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Today in the Taylor-Hay family papers I found a 1937 report on distilled spirits in bond in Kentucky published by Liberty National Bank. Liberty did these reports every year up into the 1990's and may be still doing them today in their present incarnation (I forget who bought who in the banking industry).

These reports are filled with interesting facts. For example in 1937 there 1,071 barrels of pre-prohibition whiskey in Kentucky warehouses. Brown-Forman had 3 (.28%), Glenmore had 7 (.65%), Louisville Public Warehouse had 398 (37.16%), National Distillers had 601 (56.12%), and Old Kentucky Distillery had 62 (5.79%). The other distilleries did not have any pre-prohibition whiskey in barrels in their warehouse. As I look over this report closer, I will report more.

bourbonv wrote:These reports are filled with interesting facts. For example in 1937 there 1,071 barrels of pre-prohibition whiskey in Kentucky warehouses. Brown-Forman had 3 (.28%), Glenmore had 7 (.65%), Louisville Public Warehouse had 398 (37.16%), National Distillers had 601 (56.12%), and Old Kentucky Distillery had 62 (5.79%). The other distilleries did not have any pre-prohibition whiskey in barrels in their warehouse. As I look over this report closer, I will report more.

Mike,

It's interesting to see the distribution of barrel stocks at the time. Most suprising to me, is that BF only had 3 barrels in stock. I certainly know very little about the industry at that time, but that's a real eye-opener to me.

This is pre-Prohibition whiskey, not post-Volstead Repeal or 1920's medicinal "replenishment" production (there was some). There would not have been a lot left by then of whiskey made before 1919. I wonder what came of it? Probably it was blended into current stocks although some was probably sold integral as a high-price, collector's-type item.

Gary

Mike, are there any taste notes in these papers? I think we have discussed this before but I find it interesting there are so few taste descriptions in old industry and family papers.

Gary

Bob,
As Gary stated, this was only stocks of pre-prohibition whiskey. There just was not a lot of aged stock in the warehouses. Brown-Forman's total barrel stock was 102,378 barrels making up 3.58% of the exisiting stocks in Kentucky. In Kentucky is the key phrase here. I am sure Schenley and National had some pre-prohibition and other aged stock in other states.

Gary,
I am always looking for tasting notes from the past. I have not found any yet, but if I do I will let you know. Unfortunately, it seems that the art of writing tasting notes as a consumer guide is mostly a late 20th century tool.

Thanks Mike. They must have had alternate methods of judging the quality of whiskey then. I recall in Sam Cecil's book he spoke of being asked to approve a batch of whiskey (it may have been a blend). He writes that he did approve it because it met the "standard" although he did so reluctantly because the whiskey was not that great (which implies a negative determination based on tasting it). I think he works a joke in the narrative about distillery workers given samples who brought the product back!

What was this "standard", I wonder? Is there any evidence in bourbon historical documentation what that was?

Or was it simply assumed that anything made according to the legal regulations was good whiskey? We know from a Charlie Thomason essay in the 1960's (long-time Willett's distiller) that whiskey should not be musty, and should have a good bouquet as he called it of ripe apple or other fruits (which few bourbons have today I think), and should be of medium body, so distillers must have appreciated the merits of whiskey in a way similar to what is done today. But why would the owners themselves never refer to this, to the conditions in effect on which saleability of their product depended...?

Maybe they viewed their product as good only in a negative sense that e.g., if it wasn't mouldy-tasting, or too fiery, or too young, or affected by a bad yeast, then it was good whiskey.

Gary

Gary,
I think you nailed it. In the old days, a whiskey was good as long as there were no bad attributes like mustiness, scorched grain or sourness. If it did not have those attributes, they let the consumer decide if it was good or not. Even so I have seen an advertisement in a Louisville Courier-Journal where the distiller advertised to people who were looking for that "scorched grain flavor like they used to get in the old days". This was a flavor the distillers evidently eleminated from their flavor profile and some people missed it.