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Old Crow

Summary

Old Crow is a low-priced brand of Kentucky-made straight bourbon whiskey distilled by Beam Suntory, which also produces Jim Beam and several other brands of whiskey. The current Old Crow product uses the same mash bill and yeast as Jim Beam, but is aged for a shorter period of time.

Old Crow Bourbon whiskey
Old Crow Reserve
TypeBourbon whiskey
ManufacturerBeam Suntory
Country of origin Kentucky, United States
Introduced1835
Alcohol by volume 43.00%
Proof (US)86
Related productsJim Beam

The Old Crow brand has a venerable history as one of Kentucky's earliest bourbons.[1] Old Crow is aged in barrels for a minimum of three years, and in the United States is 80 proof while Old Crow Reserve is aged for a minimum of four years and is 86 proof.

History edit

James C. Crow, a Scottish immigrant, started distilling what would become Old Crow in Frankfort, Kentucky, in the 1830s. Reportedly a very skilled distiller, he made whiskey for various employers, which was sold as "Crow" or, as it aged, "Old Crow" – and the brand acquired its reputation from the latter.[2] Crow died in 1856. W.A. Gaines and Company acquired the name and continued to distill whiskey according to his methods, hiring Crow's assistant William F. Mitchell to be the chief distiller.[3][4][5] The substantial remaining stock of original Old Crow[2] acquired near-legendary status. After the Civil War the Old Crow logo was changed from a picture of James Crow to the current crow perched atop grains of barley. In 1875, offering drinks from the last available cask reportedly secured the election of Joseph Clay Stiles Blackburn of Kentucky to his first Congressional term.[1] A dispute over ownership of the name "Old Crow" was decided in 1915 in favor of the Gaines company.[2]

Although the whiskey had been at one time the top selling bourbon in the United States, it underwent a swift decline in the second half of the twentieth century. A production error in the amount of "setback" (the portion of spent mash added to a new batch in the sour mash process) negatively impacted the taste of the whiskey, and the distiller's inability or unwillingness to correct it led to many customers switching to other brands. Parent company National Distillers was sold to Jim Beam in 1987. The Old Crow recipe and distillery were abandoned and the product became a three-year-old bourbon based on the Jim Beam mashbill.[6] In 2013 Glenns Creek Distillery started operations in part of the former Old Crow Distillery.[7]

Old Crow Chessmen edit

National Distillers brought out the Old Crow Chessmen ceramic decanters in 1969 as an attractive packaging for its 10-year-old 86-proof bourbon. They stand 12-15.5 inches tall, hold a fifth of liquor, and the opposing sides were glazed in golden ochre versus a dark green. A deep-pile carpet chessboard measured 45x45 inches. The decanters sold originally for some US$14. A full set would consist of 32 decanters, 16 of which were pawns. The production was limited to some 2,000 pieces, intended for only one Christmas season, and the moulds reputedly were destroyed.[8] Today the bourbon contents of these decanters are highly prized. [9]

Famous drinkers edit

Many American politicians and military leaders have been associated with Old Crow.

Confederate General Jubal Early was a fan of Old Crow.

Another famous politician who preferred Old Crow was Henry Clay, of Kentucky,[1] who was even featured in Old Crow advertisements.[10]

 
An advertisement for Old Crow Rye Whiskey in the December 31, 1909 edition of The New York Times.

World War II "triple ace" Bud Anderson named his P-51 Mustang Old Crow, after the whiskey.[11]

Senator Mitch McConnell from Kentucky has stated that Old Crow as his favorite bourbon.[12]

Lore suggests that American general and later 18th President of the United States, Ulysses S. Grant[13] was a fan of Old Crow. This is mentioned in connection to a story written in the New York Herald where war managers went to President Abraham Lincoln and demanded General Grant's removal since he was "nothing but a common drunkard." In reply, Lincoln asked "can you tell me where he gets his whiskey?" They replied they could not and asked him why he wanted to know. "Because if you can only find out, I will send a barrel of this wonderful whiskey to every general in the army."[14] However, Old Crow is never mentioned in the news story and the entire concept was put into question when a telegraph operator named Major Thomas Eckert related a story about Lincoln's denial of the quote.[15]

 
Pre-prohibition Old Crow, distilled 1912, bottled 1918.

In popular culture edit

Old Crow is said to have been the favorite bourbon of American writers Mark Twain and William Faulkner. Journalist Hunter S. Thompson liked it. Twain reportedly visited the distillery in the 1880s, and Old Crow advertised this heavily;[16] John C. Gerber sees in this commercial exploitation a sign of Twain's continuing popularity.[17] As for Thompson, the frequent occurrences of the drink in his writing, semi-autobiographical[18] as well as fictional,[19][20][21] have led to similar associations. The manufacturer actively pursued such publicity: in 1955, they took out an ad in College English, the journal of the National Council of Teachers of English, offering $250 for every authenticated reference to their product one could find in past literature or history.[22]

In the 1955 film I Died a Thousand Times, the dying mob boss, Big Mac (Lon Chaney, Jr.), drinks Old Crow in violation of doctor's orders.

The 1952 film "Springfield Rifle", disgraced Major Kearney (Gary Cooper) orders Old Crow in a saloon

Throughout Up a Road Slowly, Irene Hunt's 1966 Newbery Award–winning novel, Uncle Haskell drinks copious quantities of Old Crow, taking the empty bottles in a golf bag to bury them at a creek. He claims the Old Crow is rare French wine, so the children begin referring to it as Le Vieux Corbeau.

In recent books in the Spenser series, originated by the late Robert B. Parker and continued by Ace Atkins, the title character regularly refers to drinking Old Crow.

Dirty Bird Blues by Clarence Major the main character, Bluesman Manfred Banks favorite drink is Old Crow.

In the History Channel 3-part mini-series Grant, the general is seen with a bottle of Old Crow.

In Joseph Hansen's series of detective novels, his protagonist Dave Brandstetter drinks Old Crow.

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ a b c Alvey, R. Gerald (1992). Kentucky Bluegrass country. Oxford: UP of Mississippi. pp. 230–32. ISBN 978-0-87805-544-9.
  2. ^ a b c The Trade-mark Reporter, Vol. 6. United States Trademark Association. 1917. pp. 10–27.
  3. ^ Carson, Gerald (1963). The social history of bourbon : an unhurried account of our star-spangled American drink. University Press of Kentucky. p. 83.
  4. ^ Cowdery, Charles K. (January 1995). "How To Make Bourbon My Way, by Dr. James C. Crow". The Bourbon Country Reader. 2 (2).
  5. ^ Middleton, Chris (2020-12-10). "The James Crow Chronicles: Part 8 (Old Crow Distillery)". The Whiskey Wash. Retrieved 2023-01-11.
  6. ^ Charles K. Cowdery (2004). Bourbon, Straight: The Uncut and Unfiltered Story of American Whiskey. Made and Bottled in Kentucky. p. 25. ISBN 978-0975870303. Retrieved 15 October 2012.
  7. ^ "OUR STORY". Glenns Creek Distilling. Retrieved 2019-06-01.
  8. ^ "Problem Line". Newsday: 74. 26 February 1973.
  9. ^ Goldfarb, Aaron (2024). Dusty Booze: In Search of Vintage Spirits. New York: Harry N. Abrams.
  10. ^ "Drinks Advertisements of the 1950s". Vintageadbrowser.com. Retrieved 2017-07-14.[permanent dead link]
  11. ^ O'Leary, Michael (2000). VIII Fighter Command at war: 'the long reach'. Osprey Publishing. p. 142.
  12. ^ "What to expect if Republicans take control of the Senate". MSN.
  13. ^ "Whiskey and the war: Alcohol played a role in the Civil War". Times Free Press. 2012-10-21. Retrieved 2017-07-14.
  14. ^ "The President's Habeas Corpus Proclamation and the Act of Congress on the Subject". The New York Herald. September 18, 1863. p. 6. Retrieved February 10, 2023.
  15. ^ Plum, William R. (1882). The Military Telegraph During the Civil War in the United States, Volume 2. Chicago: Jansen, McClurg & Company. p. 332.
  16. ^ For instance, in an ad in Look magazine, from 1953. See also this ad from Kiplinger's Personal Finance, 1981.
  17. ^ John C. Gerber, "Collecting the Works of Mark Twain", in Davis, Sara deSaussure; Philip D. Beidler; John C. Gerber (1984). The Mythologizing of Mark Twain. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P. pp. 3–14. ISBN 978-0-8173-0201-6.
  18. ^ Thompson, Hunter S.; Douglas Brinkley; David Halberstam (2000). Fear and loathing in America: the brutal odyssey of an outlaw journalist, 1968-1976. Simon and Schuster. p. 93. ISBN 978-0-684-87315-2.
  19. ^ Thompson, Hunter S. (2002). Songs of the doomed: more notes on the death of the American dream. Simon and Schuster. p. 6. ISBN 978-0-7432-4099-4.
  20. ^ Thompson, Hunter S. (2003). The great shark hunt: strange tales from a strange time. Simon and Schuster. p. 62. ISBN 978-0-7432-5045-0.
  21. ^ Thompson, Hunter S. (2000). Mescalito. Simon and Schuster. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-7432-1522-0.
  22. ^ "News and Ideas". College English. 17 (2). National Council of Teachers of English: 119. 1955.

External links edit

  • Old Crow Distillery at Abandoned

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