Gary: You are correct. Judge McBrayer was well aware of his product's reputation and also that, once it was no longer under his control, the quality would likely be compromised in the name of lower costs and higher profits. So, in the mistaken belief that it would do some good, he is said to have registered some legal documentation that limited the use his name as the brand after a period of (I believe you mentioned) three years following his death.
But, as we all know, if one designs a foolproof protection, someone else will simply find a better fool.
In 1888, the Final Gavel came down for the Judge. And, although the brand remained in the McBrayer family for at least seventeen years, they appear to have found a way to get around McBrayer's "restrictions" and thus were able to continue capitalizing on the old man's name and reputation.
They simply changed the brand from "Cedar Brook -- W.H. McBrayer" to "Cedar Brook -- formerly W.H. McBrayer". A little like Roger Nelson, a musician better known by the stage name "Prince", a name that became contractually the property of Warner Bros, who refused to release it when he severed relations with the company in 1994. Apparently, WB made it clear they intended that Prince (who had, by that time, legally changed his personal name to match) would not be able to make use of the tradmarked brand name for the next six years until his contract expired, and they may have implied that they intended to apply the brand "Prince" to another musician at their discretion. This was (and remains) a common practice in artist contracts and has destroyed many a musician, or at least put them at a severe disadvantage in business negotiations. Nelson's rather bold (and quite effective) counterplay was to establish the completely original and unique name of
(which can be neither spelled nor pronounced), and declare himself to be "The Artist Formerly Known As Prince". People laughed. People ridiculed the name and the idea. But they knew who he was, and they bought his records and went to his shows. And Warner Bros were left with a brand name they legally owned, but could not practically use because any dollars they might expend promoting the name "Prince" would have done little more than benefit their competitor.
At any rate, in 1905 the heirs to Judge McBrayer's distillery sold the brand to Julius Kessler, better known as the developer of the notorious Whiskey Trust. Kessler was not contractually bound by anything McBrayer may have stipulated to his family and, with the high ethical standards often associated with the Whiskey Trust, the company apparently continued including the old founder's name on the label for awhile, after which the American Medicinal Spirits Co. bottled both Cedar Brook and also "Old McBrayer" throughout prohibition. National Distillers continued both brands for awhile after repeal; I don't know if McBrayer's name was still used on Cedar Brook by that time.
The bottle we have is Cedar Brook with the
"formerly W.H. McBrayer" statement, so we know that it's more recent than 1888. As a matter of fact, another statement, in fine print, identifies the label as a new design adopted in 1900, so we know it's no older than that. It also has the name Julius Kessler prominantly printed in script across the label, so we know it's post 1905 (and 14 years beyond Judge's desire to have his name removed). Since Kessler's name wouldn't have appeared there in 1900, we can guess that the "new design" may have been the addition of
"formerly W.H. McBayer" after perhaps actually having complied with Judge's stipulation for nine years.
One very interesting thing about the label, and one which allows us to narrow the date range pretty closely, is that the word "WHISKEY" does not appear on it.
Anywhere.
And that would imply at least two very important things...
(1) The product was bottled between 1906, when the Pure Food & Drug Act went into effect, outlawing the word "whiskey" except as applied to "straight whiskey", and 1909 when President William Taft issued a proclamation overturning several points of that Act, including a compromise that permitted a less narrow definition of whiskey.
(2) The product in the bottle would not have qualified as straight whiskey. For any of a number of reasons, ranging from it being a completely assembled beverage using rectified spirits, coloring, flavoring, etc., to simply not having been aged in new charred oak barrels.
What's especially interesting about that second point to me, in light of this discussion, is that it puts the prejudices of many of us into an unacceptable logic loop that we feel compelled to find a way out of. Since 1909 Cedar Brook is way Pre-Prohibition, then it
must be great, and comparable to some the finest of today's bourbon. Yet, since it apparently was,
at best, more comparable to Early Times or US-1 UnBlended (and maybe more like Southern Comfort or Redneck Riviera), most of us wouldn't even give it a mention here, let alone praise it.
Oh my! What to do?
"Is. A. Puzzlement! (Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera)" -- Yul Brynner, as the King of Siam, St. James Theater, NYC, 1951
P.S. - Mike: There is no way that bottle would be emptied without you getting a taste of it. Unless it turned out to be a very bad example of number two (above, that is, although I'll leave final interpretation to the reader - we've encountered a couple like that occasionally, don'tcha know?)