Weller Barrel Proof

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Weller Barrel Proof

Unread postby bourbonv » Thu Jun 14, 2007 5:42 pm

I was in the the archives at Stitzel-Weller today with Howie, Doug and Roger. We were looking at an old label book for Stitzel-Weller and examining the label samples. We were looking at the Weeler Barrel Proof labels and the oldest we noticed was from 1949. The proofs were anywhere from 104 proof to 110. The ages were from 6 years old to 104 months in age. It just shows that Pappy Van Winkle and his marketing crew were way before their time when it came to offering unique bottlings of premium bourbons. Julian's Grandfather knew his stuff so it shows that he is from a long line of excellent whiskey men!
Mike Veach
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Unread postby Mike » Thu Jun 14, 2007 6:28 pm

I wonder did the good Pappy ever leave any notes as to what he looked for in a whiskey. What were his criteria for selecting the best whiskies.........and, to press the issue even further, what do his talented descendents look for when they are selecting barrels. I know there are 'proprietary' considerations here, but still I wonder. I suspect that even if they told us, we are lacking the experience to make any use of that 'verbal' information.
Last edited by Mike on Fri Jun 15, 2007 9:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Unread postby cowdery » Thu Jun 14, 2007 8:34 pm

You have to remember that Pappy was never a distiller, he was always a salesman. Pre-prohibition, Weller got most of its whiskey from the Stitzel Distillery (the Stitzel men were the distillers). Weller acquired Stitzel while Prohibition was still underway. They had a medicinal license and got permission to crank up their stills before Prohibition even ended, ostensibly to replenish medicinal stocks but really because, by then, the handwriting was on the wall that Prohibition would be repealed. Pappy turned to Will McGill, who was married to Joe Beam's sister and who had worked with Joe Beam at various places over the years. McGill immediately called several of his Beam nephews and that's who made SW whiskey in Pappy's day. How much Pappy had to do with selection I don't really know, but it was his company so he had say over whatever he wanted to have say over.

It was Julian's father who starting to buy barrels from SW for his Old Rip Van Winkle line and other business he was doing.

All that said, I'm sure all of the Van Winkles have forgotten more about what makes good whiskey than the rest of us will ever know.
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Unread postby bourbonv » Sat Jun 16, 2007 10:53 am

Mike,
Chuck is correct when he states athat Julian Van Winkle was not a distiller but he is mistaken when he implies that W L Weller and Sons acquired A Ph Stitzel Distillery. They came together in a partnership so it would be equally as wrong to say that A Ph Stitzel Distillery acquired W L Weller and Sons.

What happened was that when prohibition came along Stitzel had a license to sell and W L Weller and Sons piggybacked upon that license as well. They could do this because the A Ph Distillery officers were A Hp. Stitzel - Pres., Alex Farnsley V.P., Julian P. Van Winkle Sec.-Treas. and the Officers of W L Weller and Sons was Julian P Van Winkle Pres., Alex Farnsley V.P., and A Ph. Stitzel Sec.-Treas. This developed into the formal partnership and merger of the companies after prohibition.

Van Winkle was the salesman of the group. He had a talent for marketing and sales as well as being very good at managing salesmen. Farnsley was the money man who also was an executive at the Bank of St. Helens in what now is Shively. Stitzel was the distiller who came fro a distilling family. His father and uncles had founded Stitzel Bros. distillery and the Glencoe brand before selling out to the Hollenbach family. His uncle staid on as distiller until prohibition. Another uncle of his designed the barrel ricking system used in warehouses today. He opened his own distillery on Story Avenue and that distillery (DSP17) was the distillery that made whiskey during the latter part of prohibition for not Stitzel and Weller companies, but also Frankfort Distilleries and Brown-Foreman.

Stitzel was a distiller but by the time that the distillery started making whiskey in 1929 he was hiring people to make the whiskey for him. He hired Elmer Beam in 1929 and I do believe that it was Elmer Beam and A Ph. Stitzel who designed what would become the Stitzel-Weller wheat recipe for bourbon. It is interesting that so many people today say that wheated bourbon has to old, as in over 6 years old, to be good. It was designed as a bourbon that would taste good at ages as young as 1 month old. It was Stitzel's way of filling the shelves with their whiskey when prohibition was over.

When the Stitzel-Weller distillery was built, I presume that Elmer Beam stayed with the new owners of the Story Avenue Distillery, Frankfort Distillery. Stitzel-Hired Will McGill as distiller andthere were several Beams that came to work for him. There were also some Medley and Dant relatives as well. In many cases the they were a combination of the three families.

It all comes back though to the fact that Pappy Van Winkle was a marketing man before his time. He and his crew at Stitzel-Weller came up with many new, interesting concepts such as barrel proof W L Weller. It was because of the successfull marketing crew led by Van Winkle that Will McGill and the distillery crew were able to make the whiskey, because if you can not sell bourbon and make money at it, you don't make bourbon and a lot of people become unemployed.
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Unread postby cowdery » Sat Jun 16, 2007 7:31 pm

While I'm sure it was technically a merger, it was the principals of W. L. Weller, in particulatr Pappy Van Winkle, who came out on top in the combined company, which I why I referred to it as an acquisition. The fact that Van Winkle and Farnsley were already officers of A. Ph. Stitzel tells me the takeover was well underway.

Of course, this happened many times, that a broker would wind up owning the distillery that supplied it with whiskey (e.g., George Dickel and Cascade Hollow). I don't think it ever happened the other way around, i.e., a distiller taking over a wholesaler.
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