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Old geo dickel cascade. No mention of tennessee or kentucky

Unread postPosted: Sat Jul 15, 2006 3:03 pm
by floydyancey
Click here to see a directory with images of the bottle.
It's unopened.
Some are kind of large.
http://www.twu.net/~fyancey/whiskey/


I was wondering about a date.
It makes no mention of tennessee or kentucky.

It says the company is incorporated in lawrenceburg indiana.
It has DC tax stamps.
Was it bottled in indiana?
I can't find a bottle like this anywhere on the internet.
My uncle said he called dickel years ago.. and they said it was the only bottle
they didn't have in their collection.

We want to sell it on ebay but need some sort of definate dates history etc.

Anyone able to help?

Unread postPosted: Sat Jul 15, 2006 9:04 pm
by bourbonv
Looking at your label and you will see that it is a blended product. If you check out the Dickel timelines here you will see that Cascade was made by Schenley for many years before they re-built the Cascade Hollow distillery. This bottle from what I can tell from the label is probably a 1940's blended product bottled and blended at Schenley's Lawrenceburg, Indiana distilley during the war.

Mike Veach

Unread postPosted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 1:07 am
by EllenJ
What a BEAUTIFUL bottle!!
I love the molded detail. So much attention for a blended whiskey indicates that this was considered a premium product. Perhaps something to compete with Seagram's 7 Crown?

Mike Veach's comments pretty well sum things up with this brand. We have examples of Schenley Cascade straight bourbon whiskey from the Stagg distillery in Frankfort (now Buffalo Trace), but the bottle was just a stock liquor bottle, not specially embossed like yours.

The original whiskey we now call George Dickel was called Cascade, and in fact the distillery near Normandy, Tennessee is known as the Cascade Distillery, even though it's a reconstruction and is only named after the original Cascade Distillery. George Dickel wasn't a distiller; he was a marketer of whiskey which he bought from the Cascade Distillery. When Schenley bought the brand (during prohibition) they bought both the Dickel and the Cascade names. When they rebuilt the Cascade distillery in Normandy in 1958, they were already marketing Cascade Bourbon and Cascade Whiskey, so the new distillery's brand became "George Dickel" so as not to conflict. I'd expect your bottle, which was never a particularly "top-shelf" whiskey in it's own time, should be a highly-desireable collectors' item now. Especially with the "Dickel" foil seal.

PM me if you're considering selling it.

Unread postPosted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 9:21 am
by bourbonv
John,
Actually the distillery is the Cascade Hollow Distillery and Schenley purchased the brand after prohibition. Stitzel-Weller sold it during prohibition and it is even pictured prominately in the first Stitzel-Weller brochure from 1935.

Geo. Dickel was a liquor merchant in Nashville who bought the whisky made at Cascade Hollow distillery and named it Cascade Tennessee Whisky. "Mellow as Moonlight" was his slogan for the whiskey. When the distillery was forced to close in 1910 due to prohibition in Tennessee, the Shwab family moved their distilling operation to Louisville and rented the Stitzel distillery on the days they were not using it and made Cascade whisky their until national prohibition. The brand was sold to Schenley after prohibition and they made it in Frankfort at the Geo. T. Stagg distillery. In the 1950's Schenley opened the new Cascade Hollow distillery and created the Geo. Dickel brands we know today. They did this rather than market Cascade for two reasons. The official reason was so the consumer would not be confused. Cascade had been a bourbon for so long that most people did not remember its Tennessee linage. The other reason was the Cascade had become a rather cheap, low quality bourbon in the Schenley portfolio and they really did not want that image associated with the new brands from their new distillery.

Mike Veach

Unread postPosted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 3:27 pm
by gillmang
I am not sure what "blended straight whiskey" meant at the time. If it meant a blend of straight whiskeys, it is an all-straight product, i.e., it could be bourbons from different sources, or ryes, or both, or a whiskey which is produced from grains in which no one predominates to the point of 51%. If it is this, it is as "valid" (to me) as any bourbon or rye because it is all-low proof (under 160) whiskey. The bright line between it and light flavor whiskey and GNS has not been crossed. If the statement "blended straight whiskey" meant at least 51% straights with the rest GNS or green whiskey, that's different, that's a true blend in our modern way of conceiving it.

Gary

Unread postPosted: Thu Jul 27, 2006 10:04 am
by bourbonv
Gary,
If I am not mistaken, during the war the government loosened the standards a bit to allow for a product that was a mixture of aged whiskey and white dog, thus allowing for the "Straight Whiskey" connection on the label. This was done because of shortages in beverage alcohol production during the war. It allowed to stretch existing stocks until more whiskey could be made and aged.

Mike Veach