The Bourbon de Luxe Brand Is Back in the Hands of the Wathen Family

 

Bourbon de Luxe Batch 2024-01, by Rolling Fork Spirits.

I became aware of Bourbon de Luxe in the early 1990s. I was helping Jim Beam Brands absorb the National Distillers portfolio it acquired a few years earlier. Before National, Beam was essentially a one-brand company. National brought a massive portfolio with a surfeit of “cats and dogs,” the industry term for small, regional brands. 

National’s portfolio had products in most distilled spirits categories including about 60 American whiskeys; bourbons, ryes, and blends. The plan was to keep a few (Old Grand-Dad, Old Crow, Old Overholt), sell what they could, and discontinue the rest. Bourbon de Luxe was part of a small group Beam kept but didn’t support. It eventually died of natural causes.

I recall Bourbon de Luxe because the name and label design caught my eye. It was a “value” brand (i.e., cheap), so the “deluxe” part made me snicker, along with the affected, frenchified spelling and vaguely Spanish design, which makes sense now that I know the brand had roots in Texas.

I learned that because Bourbon de Luxe has been revived, as an 8-year-old super premium bourbon ($65). The liquid is sourced from an unnamed Kentucky distillery. It’s only available on Seelbach’s right now, but that could change.

Bourbon de Luxe found its way into National’s portfolio via the American Medicinal Spirits Company (AMS), the largest Prohibition-era consolidation warehouse and medicinal whiskey seller. National was a roll-up of many pre-Prohibition distilleries and brands, but its two biggest pieces were AMS and what was left of the notorious Whiskey Trust. Richard “Dick” Wathen was president of AMS and became a senior executive at National. He was the last “Whiskey Wathen” until Turner Wathen teamed with Jordan Morris to revive Bourbon de Luxe.

The Wathens were among the Catholic families who migrated to Kentucky from Maryland beginning in the late 18th century, populating what became known as the Kentucky Holy Lands, specifically the counties of Nelson, Marion, and Washington. 

The Wathen family patriarch was Henry. He came west in 1787 at age 21. A successful farmer in Marion County, he gained a reputation as a good distiller too. 

Henry’s grandson, John Bernard (J. B.) Wathen, turned the family’s distillery into a major commercial enterprise beginning in 1863. He closed the distillery in Lebanon, in Marion County, and moved his family and business to Louisville. His children attended America’s finest Catholic universities, Georgetown and Notre Dame. His younger brothers Richard Nicholas (Nick) and Martin Athanasius (Nace, Turner's great-great-grandfather) joined him in the business. 

Their principal distillery was at 26th Street and Broadway on the west side of Louisville. That plant was sold to the Whiskey Trust, but the family had other bourbon interests, including the Old Grand-Dad Distillery in Nelson County. Nace ran that. Although we can’t be sure, it’s likely the Texas whiskey merchant who created Bourbon de Luxe in about 1911 bought his whiskey from a Wathen family distillery.

J. B. had three sons. One, the aforementioned Dick Wathen, took over for Uncle Nace at Grand-Dad, then formed and ran AMS with his brothers. During Prohibition, AMS and similar consolidators absorbed many of the brands they had made for customers before 1920, hence Bourbon de Luxe probably was part of the AMS portfolio from the beginning.

Many brands have been revived in the 21st century, often by contemporary members of the founding family. Dixon Dedman did it with Kentucky Owl. The modern-day Pogue brothers made it a family project to relaunch their brand and start a small distillery in Maysville, their hometown. McBrayer descendants have revived the McBrayer and Ceder Brook brands and hope to restore the Cedar Brook Distillery. Though never discontinued, the Yellowstone brand was returned to Steve and Paul Beam, descendants of the Beams and Dants who founded it. The Medley family, connected to the Wathens by marriage, revived the Wathen and Medley Bros. brands.

The liquid in those brands today has no connection to their earlier iterations, which is probably just as well. Bourbon in the old days rarely was aged more than four years. Most of the revived brands were ordinary, “popular price” offerings back in the day, perfectly good whiskey but nothing special. The revived versions? That’s up to you and what you like, but most are in the super-premium price class.

It’s fun to see these old brands on the shelf again, in many cases as a tribute to their founding families, but the whiskey must be judged on its own merits.