what proof was whiskey in the 1800s

Owsley Brown (Brown-Forman), Frank Thompson (Glenmore), and a group of other concerned distillers met with attorneys from the Wholesale Liquor Dealers Association in Washington, D.C. Their aim was to unite the entire distilled spirits industry, write a code of conduct (it was actually drafted by Harris William of the Department of Agriculture) that would be acceptable to all, and convince everyone to sign it. We will not be surprised to see one or two pot-still American whiskeys on the market within the next five years or so. It was common practice for corrupt local officials to accept bribes to assure lenient treatment of wayward tavern keepers and drunken customers alike. 2020 Distilled Spirits Council of the United States | Equal Opportunity Employer | Distilled Spirits Council. At the turn of the century, in Britain, blended Scotches were the cause of much controversy when single malt Scotch producers sued certain retailers of blended Scotch for selling an article not of the nature and substance demanded. Blended Scotch, they said, was a silent spirit, whereas a pure malt went down singing hymns. The Distillers Company (a group of blended Scotch producers) fought back, claiming that because single malts contained many more impurities (flavor-giving congeners) than blends, theirs was the purer spirit. When whiskey spends time in a barrel, it may seem to be sleeping, but in actuality it is growing up. B. Dant, son of J. W. Dant, built the Cold Spring Distillery in 1865 and would soon produce Yellowstone Bourbon. Its doubtful. Bootleggers colored their white lightning with ingredients such as iodine and tobacco to make it look as though it had been in the wood for a few years. Barley was also grown in these states, and it was familiar to the farmers and distillers. Somewhere, close to the top of the log or in the lid itself, must have been a hole fitted with the copper pipe that carried live steam into the still from a nearby kettle. The Noble Experiment also helped the drug industry of the time inasmuch as some city folk, who didnt want to risk flouting the law, simply went down to their local tea house (a euphemism of the time) and smoked marijuana, a drug that remained legal until 1937. Imports included Dewar's Scotch, Jameson Irish Whiskey and Canadian Club Whiskey. The Whiskey Ring agents claimed to have a higher purpose in their treachery; they told distillers that the dollars they collected were going into a special fund to help re-elect Grant. The scene and the amounts are merely hypothetical, but it gives you a rough idea of why the farmers had empty pockets. In the second example Lincoln often is erroneously quoted as saying that injury from alcohol arose from the abuse of a good thing rather than from the use of a bad thing. The following year Jack Daniel injured his toe while kicking a safe and, strange as it may sound, the wound led to his death in 1911. John E. Fitzgerald, whose Old Fitzgerald bourbon would become the joy of the Stitzel-Weller brands, built a distillery in 1870. Many of the other straight whiskeys on the market at this time were merely young--they were bottled at 12- to 18-months-old and sold under familiar labels. In his book, The Great Illusion, Herbert Asbury quotes a 1929 telegram that listed over 30 people and places that supplied liquor in Manhattan. Jim Beam joined with Albert J. Hart to run the Old Tub Distillery in 1892. One thing was for sure--there would be major changes in the way the industry conducted itself. The U.S. population in 1909 was about 90.5 million; therefore, if the Leagues statistics were accurate, over 45 percent of the country already was dry in 1910. In 1876 Tom Moore and Ben Mattingly bought their first distillery. (It then declined by about 25 percent after Repeal.). Their whiskey would eventually be known as I. W. Harper. His son, another T. W. Samuels, took over operations after Leslies death and ran it until 1943. Was this Whiskeygate? Jacob Beam (Jim Beam Bourbon) came to Kentucky in 1785 and reportedly built his first distillery three years later. Corn, an indigenous grain, was also cultivated, and although the immigrants werent used to using it to make whiskey, it was gradually introduced to the process in small quantities. Although we cant say for certain how many people believed their claim as patriotic party do-gooders, evidence points to up to 15 million gallons of whiskey a year, which would have generated a cool $7.5 million in taxes--an extraordinary amount of money at the time--going untaxed between 1870 and 1874. And north. proof (50 percent alcohol.) And although the Governor of New Yorks office wasnt mentioned in the telegram, it is said that, even during the dry years, Franklin D. Roosevelt was wont to serve cocktails from his desk every afternoon at four. The plant produced Tom Moore Bourbon in 1879, and Mattingly & Moore Bourbon by 1896. The word Kentucky, just by the by, as translated from the native American Iroquoian, is proposed to have two meanings: Some say it means meadowland, whereas others say that the word means dark and bloody ground and was so-called to commemorate the native American wars fought within the area. One of the strangest, most unpredictable effects of Prohibition, however, was this: Hard liquor actually became more popular than it had been prior to the Noble Experiment. Daniel Weller (W. L. Weller Bourbon) floated into Bardstown on a flatboat in 1794. In 1864, David M. Beam, owner of the Old Tub distillery, was blessed with child--the one and only Jim Beam. Not all Northerners believed that their soldiers were drinking more than the Southern troops. After the American Civil War (1861-1865) beer replaced whiskey as preferred beverage of working men. And although the town was originally known as Salem, the settlers soon adopted the name of their benefactor, and Bards Town (Bardstown) was born. The filthy saloons, the gin mills which formerly flourished on every corner and in which the laborer once drank off half his wages, have disappeared. Were charred barrels being used before that date? When Prohibition ended, not everyone was happy about it: Dry Senator Morris Sheppard of Texas (during Prohibition, most politicians were referred to as Wet or Dry), one of the authors of the eighteenth amendment, made a speech on January 16 (the date that Prohibition went into effect) of every year since 1920, commemorating the Noble Experiment. In 1867, she married a physician and alcoholic, Dr. Charles Gloyd, and was widowed when her husband, despite her remonstrations to the contrary, reaped the rewards of drinking too much. It is estimated that, although relatively little wine or beer was poured during Prohibition, consumption of the hard stuff actually increased by more than 15 percent per person. Not content with that destruction, Carry Nation then set fire to the contents. (We wouldnt, however, see the very last of the pot still until Prohibition, and one die-hard distillery in Pennsylvania was using a pot still for a secondary distillation in the late 1980s.). From time immemorial, coopers have been forming barrels over fire, and therefore toasting the staves while they were making them bow. Since there wasnt a great deal in the way of entertainment back then, almost everyone was interested in a dram of whiskey. Later that year she actually smashed up an entire saloon in Kiowa, Oklahoma. Dr. James Crow, a born and bred Scotsman, was working as a distiller in Kentucky around 1823. Once a small distillery became part of the trust, it was either closed down or production was cut back, the aim being to control production at as many distilleries as possible. Though that possibility is not unthinkable, its more probable that he was making corn beer. It was statewide in some instances, and under various forms of local option (towns, counties, municipalities, or city districts having the right to legislate and enforce prohibition) in others. Old Taylor Bourbon first hit the shelves in 1887. One embarrassment was Jay Gould and James Fisks 1869 attempt to corner the gold market. proof) in 1825 was seven gallons per person over the age of 15. A bottle of Old Crow in 1916 would have cost $2 to $3, depending on its age (the $3 bottling was distilled in 1884, the less expensive one in 1904), and rye whiskey at the time was being sold at similar prices. Browns goal was to assure the public that they would finally know exactly what whiskey was in the bottle. Starting in the mid-1600s, sugar, and molasses were exported from the West Indies to New England where the colonists made their very own variety of rum. Jack Daniels No. However, European Vitis vinifera grapevines didnt fare well on the East Coast. The adventurous and the curious started moving farther away from the East Coast, boosting the whiskey business as they progressed westward. No, not really, it turns out she was more a *sexual dalliance in the White House than an anonymous inside source, and that it was Babcock who wired the warning and added the odd signature. They had no points to pay on the closing, no smooth broker taking a percentage, and no rent to pay until the Revolutionary War ended (The Treaty of Paris, September 3, 1783). Whether or not they were one and the same whiskey, bottled under different labels, is not known--but certainly possible. In 1777, the newly formed United States of America adopted the Stars and Stripes as the Continental Congress flag, and George Washington was concerned that his troops didnt have enough liquor. No one knows the answer. Furthermore, the solids left behind from the distillation process were usable as cattle feed, thus, for farmers, producing whiskey made darned good business sense. Since rum was made nearby, in the Caribbean, and therefore was easy and relatively inexpensive to transport to the U.S., it became the drink of choice of many Americans beleaguered by both the shortage of whiskey, and a lack of money. Its just an old story, but there could be a grain of truth in it. (And we are willing to bet that if you had to choose between a one-year-old straight whiskey and a well-made blended whiskey, you, too, would pick the latter.). Since 1776, when corn cultivation in the area had been encouraged by Virginias corn patch and cabin rights, the pioneers had found that, not only was corn a relatively easy grain to cultivate, but it also made a distinctive style of whiskey. With the advent of the glassmakers hinged mold, came incised molds that could act as labels to display the distillers name, address, brand name, or another designation. Back in 1850, both Old Pepper and Old Crow whiskeys were made at the same distillery. The whiskey from the middle colonies eventually became known as Monongahela or Pennsylvania or Maryland whiskey, named for its various locations, not the grain used to make it. And as romantic as they seem, speakeasies werent the only places you could buy booze during Prohibition. He died in 1917. Rates were based on the alcoholic strength of the product, spirits made from home-grown products were taxed less than those made from imported goods (rum, made from imported molasses, therefore, was more-heavily taxed than whiskey), and an annual tax was levied on each still, dependent on its capacity. Also, drinks like beer and whiskey were a lot lower in alcohol content. Raise a glass to the pioneers and heroes of the American whiskey industry: Jacob Beam, I. W. Bernheim, Colonel Blanton, Wattie Boone, A. Smith Bowman, George Garvin Brown, the Chapeze brothers, James Crow, Jack Daniel, J. W. Dant, George Dickel, Basil Hayden, Paul Jones, Henry McKenna, Tom Moore, Elijah Pepper, T. B. Ripy, Robert Samuels, the Shapira brothers, E. H. Taylor, Pappy Van Winkle, W. L. Weller, and Evan Williams. It had the power to soothe mens souls, to make them forget the carnage of the battlefield, and perhaps most importantly, whiskey often acted as the only anaesthetic available. Upon his release from jail McDonald accused Grant of taking part in the Ring in his book, Secrets of the Great Whiskey Ring (1880). However, much whiskey was being sold in bulk to rectifiers and bottlers of the time, and the problem of unscrupulous wholesalers (and retailers) adulterating good whiskey just had to be tackled. All whiskeys were, once again, whiskeys--some were blended, and some were straight--but the label had to declare which type was in the bottle. Needless to say, however, soldiers on both sides were, for the most part, hungry, cold, frightened, and sorely in need of solace wherever they could find it. The temperance advocates had gained a strong foothold by 1860, but the population had bigger things to worry about as tensions between the states mounted and the country braced itself for war. If you were in with the in crowd, the nightlife was sparkling, and it was in the fun-filled, mobster-run clubs of this era that the twenties roared with a hoarse throat, worn dry by bad liquor. 23 gallons of industrial alcohol were required in the manufacture of a Jeep. By the end of the century, however, because of the consolidation of so many distilleries during the days of the whiskey trusts, many different whiskeys emanated from relatively few distilleries, a practice still common today. We must give a little credit here to the lady; her tactics certainly had an effect on the illegal bars at the time--many of them closed. It was split into many smaller companies, but some of these companies then joined together again as the Distilling Company of America, and in 1899, that company found itself under federal investigation. Heres an example of how it worked according to Martin Gilbert, author of American History Atlas, 1968: In 1752, by which time there were at least 30 legitimate distilleries in Rhode Island alone, a ship called The Sanderson left Newport, with 8,220 gallons of rum on board. The death knell was tolling for the slower, more work-intensive, old-fashioned pot stills. one gallon was needed in order to make 64 hand grenades or two 155mm Howitzer shells. Due to his incompetency and the number of other scandals within his administration, by the end of 1874 Grant was not a popular man. Old Fitzgerald whiskey started being marketed in Europe in 1904. And these tables were not present only in the posh bars, working-class saloons offered similar meals, but the fare on their tables--pickled eggs, frankfurters, stews, and thick, hearty soups--was not nearly as sumptuous as that at the Waldorf. The English were going through a bit of turmoil on their home turf at this same time. . The Sassenach Blended Scotch Whisky. World Class 'Sipping' Single Malt Whiskies Under $100, Ranked. And west. This was by no means an uncommon practice. After the companys 1934 fiscal year didnt turn out to be as profitable as predicted, its president, Owsley Brown, did the honorable thing and offered half of his stock to his disappointed investors in lieu of a dividend. In 1816, a company, registered in New England, incorporated in Kentucky under the name of the Hope Distilling Company; it was a very big venture--many years before its time. Most probably, but the chances of them being used exclusively by one distiller are very remote. Beer was probably the first kind of beverage alcohol produced in the early settlements at Jamestown and Plymouth. Rye, another European grain, was a hardy crop that took root and fared well almost immediately in the middle colonies, and since the Europeans were accustomed to working with rye grain, they turned to it as the next best thing to barley. Instead, they would sell the entire batch of spirits and the resultant whiskey, although it wouldnt make you blind, was a far cry from the pure, bold red liquor that the whiskey men had fought for at the turn of the century. These prices could be much higher in cities or for name brand liquors. During the same period of time, names of other whiskey distillers crop up, and many of them have faded into obscurity. In 1910, George Garvin Brown published a booklet, The Holy Bible Repudiates Prohibition, in which he quoted passages from the Bible that showed divine approval of the consumption of beverage alcohol. And the law had won. Everyone seemed to have it out for the distillers. What he actually said was that although many people were injured by alcohol, they didnt seem to believe that it was from the use of a bad thing, and that they thought it merely from the abuse of a good thing. Many of the larger distilleries built massive continuous stills between 1865 and 1900; whiskey was becoming big business, and continuous stills were more economical. The most influential group on the other side of the Prohibition debate was The Wine and Spirits Association, formed in 1891 to counter the propaganda of the Anti-Saloon League and all of the other similarly prohibitionistic societies. The manufacture of rum continued to be big business in America right through until 1808 when the U.S. prohibited the importation of slaves from Africa. Others turned to supplying grain to families like the Peppers rather than distilling their own products. Every straight bourbon produced today is a sour-mash whiskey, in which a portion of the residue from one batch of mash is used to start the next, much as sourdough starter is used to start more batches of dough. According to Roseann Reinemuth Hogan in her book, Kentucky Ancestry, a churchman of the time referred to heaven as a Kentucky sort of a place. Well, any old place with decent topsoil would have sufficed for the farmer-distillers of Virginia at the time. The Cascade distillery in Tullahoma, Tennessee, was founded in 1877 and later purchased by Dickels company. In the 1960s and 1970s drinking was a fun-filled pastime: Americans reveled in all of the glories of the barroom, cocktails were served in myriad pastel hues and in copious quantities. After that time, surveyors and prospectors offered land for sale at very reasonable prices to pioneers heading west. It has not come to the kingdom simply to build a little local sentiment, or to secure the passage of a few laws, nor yet to vote the saloons from a few hundred towns. At one point he advocated reducing taxes on such products saying that nations where cheap wine was available for the common man did not suffer the same insobrieties as those where whiskey was the least-expensive ardent drink. Whiskeygate--the Tale of the Infamous Whiskey Ring. Distilling wasnt merely a case of, Oh, I have some extra grain, might as well make some whiskey. It was a much bigger decision than that. These guys meant business. In fact, its very unlikely that anyone with the equipment and knowledge required to make whiskey would produce only enough for himself and his family. They had conned Grant into becoming an ally, and the scheme backfired. It was at the Sazerac Coffee House on Royal Street where local patrons were served toddies made with our rye whiskey and Peychaud's bitters. 1. Captain James Thorpe, a missionary in Virginia at that time, wrote to friends in London that he had learned to make a drink from Indian corn that was so good, he sometimes chose it over English beer. But in a strange, labyrinthine manner, this new batch of concerned citizens not only did what they set out to do (for which they deserve much accolade), but they also paved the path for the return to the bold, rich flavors of straight American whiskey. The choice was simple: Let it mold and rot, or change its form as the ancient alchemists did and produce the water of life. (The word whisky is derived from the Gaelic word uisgebaugh, [WEEZ-ga-bochh] meaning water of life. If you say the word quickly enough--or with a substantial quantity of whiskey in your system--it becomes, with a little shortening, WEEZ-ga, a word that was Anglicized to become whisky.), Distilling grain gives farmers two distinct avenues for profit-making: The distillate, by virtue of having a high concentration of alcohol, can be stored almost indefinitely, and liquor is relatively easy to transport--much easier than huge sheaves of corn or rye. It may seem to be sleeping, but the chances of them being used exclusively by one are! They progressed westward whiskey spends time in a barrel, it may to... Employer | Distilled what proof was whiskey in the 1800s Council by 1896 time immemorial, coopers have been forming barrels over fire, and was... In 1785 and reportedly built his first distillery three years later progressed westward same period of time surveyors... In 1892 to accept bribes to assure the public that they would finally know exactly what was... 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