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) 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. 

PBS Show About a Civil War Tragedy Has a Whiskey Connection

 

The E. J. Curley Distillery, later known as Kentucky River, was on the site of Camp Nelson, a Civil War Union Army base.

Last night, PBS broadcast an episode of its “Secrets of the Dead” series entitled “The Civil War’s Lost Massacre.” Although the documentary doesn't explore it, the story takes place in Kentucky so, naturally, there is a whiskey connection. We’ll get to that in a moment.

Here is the show synopsis from PBS: 

Originally a supply depot for Union forces in Kentucky, Camp Nelson became the site where 10,000 Black soldiers trained in the Civil War. But in the war’s last months, these soldiers were attacked by bitter Southerners. Their remains have never been found, and a team is dedicated to finding them to memorialize their service and heroism. "Secrets of the Dead: The Civil War’s Lost Massacre" is a production of Wide Awake Films for The WNET Group and Kentucky Educational Television.

Now for the whiskey part.

In addition to being a recruitment and training center for Black troops, Camp Nelson was a massive, 4,000-acre, fortified supply depot and troop encampment. The Union Army used it to stage an invasion of eastern Tennessee. It is on the Kentucky River, upstream from Frankfort, in Jessamine County near Nicholasville, about 15 miles south of Lexington.

This part of the river is flanked by steep limestone bluffs that make crossing difficult. The site for Camp Nelson was selected in part because of a natural ford there, at the mouth of Hickman Creek. That's where Edmund (E. J.) Curley built his distillery.

Curley was an Irish immigrant from Massachusetts. He may have spent time at Camp Nelson during the war as a civilian contractor. One of his partners in the distillery venture, Dwight Aiken, had been a captain in the Commissary Department.

Curley named his distillery after Boone’s Knoll, a well-known local landmark. Boone's Knoll is typical of the round-topped hills known as knolls or knobs. The early 20th century Kentucky watercolorist, Paul Sawyier, painted many landscapes there, including at least one showing the famous hill from the mouth of Hickman Creek. 

Because of the ford, Curley and Aiken were able to build parts of the distillery on both sides of the river. It was quite a place. Unlike most Kentucky distilleries, which were ramshackle affairs, Boone’s Knoll was beautifully constructed with limestone walls and hardwood timber beams. 

Curley’s main brands were Boone’s Knoll and Blue Grass. They made bourbon, rye, and other spirits. Successful at first, by the late 1880s the company was struggling. In January of 1888, the bookkeeper shot and killed the plant’s resident U.S. Treasury agent. A year later, the company’s assets were seized for non-payment of taxes and other debts. Curley was done. He sold everything to the Kentucky Distilleries and Warehouse Co., the Kentucky arm of the notorious Whiskey Trust.

The Trust’s purpose was to limit production throughout the industry to keep prices and profits high. It bought many distilleries only to close them, but not Boone’s Knoll. It continued to operate under the E. J. Curley name. It only closed at Prohibition. 

Because of the fine buildings and spectacular views of the Kentucky River palisades, the distillery was converted into a resort hotel during Prohibition, where whiskey might be obtained if you knew how to ask.

After Prohibition it became a distillery again, owned by members of the Hawkins family and others. They called it Kentucky River. The Hawkins were involved in several distilleries in nearby Anderson County on both sides of Prohibition, including the distillery now known as Four Roses. They eventually lost financial control of Kentucky River but stayed on as employees.

Founding families yielding control, with some family members remaining as employees, is a recurring pattern in the story of American whiskey. 

Following Prohibition and the shortages of World War II, most distilleries thrived during the post-war boom. Kentucky River did okay. It did well enough to build six new, modern maturation warehouses on high ground about a mile north of the distillery. In 1959, Kentucky River changed hands again, this time acquired by a huge conglomerate known as Norton Simon Incorporated, which gave it a famous if incongruous name: Canada Dry.

Somerset Importers, which in the structure of Norton Simon was Canada Dry’s parent, was started by Joseph Kennedy, father of President John F. Kennedy, to import scotch and gin from the United Kingdom immediately after Prohibition’s end. In the late 1950s, in anticipation of his son’s presidential run, Kennedy sold anything that might be considered disreputable, including Somerset and the Hialeah racetrack.

In the mid-1960s, the post-war boom began to slow. Many businesses didn’t adjust fast enough and overproduced, an especially critical error for whiskey makers because of the long aging cycle. Canada Dry overproduced. As if that weren’t bad enough, its brands were not especially popular, and its whiskey was not very good.

By the end of the decade, Norton Simon knew it had a problem. They weren’t alone. Another distillery with a problem was Louisville's Stitzel-Weller, unsettled following the death of its owner, Pappy Van Winkle. Norton Simon decided to buy Stitzel and blow out the excess Canada Dry inventory in Stitzel’s popular Cabin Still brand. In 1972, the combined company became Old Fitzgerald Kentucky River.

The Camp Nelson distillery never made whiskey again. There was a fire and as the warehouses emptied out, the six new ones on high ground by the highway were leased to Seagram’s. Everything else was abandoned. Those warehouses are now owned and used by Wild Turkey. Together they hold about 120,000 barrels. As you drive south on US-27, the Wild Turkey warehouses are on the right and the national cemetery is on the left.

The E. J. Curley brand was revived in 2021, and its owners hope to restore the Camp Nelson facility.

The area around Camp Nelson is scenic. The Kentucky River palisades are beautiful. Nearby attractions include the Camp Nelson National Monument and National Cemetery, the Curley distillery ruins, a state park, and the Jim Beam Nature Preserve. The preserve is a Nature Conservancy property created in 1995 to celebrate Beam’s bicentennial. Suntory continues to donate funds for maintenance and general care of the 115-acre preserve, which is open to the public.

Did a Bourbon Family Murder Inspire the Song “Careless Love”?

 

Bessie Smith had the first hit with "Careless Love" in 1925.

The tremendous success of Old Crow, the first modern bourbon, produced several fortunes in the decades before Prohibition. Few profited more than the Berry family. Hiram Berry joined the firm after the deaths of founders James Crow and Oscar Pepper. He was succeeded by his eldest son, George. 

Both men were prominent members of Kentucky’s bourbon aristocracy. George Berry may have been the wealthiest person in the state. He was married to Mary Bush, from a prominent Louisville family. As such, Mary’s younger sister, Cornelia, was George Berry’s sister-in-law. Her sensational murder in Louisville in 1895 is believed to have inspired the classic blues song, “Careless Love,” according to W. C. Handy, to whom it is attributed. 

For the rest of the story, a real "true crime" tale, you need to subscribe to The Bourbon Country Reader.

Proudly anachronistic, The Bourbon Country Reader remains paper-only, delivered as First-Class Mail by the United States Postal Service, which is not allowed to deliver bourbon but can handle this.

A six-issue, approximately one-year subscription is just: 

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Formerly Great Company Yields to Blackmail by White Supremacist

 

In the new issue of The Bourbon Country Reader, I try to put a positive spin on the ghastly decision by Brown-Forman to discontinue its programs to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) at the company.

Brown-Forman owns Jack Daniel’s and several other leading spirits brands. It is one of the Big Four, who make about 70 percent of America’s whiskey.

The decision is ghastly because Brown-Forman caved to right-wing extremists, specifically one Robby Newsom, who goes by the name Robby Starbuck. He threatened to call for a boycott of Jack Daniel’s like the one that devastated Bud Light.

So, what’s the positive spin?

It’s not so much positive as it is a clarification of who this decision harms. One problem with opponents of diversity initiatives is their misrepresentation of what DEI is and does. DEI as practiced is not what they say it is. They claim it harms more qualified white male candidates by giving jobs to less qualified ‘diverse’ candidates, i.e., women and people of color. That isn’t true, but Newsom and his supporters don’t care. Opposition to DEI is a proxy for their white supremacy agenda.

In this issue of The Reader, I describe my personal experience working on DEI for a major American retailer, not in the beverage alcohol business, and I explain why Brown-Forman's decision will primarily harm Brown-Forman. I don't usually use the first-person voice, but I do here because I'm writing about my personal experience, including with Brown-Forman, which spans 40 years.

Also in this issue, we ask the question "Did a Bourbon Family Murder Inspire the Song 'Careless Love'?" I'll tease this one a bit more in a few days. If you enjoy "true crime," it's quite a tale, and it will take more than one issue to spin it all out.

Proudly anachronistic, The Bourbon Country Reader remains paper-only, delivered as First-Class Mail by the United States Postal Service, which is not allowed to deliver bourbon but can handle this.

A six-issue, approximately one-year subscription is just: 

$25 for mailing addresses in the USA. 

$32 for everybody else. (That is, addresses on earth but not in the USA. Interplanetary service is not yet available.)

The links above take you directly to PayPal, where you can subscribe using PayPal, Venmo, or any major credit card.

If you are unfamiliar with The Bourbon Country Reader, click here for a sample issue. 

If you prefer to pay by check, make it payable to Made and Bottled in Kentucky, and mail it to Made and Bottled in Kentucky, 3712 N. Broadway, PMB 298, Chicago, IL 60613-4198. Checks drawn on U.S. banks only, please.

This $12 Bourbon Is Pretty Good, and It Comes with a Story

 

Clark & Sheffield bourbon, $11.99/750 ml, 45% ABV.

The name "Clark & Sheffield" may mean something to you if you are a fan of the Chicago Cubs baseball team. Clark Street borders Wrigley Field to the west and Sheffield Avenue borders it on the east. 

So, what does that have to do with a $12 bourbon I picked up yesterday? Are the Cubs making bourbon now? 

I'll explain all that in a minute, but first, the whiskey.

Clark & Sheffield is the house brand for Binny's, the principal booze retailer in the Chicago region. On my visit yesterday, I also picked up a Clark & Sheffield Pinot Noir and a Clark & Sheffield Tawny Port. I've had good luck with the Clark & Sheffield brand. Good quality, good value.

This is my first time with the bourbon. It's good, a nice 90° proof and the lack of age statement means it is at least 4 years old. It's nothing special but is a perfectly good, standard bourbon. I was surprised, quite frankly. Not a thing wrong with it. For $12, it's a lot better than it needs to be. I could drink this all day.

Everybody these days seems to be chasing unicorns, bottles that sell for thousands on a shadowy secondary market. Or they want the latest "limited release," usually priced at $80 and up, if you can even find them at retail at the "suggested" retail price. Fine, if that's what you're into, but the Binny's I shopped yesterday (Portage Park, 4901 West Irving Park Road) had dozens of perfectly good bourbons and ryes for under $30, a few under $20, and at least one other tempter in the $12 range. The store was particularly well-stocked with Benchmark Bourbon, including the handle at $22.99. 

Why pay more? If all you want to do is drink good bourbon, it's still an inexpensive pastime. 

Binny's, of course, didn't make this whiskey. Who did? The label says "Distilled, aged, and bottled by the Founders Company, Louisville, KY." A quick trip to the web site of the Kentucky Secretary of State tells me the Founders Company is an assumed business name for Sazerac, whose two Kentucky distilleries are Buffalo Trace in Frankfort and Barton 1792 in Bardstown.

So, what's the story?

The founder of Binny's was Harold Binstein. He opened his first store in 1948, under the name Gold Standard Liquors, and the store's address was Clark & Sheffield. How is that possible? The ballpark, after all, has been there since 1914. 

It's possible because Clark Street is a diagonal. Wrigley is bordered on the east and west by Clark & Sheffield, with Addison Street its southern border. Binstein's Gold Standard was at the intersection of Clark & Sheffield, one block south of the ballpark. The original store burned down in the late 1960s, but was rebuilt and was there until recently, still operating as Gold Standard. It was relocated to make way for public transit construction.

Turns out, the shadow of Wrigley Field was a good place for a liquor store. From that single location in 1948, Binstein grew a chain, still called Gold Standard. They were mostly small stores, in neighborhoods like Wrigleyville. About 30 years ago they opened a "superstore," wanted to give it a different name, and used Harold Binstein's nickname, "Binny." At about the same time, they acquired two local, independent "superstores," Sam's and Zimmerman's. Today, Binny's is run by Harold's son, Michael. The family still owns it. Binny's now has 46 locations. Their slogan is, "If you can’t find it at Binny’s, it’s probably not worth drinking."

They're not wrong.

Although the Chicago Cubs and their owners, the Ricketts family, have nothing to do with the booze business, there is another Chicago sports connection that does. The Wirtz family, which owns the Chicago Blackhawks hockey team, also owns a big chunk of Breakthru Beverage, a leading North American beverage wholesaler.

Has the Next Great Whiskey Glut Begun?

 

Whiskey maturing in Kentucky.

Ever since the “bourbon boom” began, about 20 years ago, people have speculated about a future whiskey glut. Now, we have data.

Bernstein is a research firm that helps institutional investors manage their portfolios. Research firms like Bernstein release partial findings to the public when they have something newsworthy to report. 

In their most recent American whiskey analysis, as reported in Wine & Spirits Daily, Bernstein notes that current inventory levels in the wholesale and retail channels are higher than usual. The amount of whiskey aging in barrels is at historic highs, too. The 2022 inventory of 12.6 million barrels represents about 8.5 years of demand, a 150 percent increase over the previous decade. 

Berstein believes a significant excess supply of U.S. whiskey is likely over the next five years. If demand does not increase but remains where it is, supply will outstrip demand by 1.29 million barrels by 2028. 

Like Bernstein, The Bourbon Country Reader only gives you part of the story for free. The rest is in the current issue (Volume 22, Number 4). You have to subscribe, but it's a lot less than Bernstein.

Proudly anachronistic, The Bourbon Country Reader remains paper-only, delivered as First-Class Mail by the United States Postal Service, which is not allowed to deliver bourbon but can handle this.

A six-issue, approximately one-year subscription is just: 

$25 for mailing addresses in the USA. 

$32 for everybody else. (That is, addresses on earth but not in the USA. Interplanetary service is not yet available.)

The links above take you directly to PayPal, where you can subscribe using PayPal, Venmo, or any major credit card.

If you are unfamiliar with The Bourbon Country Reader, click here for a sample issue. 

If you prefer to pay by check, make it payable to Made and Bottled in Kentucky, and mail it to Made and Bottled in Kentucky, 3712 N. Broadway, PMB 298, Chicago, IL 60613-4198. Checks drawn on U.S. banks only, please.

The House that Old Crow Built

 

Seaview Terrace, also known as the Carey Mansion, in Newport, Rhode Island.

If you recognize the mansion pictured above, it probably has nothing to do with Old Crow Bourbon. The house is famous in its own right, as the fifth-largest of Newport's famous summer houses. (The Breaker's is number one.) It has appeared in movies and TV shows, most famously as Collinwood, the palatial home of the fictional Collins family in the 60s gothic soap opera, "Dark Shadows." (Lots of bad stuff happened in that tower in the middle.)

Unlike Collinwood, Seaview Terrace was not built in the 18th century. It was completed in 1925 by Edson Bradley, president since 1882 of W. A. Gaines & Co., makers of the most successful bourbon of the Gilded Age, Old Crow.

The Old Crow enterprise was begun in Versailles, Kentucky by James Crow, a distiller; Oscar Pepper, a farmer/distiller; and a local banker, E. H. Taylor. The business was reorganized several times, usually after a death, such as Crow's in 1856, and Pepper's in 1865. Taylor found two new investors, one of whom was William Gaines. The new firm was called W. A. Gaines & Co., and he became its president. His death shuffled the deck again, although his name would remain on company letterhead to the end and appears on the Old Crow label to this day.

Old Crow was very successful, but a growing whiskey company constantly needs more capital. Taylor found it at a New York investment firm. In 1870, Taylor exited the company, selling his interest to the president of that firm, George Allen. After Gaines died, the president of Allen's New York investment firm also became president of W. A. Gaines & Co. Bradley took the reins in 1882 and held the job until Prohibition put them out of business in 1920.

But Bradley was, by then, already crazy-rich. A New Yorker, he had moved to Washington, D. C. to be closer to the government that was increasingly sticking its nose into his whiskey business. In 1907, he built a French-Gothic mansion on the south side of Dupont Circle. It covered more than half a city block, and included a Gothic chapel with seating for 150, a large ballroom, an art gallery, and a 500-seat theatre.

The onset of National Prohibition disgusted Bradley so he decided to quit Washington for Newport, Rhode Island, but he liked his house, so he took it with him. Disassembly began in 1923. He added it to an existing mansion, known as Sea View, completing the combined house in 1925. He died in 1935, age 83. His descendants kept the house until the 1940s. It has had many owners since but is still privately owned. 

Old Crow money built at least one other grand house, in Frankfort, Kentucky. That story is here. 

Nothing now is the way it was back then, but people still chase whiskey fortunes.