Regan & Imorde Bourbon - Mellwood Distillery Co. (Louisv

[George.Imordeiii]

Looking for photos, bottles, labels, etc from an early 1900s Mellwood Distillery Co. brand named Reagan and Imorde or Coon Hollow.

Any information would be helpful.

Thanks.

[bourbonv]

According to Mida's Trademark Registery from about 1900, the Coon Hollow trademark was registered to the Nelson County Distillery Co. and had been in use since 1883. I do know that the brand also came to Louisville with the Yellowstone Distillery in 1935.

The Mellwood distillery was a Louisville Distillery that made whiskey for the bulk whiskey market here in Louisville. Brown-Forman used their whiskey along with the Mattingly whiskey made in St. Mary's Kentucky, for their Old Forester brand. I suspect that this is also the case for Reagan and Imorde. They were probably whiskey merchants who bought whiskey from Mellwood and maybe sole agents for Coon Hollow brand out of Nelson County.

The Mellwood distillery was located on Mellwood Avenue in Louisville and there are no remaining buildings left. It was in 1910 listed in Mida's Financial index as Distillery Number 14, 5th District owned by the New York firm of Kentucky Distilleries and Warehouse Co. which had a AAAA rating, meaning a value of $1,000,000.00 and above. Regan and Imorde is listed in the same book as being located in the Paul Jones Building with a rating of F, $10,000.00 to $15,000.00. Theyu are not listed as having a distillery of their own.

If you will PM me a mailing address, I will copy these pages and send them to you.

[George.Imordeiii]

Are any of the Mellwood Distillery Brands still in existance today?

I read somewhere that they sold some of their brands to Jim Beam? Maybe Old Crow and Old Granddad??

Thanks.

[cowdery]

So, what's the picture? And what is the source of the attached PDF? It's almost verbatim for what Sam Cecil has in his book (p. 84).

As Mike said, Mellwood sems to have mainly sold in bulk to distributors. Before Prohibition especially, a very large number of distilleries did this. The wholesalers developed and owned most of the brand names, not the distillers. Did Mellwood ever market any brands? The PDF says there was a Mellwood brand. That probably was it.

Crow and Grand-Dad were both National Distillers brands that went to Beam in 1987 when Beam acquired National. Before Prohibition Grand-Dad was owned by the Wathens and Crow was owned by a New York-based company called W. A. Gaines and Co. Before 1987, Beam was basically a one-brand company, that brand being Jim Beam Bourbon.

As Cecil and your PDF say, Mellwood was sold to the Whiskey Trust in 1896, and Henry Imorde became vice-president. Cecil adds that, in 1908, Imorde was still around, as Secretary and Treasurer, but in that year he left Mellwood to form the Regan and Imorde Distilling Co., which was "another satellite of the trust."

In 1924, Seton Porter reorganized what was left of the Trust as the National Distillers Products Company, intending to make industrial alcohol and other legal products, but also in anticipation of a swift conclusion to the "Noble Experiment." One of his first investments after that, followed by an outright acquisition, was in the American Medicinal Spirits Company (AMS), which was the Wathen family's operation, which had by then also absorbed Old Crow, so there's the sort-of roundabout connection between Grand-Dad, Crow and the Trust, although Grand-Dad and Crow came into National through AMS, not through any connection to the Trust.

[George.Imordeiii]

Thanks for the reply. I really am in the initial stages of all of this research. I would love to find Mellwood or Reagan and Imorde memrabilia one day? Or even pics of the distilleries/properties!

The attached picture is what my grandfather did in Louisville. He owned and operated what was first a Grocery Store. It grew into a well know business lunch restaurant after that. My father ended up running it in the end until it burned down.

I got the PDF from a Friend that works at Four Roses.

Check out these weblinks:
-mentions Mellwood and 1916 Fine Old Bourbon (??)

http://www.bottlebooks.com/american%20m ... _compa.htm

-shows Reagan and Imorde glass
http://www.pre-pro.com/midacore/view_gl ... id=RRP2280

-shows a possible connection between Reagan and Imorde and Coon Hollow????
http://www.pre-pro.com/Edmonson/pages/HSG47.html


let me know what you think after viewing.
thanks.

[cowdery]

I'm pretty familiar with pre-pro, a great resource, but bottlebooks is new to me. Thanks for that.

It seems possible that Mellwood made Coon Hollow, but it's unlikely it owned the brand.

Do you have an address for your family's store in Louisville?

[George.Imordeiii]

1257 S. 3rd, Louisville

corner of 3d and Ormsby

http://www.courier-journal.com/blogs/bo ... chive.html

[bunghole]

1257 S. 3rd, Louisville

corner of 3d and Ormsby

http://www.courier-journal.com/blogs/bo ... chive.html

ima slept there!

[bunghole]

or damned close to it.

[George.Imordeiii]

ima?

[bunghole]

ima?

ima saint bunghole. to know me is to love me.

facts of life are like that.

saintima

[bourbonv]

The Filson Historical Society is across the street at 1310 S Third and they own the parking lot where the building used to stand.

[George.Imordeiii]

Found this pic of Coon Hollow.............bottle says Reagan and Imorde on it.