George Dickel History

[bourbonv]

Gary has made some comment about "yellow whiskey" being used to describe Tennessee whiskey and comments upon some Dickel he had at the Bourbon Festival. While his comments are interesting I think he might be a little confused as to exactly what he had that night (or maybe not, so Gary feel free to correct me if I am wrong) and I thought some history might help here.

George Dickel started as a wholesale liquor company inn Nashville who found the best whisky came from the Cascade Hollow distillery in Tulahoma, so he bought all of their production and eventually the distillery. The distillery ran until prohibition came to Tennessee in 1910 and they were forced to move their operation to Louisville. There they signed a contract to use the Stitzel distillery on days when Stitzel was not making whiskey and even put in the charcoal leaching vats to make their whisky.

During prohibition the Stitzel distillery and W L Weller and Sons sold their whiskey as a medicinal whiskey, but the Shwab family still owned the whisky and the trademarks. After prohibition the brand was sold to Schenley who continued to make Cascade bourbon and George A Dickel's Cascade Corn whisky. In the late 50's, after Schenley failed to purchase Jack Daniel's, they decided to rebuild the Cascade distillery and introduced George Dickel, dropping the Cascade name because of the association of the name with a bourbon over the past 20 years. I think Gary is decribing the Corn Whiskey as the product he drank at the Festival. I have seen pre-prohibition Cascade and it is as red as any bourbon. I have seen (and drank) post prohibition Cascade bourbon and it too is red. I have seen, but not tried the George A Dickel Cascade Corn whiskey and it is more yellow than red.

Mike Veach

[gillmang]

It was definitely a 1950's Dickel corn whiskey, it was a bottle of John Lipman's, John maybe you can post a photo. I speculate it was sold to the public to get revenue in before the whiskey was aged sufficiently to become the regular George Dickel marketed (initially in the "powder horn" bottle) in the early 1960's. That corn version might have been aged, say, six months or a year in new charred barrels which would have given it just enough color to be a sunny yellow. Or it might have been kept in reused cooperage and been a separate product from George Dickel Tennessee Whiskey. The original (pre-World War 1) Tullahoma whisky might have been red, like Jack Daniels, but my point was Carson cites and makes a number of comments stating Tennessee whisky was yellow. I infer the run-of-the-mill Tennessee was essentially a high corn mash distillate not aged very long (whether in new or used barrels) but leached through maple charcoal, a process apparently little used in Kentucky.

In other words, I speculate that:

(i) the premium whiskey product in both states was whiskey aged in new charred wood and coloured red;

(ii) the one in Tennessee probably was influenced by Kentucky practice in this regard;

(iii) corn whiskey in Kentucky continued of course to be available but was not (or not typically) leached through maple charcoal prior to barreling; and

(iv) corn whiskey was available in Tennessee, too, but was generally subjected to the leaching process and thus acquired reputation as compared to Kentucky corn, and this Tennesse corn whiskey was the yellow whiskey of which Carson wrote.

In seeking to find a (relatively) modern equivalent to the old Tennessee yellow whiskey I think John's 1950's George Dickel corn whiskey was just that because it was light yellow and (I asssume) had been leached through maple charcoal. Also, it was noticeably milder in palate than HH's Mellow Corn which of course is not put through maple charcoal.

The old regular-issue Tennessee yellow whisky was I think considered (by many) superior to Kentucky corn but not superior to Kentucky whiskey aged more than 2 years in new charred wood (i.e., bourbon), and to make a whiskey as good as bourbon, Jack Daniel and George Dickel and his original supplier may have emulated the Kentucky practice and made a Crow-type whiskey, that is. This was a more expensive whiskey because aged for longer than corn whiskey and in new charred barrels - hence perhaps the renown of Tennessee whiskeys such as Jack Daniel and the original Tullahoma whiskey - maybe that is why they flourished by comparison to the rest of the Tennessee competition.

To add another wrinkle, even regular Jack some years ago could look yellow in color but in any case Lem Motlow certainly was and I think represented that old yellow Tennessee whiskey - basically again a corn whiskey aged for a time but distinguished by the crucial draining through burned maple wood before barreling.

Gary

[bourbonv]

Gary,
Schenley did not charcoal leach the Cascade products made by them. The brand was often bottled using product from different distilleries across the state - usually as a way to sell the remaining product after it was shut down. That corn was simply a standard corn whiskey. Schenley made quite a bit of corn whiskey for their blends and aged it in used cooperage.

I will have to go back to Carson and read what he has to say and maybe I can track his source. I have never had much luck tracking his sources though - that is one reason I am not too fond of Carson.

Mike Veach

[gillmang]

But Mike, the George Dickel that was issued in fully aged form in the early 60's was charcoal leached (this being a hallmark of the Tennessee style). Does it not stand to reason that the young aging whiskey might have been released as corn whiskey, say 6 months or a year after distillation and storage? How do you know it wasn't made at Tullahoma? Maybe John can show a close up photo of the label of the whiskey I am referring to, I thought it said it was made at the distillery. Anyway it tasted like a milder version of Mellow Corn, quite as if leached through maple charcoal, denuded of its hog tracks as it were (is that a mixed metaphor?:)).

Gary

[bourbonv]

Gary,
The young whiskey they did release from the Dickel distillery was called Tennessee Walker and had a Tennessee Walking Horse on the label. It did not last long because of trademark lawsuits. This was a blended whiskey and could have been mostly corn and young Dickel, but I doubt it. Their sales predictions were high and they thought they needed all they could make for aging.

You have to remember that Schenley owned maybe twenty distilleries in its time and even in the late 50's they still had about 12. There was no need to rush into production the product from the new distillery.

Mike Veach

[gillmang]

Well, they might have tanked the corn in and put it through the charcoal vats before barreling. Anyway, I hear you But John, let's see a picture of that bottle if you can, it was a cool one and the corn was good.

Gary

[bourbonv]

Gary,
John spent last week on the east coast area and I think he and Linda will be in Pennsylvania for a while so they probably won't be responding for a while. If you go their web site they have images of most of their collection. Why don't you look for it there. If you do let us know.

Mike Veach

[TNbourbon]

John posted a picture of his corn whiskeys earlier in this thread:
http://bourbonenthusiast.com/forum/view ... 06&start=0

Are you discussing, perhaps, the "Pride of Tennessee" bottling he brought to the Sampler in April? If so, it's there.

This link does credit it to Dickel, with first use of the label in 1960:
http://www.bottlebooks.com/American%20M ... dickel.htm

[gillmang]

Thanks, Tim, that is the one, Pride of Tennessee. It seems at the bottom of the label to state, "Bottled by", not "Distilled by" (which the Mellow Corn of Heaven Hill clearly states, for example). So Mike may be right that it was not made at the new Dickel plant set up in the 1950's. However the trade mark information you found is interesting in that Pride of Tennessee's first use is stated as 1960 whereas George Dickel's first use was in 1964; this is why I thought Pride of Tennessee might be a younger version of the same distillate. But even if it isn't, it may have been run through maple charcoal vats before being barreled (or re-barreled). Maybe the label states that although one can't see it from John's photo.

So maybe, John, on your return to Cincinatti you can tell us if the label advertises use of maple charcoal leaching or states (elsewhere than on the bottom front label) that it was distilled at the Geo. Dickel plant in Tullahoma.

What a great line-up of corn whiskies in that picture though, I wonder if the early 20th century corns shown taste like the modern versions.

Gary

[Strayed]

Well, I've now reached this part of trying to catch up with bills, correspondence, email, thank-yous, "sorry-about-the-late-payments", and so forth (and my grandchildren are still visiting, so I only get a few minutes for the internet).
Please forgive the delayed response.

Our bottle of "Pride of Tennessee" appears to have been made in '59, which would support the idea of it being bottled in 1960. But there's no reason to think that was the beginning of its use, or that it was originally made for bottling corn whiskey. The bottom actually has "55 59" molded in and may have been intended for a four year old conventional-mash whiskey. The bottle's shape and moldings are very remeniscent of Jack Daniel's, so much so that a decision might have been made not to use it for the main George Dickel product. As is often done with different lines of product, the bottler is identified only as the Tennessee Mountain Distilling Company, Tullahoma, Tennessee. Neither "Cascade" nor "Dickel" appear anywhere on the label, but the person we bought this (as well as a bottle of Tennessee Walker) from is a friend of Ralph Dupps, who gave them to him years ago, so I'm pretty confident that they were Dickel products.

As you can see in the photos below, the label identifies it as "Sour Mash". I think that's the only example we have of corn whiskey that's labeled Sour Mash. The label also states that the whiskey is six months old. Other than that it's the same sort of label-fiction you'd expect to see on any whiskey bottle.

As for the "Lincoln Process", I'm not convinced that it was all that universal in Tennessee. Mike has found evidence that whiskey in southern Kentucky was being processed similarly at the time Jack Daniel was making whiskey. And I tend to think of both Daniel's and Dickel as brands that moved to Missouri and Kentucky, where they became bourbons before being relocated back to Tennessee to take up the Lincoln County Process and Reagor Motlow's Tennessee Whisky banner. I doubt that it was used for the corn whiskey; no one that I've tasted it with has noticed the characteristic smokiness of Dickel or JD. Has anyone here ever actually (shudder) OPENed a bottle of priceless Lem Motlow and tasted it?

[gillmang]

Very interesting, thanks. The label is a bit coy: it refers to Tullahoma water being used (which would suggest Dickel manufacture) yet on the front label it says, "bottled by", which argues for the position Mike has taken. The only way to know if this was, (i) made at the Dickel plant set up in the late 50's, and (ii) subjected to the maple charcoal leaching process, would be to ask someone who worked there. This is a while ago, some 45 years ago, but there may be people now in their 70's who remember these details. But how to find them..?

Note also the use of "white corn", Mike just finished quoting mid-1800's correspondence showing this was a mark of pride in Kentucky whiskey manufacture. As late as 1959 or so, it was still a mark of pride, in old Tennessee in this case.

Gary

[Strayed]

The label... refers to Tullahoma water being used (which would suggest Dickel manufacture) yet on the front label it says, "bottled by", which argues for the position Mike has taken. The only way to know if this was, (i) made at the Dickel plant set up in the late 50's, and (ii) subjected to the maple charcoal leaching process, would be to ask someone who worked there.

(1) Interesting that you should bring up the water, Gary. You're not only observant but you're also good at sequeing into further comments!!

Y'see, it just so happens that another item I learned in the course of obtaining this bottle is that Tullahoma residents (including commercial sites) can no longer drink the famous Tullahoma water. At some point (I don't know when) Tullahoma was forced by Federal requirements to convert to getting water from the Duck River instead of from "Big Spring". But it's not unusual for distilleries to tout their wonderful natural water from wells or springs driven deep into the limestone aquafier, despite the fact that only their coolant water is obtained that way, and all their production water is deionized processed municipal water as required by FDA standards.

(2) The new Dickel distillery began operating around 1958. The first George Dickel Tennessee Whiskey was bottled in 1964. The "Pride of Tennessee" trademark originated in 1960 according to the BottleBooks website. All of that is quite consistant with a product aged 6-months. I don't think it's a matter of releasing a short-aged iterim product so much as the fact that there is a tradition of corn whiskey in Tennessee (still, even though it was more common then) and that allowed production (bottling lines, distribution, warehousing, etc.) to be developed and implemented (and fine-tuned) in anticipation of what was expected to be a very busy schedule starting in '64.

(3) You really can't get a better example of "someone who worked there" than Ralph Dupps, who was the man who not only designed and built the distillery, but whose obsession with bringing the old Cascade Distillery back to Tullahoma is why there is a George Dickel whiskey in the first place. The person we bought this bottle from has been a close friend of Dupps and his family for many years and Ralph personally gave him a case of this and another of Tennessee Walker. I'm pretty sure this was distilled at Dickel. Dupps is still alive; there is a photo of him as guest of honor at the reopening of the visitor center at the distillery in the current issue of the Cascade Hollow Courier (Dickel's fan magazine).

[gillmang]

The label says "every drop" was made with that Tullahoma spring water so I would think in 1958-'59 it was used for the mash unless one can pinpoint when the switch in the water source took place. Note also the labels states "corn and other grains". This is consistent with a bourbon-type mash (which can include 80% or more corn) although I don't recall what the corn content is of the regular Dickel, it could be under 80% (although was it in 1964?) and if so that would suggest the corn whiskey we are discussing is a different whiskey from what became the regular George Dickel. But even still this corn whiskey might have been, i) distilled at the plant set up in 1958, ii) made with some rye, iii) leached through maple charcoal, and iv) aged in new charred barrels since corn whiskey can, but does not have to, be aged in reused barrels. I would think item iii) at least likely because in the 1800's we have surmised much whiskey in Tennessee was sold young after submitting to such process; having gone to the trouble of recreating this process at Dickel in 1958 why would it not have been used for this alternate label of the company, especially for a whiskey 6 months old? The fact that it doesn't taste smoky is neither here nor there since reports of tasting white dog before and after leaching through maple charcoal do not report a smoky taste in the leached product but rather a smooth, more refined taste. Even aged Jack Daniel has only a subtle taste of smoke (ditto George Dickel). I believe the smoke that is detectable in the fully aged Tennessee products come mostly from the charred barrel. I think charcoal leaching is intended to trap some of the fusel oils, not to flavor the product.

But still, it is possible this Pride of Tennessee was not leached through maple charcoal and may not have been made at George Dickel.

Gary

[bourbonv]

Here is a more complete Dickel History that I made at United Distillery.

[MikeK]

Mike,

During a "back lot" tour of Buffalo Trace, Ken Weber told me that the stone structure in the picture below was known as the "Dickel House".
He said that Dickel was produced there from 1905 until 1919 due to prohibition.

I have not seen mention of this anywhere else. What say you?

Thanks,
Mike