ by maybe barrel selection and age?

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  2. I can pretty much guarantee that there is no special '43' recipe. Heaven Hill makes one wheated bourbon.

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  3. Good information Chuck. Thanks.

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  4. Curious, the image of the label depicts "Old Crow" as a David Nicholson product, however, I didn't see any mention of it in the article. Do you have any details on the Old Crow relationship? Thank you!

    Bob

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  5. Nicholson was what we would call a 'merchant bottler' today. They bought Old Crow by the barrel from the distillery and bottled it.

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    1. Wasn't Old Crow a product of National back then, made in Peoria?

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  6. Barton was also making wheated juice. I have personally seen barrels of Barton juice while at Stitzel Weller's old plant in Shively. I couldn't tell from the barrels I saw...whether they were wheated or not, though.

    It sounds like Wild Turkey and David Nicholson have some similarities in their history....both, being owned by large grocery outfits at one time.

    Nice work Chuck

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  7. 'Back then,' in this case is pre-Prohibition, before National Distillers existed.

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  8. I appreciate your website and this information. I live in St Louis and acquired a bottle of David Nicholson 1843 that I believe (imprint on the bottom of the bottle) is from 1986. If that date is correct, and your information, I assume that it is Stitzel-Weller sourced?

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    1. And I’ve got a 2000 DN 1843 label distilled by Old Fitz DSP KY 16 and bottled by DN distillery DSP MO 16. Certainly doesn’t taste like any 70s SW I’ve had. Any thoughts, Chuck???

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  10. David Nicholson was purchase in late 1999 early 2000 by the DSC (David Sherman Corperation) which is now Luxco. This brand is now produced at Lux Row Distillers where their 4yo juice, starting in 2022 will be used for David Nicholson 1843. This brand was purchased directly from the Van Winkle family.

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  11. DSP-MO-16 is Luxco, Inc. St. Louis, MO

    If it was bottled by Luxco it was more likely than not, distilled by Heaven Hill...or at least distilled at BernHeim. I know there was a period of time in the early 2000's that Luxco was claiming on the label that 1843 was distilled at Stitzel-Weller when it couldn't have possibly been...perhaps they were using stock that had been aged there (since the Old Fitz distillery was changed back to Stitzel-Weller in 1999) but Stitzel stopped distilling in the early 70's. I haven't heard of, or seen a bottle that said it was distilled by Old Fitz but bottled by Luxco...it's possible you have some kind of transition bottle. If it was bottled in 2000, it very well could have been from one of the last batches distilled at Old Fitz before they ceased production there in 1992...that would have made the distillate 7-8 yrs old and 1843 still carried a 7 yr old age statement in 2000. Sounds like an interesting bottle for sure.

    I have a bottle from 1983 that says Distilled and Bottled by David Nicholson Distillery Co. DSP-KY-16, which I am told means it was distilled at the Old Fitz distillery under the supervision of the Van Winkle Family, that still distilled there under license from Norton-Simon.

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  12. I have an unopened 1968 bottle of David Nicholsen 1853. Any idea on its value?

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  13. Thank you for the information. More than I found anywhere else. Appreciate your hard work

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  14. I have come across some additional information regarding the David Nicholson 1843 brand...

    I now believe that David Sherman/Luxco did indeed buy the brand around 2000 as Luxco has, to my knowledge, always maintained. According to my research, it appears there was some kind of transaction that took place in 1988 with Schenley Distillers/United Distillers and the Van Winkle family, as United filed a Certificate of Assumed Name with the Kentucky Secretary of State on 9/20/1988 for the David Nicholson Distillery Co. -- however it also appears that the Van Winkle family retained some type of ownership or rights over the brand as further research revealed a separate filing with the Missouri Secretary of State on 2/22/1994 for the David Sherman Corporation to create a Fictitious Name Registration in this state for David Nicholson Distillery Co. -- The strange thing about this '94 filing is that it includes an authorization letter from Julian P. Van Winkle III for DSC to only bottle bourbon under the "Van Winkle Trade Name" of David Nicholson 1843 and also authorizes DSC to use that name as the bottler on the label.

    If the Peter Hauptmann Company was the distributor for 1843, this 1994 filing coincides with the time frame you established that DSC bought Hauptmann and it would also make sense that DSC took over bottling of the Hauptmann products...but obviously the Van Winkle family still had some kind of control over the David Nicholson brand at that time.

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  15. Thanks for this. Based on your research, my research, and what MGP/Luxco says, it's fair to say they own the brand now. The Van Winkles are no longer involved.

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  16. Luxco/MGP still has a lot of whiskey it owns made by Heaven Hill and others but with three distilleries now, they should be entirely on their own liquid in a couple of years.

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  17. Not sure if this thread is still active, however, I found a black label David Nicholson in the downed proof (90.9 proof) from 1976 covered in dust in a cabinet. Is there any value to this bottle? I found it still sealed with the red tax stamp. This article and subsequent comments are amazing, thanks for everyone's research and posting it here!

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