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Who was Who in the Distilling Industry - James E. Pepper

Unread postPosted: Sat Oct 15, 2005 11:43 am
by bourbonv
Pepper, James Edwards

Born: Woodford County, Ky. 18 May 1850
Died: 1906
Married: Ella Offutt 1890

Companies Associated With: Old Oscar Pepper Distillery 1865-1879
James E Pepper Distillery 1880-1906

Brands Associated With: Old Oscar Pepper
James E. Pepper
Henry Clay

Contributions to the Industry: One of the first distillers to start bottling their own product, created a strip stamp with his signature across the cork to insure authenticity.
Early use of advertising slogans - "Born With the Republic" and "Old 1776"

Contributions to the Community: Owner of many racehorses many of which ran in the Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Oaks

Mike Veach

Re: Who was Who in the Distilling Industry - James E. Pepper

Unread postPosted: Fri Jul 10, 2009 4:55 pm
by bourbonv
Moving this forward for someone who is interested in James E Pepper.

Re: Who was Who in the Distilling Industry - James E. Pepper

Unread postPosted: Fri Jul 10, 2009 6:06 pm
by cowdery
Also reputed to have popularized the Old Fashioned, which he learned at the Pendennis Club in Louisville, during his years as a bon vivant in New York City.

Re: Who was Who in the Distilling Industry - James E. Pepper

Unread postPosted: Sat Jul 11, 2009 11:02 am
by cowdery
I don't think James ever actually operated the distillery that is now Woodford Reserve. He had money problems and was forced to sell it to E. H. Taylor. The Lexington distillery was established several years after that and was the only distillery he ever operated. As for the number of brands, he may have had others, those three were just the best known. Pre-prohibition, distilleries didn't necessarily have a whole bunch of brands like some do today. The marketing of brands to the public was done more by wholesalers, to whom the distilleries sold in bulk. Many distilleries had no brands, as they were strictly bulk producers. The idea of one producer making and marketing many different brands, as Heaven Hill and Buffalo Trace do today, is a function of the way the industry changed after Prohibition and, more recently, of industry consolidation.

Re: Who was Who in the Distilling Industry - James E. Pepper

Unread postPosted: Sat Jul 11, 2009 9:31 pm
by bourbonv
Actually the money problems that led to Taylor getting the distillery briefly came from Taylor loaning him money to expand the distillery. Taylor later became a victim of the same fianacial woes cause by whiskey over production and a runn on the banks, thus it ended up in the hands of Labrot & Graham.