Bourbon Month
Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2007 7:58 pmThis year DISCUS had September named "Bourbon Heritage Month". That reminded me that this was done before and all of the distilleries had special price during the month and the trade magazines had articles about bourbon and its heritage. On Saturday I was in the archive at United Distillers looking for something else and I decided to look up some of the bourbon month information.
September was named "Bourbon Month" by the Bourbon Institute in 1964. The Bourbon Institute was lobbying and promotional organization formed in the 1950's to promote bourbon worldwide. They later merged with the Distilled Spirits Institute to form DISCUS. There is more information on all of this than I found in the short time I looked on Saturday, but I did find a 1965 Beverage Media magazine from New York that had about 20 pages of bourbon articles as part of the second annual "Bourbon Month" of september 1965. The articles discussed the distilling process, bourbon history and cocktail recipes. I know that Schenley took it further than just the trade magazines and did in store promotiuon for bourbon during the month of September. It lasted through the 1960's and into the early 1970's and maybe longer than that. After about 1974 the trademagazines were not kept by Schenley, or at least they never made it into the archive at U.D.
The purpose of "Bourbon Month" was to put a focus on bourbon. When it first started bourbon was king in the United States and it was not until later in the decade that sales started to decline leading into the 1970's. It seems that it was a good idea before its time that was later forgotten by the industry.
September was named "Bourbon Month" by the Bourbon Institute in 1964. The Bourbon Institute was lobbying and promotional organization formed in the 1950's to promote bourbon worldwide. They later merged with the Distilled Spirits Institute to form DISCUS. There is more information on all of this than I found in the short time I looked on Saturday, but I did find a 1965 Beverage Media magazine from New York that had about 20 pages of bourbon articles as part of the second annual "Bourbon Month" of september 1965. The articles discussed the distilling process, bourbon history and cocktail recipes. I know that Schenley took it further than just the trade magazines and did in store promotiuon for bourbon during the month of September. It lasted through the 1960's and into the early 1970's and maybe longer than that. After about 1974 the trademagazines were not kept by Schenley, or at least they never made it into the archive at U.D.
The purpose of "Bourbon Month" was to put a focus on bourbon. When it first started bourbon was king in the United States and it was not until later in the decade that sales started to decline leading into the 1970's. It seems that it was a good idea before its time that was later forgotten by the industry.