How Old Overholt went from a Leading Brand to Bottom Shelf and Back

Old Overholt labesl from 2012-2023

When Abraham Overholt died in 1870, his company A. Overholt & Co. was well on its way to becoming one of the largest whiskey distillers in the country. Originally, the company branded its whiskey as Old Farm Pure Rye, but in 1888, 18 years after Abraham’s death, they renamed the brand Old Overholt and added his likeness to the logo in his honor. Up until Prohibition the distillery remained largely under family control but when Henry Clay Frick, the last remaining family member passed away in 1919 he left his ownership stake in the distillery to his friend and banking magnate Andrew Mellon. The following year President Harding selected Mellon to be his Secretary of the Treasury, and after a public pressure campaign Mellon sold the distillery to the New York grocers Park & Tilford. But before that, Mellon helped A. Overholt & Co. secure one of the very limited distilling licenses that allowed the company to continue producing “medicinal whiskey” throughout Prohibition. Because of this, Overholt survived while many other distilleries of that era closed, never to reopen.

After Prohibition, a new conglomerate called National Distillers purchased Overholt and continued making its eponymous whiskey at the A. Overholt Distillery in Broad Ford, PA. Old Overholt became one of the five core brands for National Distillers along with Old Taylor, Old Granddad, Old Crow, and Mount Vernon, a straight rye from Maryland. But, despite the post WWII economic boom rye whiskey sales were beginning to slow and in 1951, National Distillers closed the Broad Ford distillery though they continued to source Pennsylvania rye whiskey for the brand. As the years passed on and whiskey sales continued to slump into the 1980s, National Distillers eventually went broke and in 1987, the James B. Beam Distilling Company purchased Old Overholt, Old Crow, Old Granddad and Olt Taylor (which they eventually sold to Sazerac). At that point Beam decided to move production of Old Overholt from Pennsylvania to Kentucky, changed the mash bill to the minimum 51% rye and drop the bottling strength to 80 proof.

For about 27 years Old Overholt sat as bottom shelf whiskey overshowed by other more popular whiskeys in the Beam portfolio. In 2012, Beam dropped the 4 year aged statement down to 3, just as they had done with Old Corw. But, in 2013, something changed and Beam attempted to bring more attention to Old Overholt and its other “Old” whiskey brands, Old Crow, and Old Granddad. At that time nothing had substantially changed but in 2017, the now Beam Suntory began to get label approval for several new Old Overholt expressions. For the first time in about 30 years, Beam Suntory re-released a bonded version of Old Overholt which cause quite a buzz among whiskey writes and bartenders. And, two years later in 2019, Beam Suntory increased the standard bottling strength from 40% to 43% ABV. From then on there has been a steady release of new Old Overholt expressions which has helped to revitalize the brand from its bottom shelf ignominy to a brand that is once again well respected and sought after by American whiskey fans. It has been exciting to see Beam Suntory put some money and effort into supporting this historic brand by creating new and interesting offerings such as the return of the 4-year age statement on the standard bottle, the 11 Year Old Cask Strength, and the A. Overholt Straight Rye made with a traditional Pennsylvania rye whiskey mash bill. Hopefully this trend will continue and who knows what we will see in the future for this more than 200-year-old brand.

Below is a list of the Old Overholt label approvals that help tell the story of how Old Overholt moved from the bottom shelf to a well-respected brand.

• August 2012: Old Overholt Straight Rye Whiskey 40% ABV Three Years Old

• August 2017: Old Overholt Bonded Straight Rye Whiskey

• August 2019: Old Overholt Straight Rye Whiskey 43% ABV (still 3 years old)

• August 2019: Old Overholt Bottled-in-Bond Straight Rye Whiskey (new wording)

• March 2020: Old Overholt Straight Rye Whiskey 114 Proof 4 Year Special Release

• April 2020: Old Overholt Straight Rye Whiskey 11 Year 46.3% ABV

• November 2020: Old Overholt Straight Rye Whiskey 114 Proof Aged 4 Years

• October 2021: Old Overholt Straight Rye Whiskey Aged 4 Years 43% ABV

• April 2022: A. Overholt Straight Rye Whiskey Aged 4 Years 47.5% ABV

• April 2023: Old Overholt Cask Strength Straight Rye Whiskey Aged 10 Years

• September 2023: Old Overholt Cask Strength Straight Rye Whiskey Aged 11 Years

Review: Wilderness Trail Yellow Label Single Barrel Bourbon Bottled in Bond

Bottle purchased at retail by EZdrinking.

AT A GLANCE

• Owned by: Campari Group

• Distilled and Bottled by: Wilderness Trail Distillery, Danville, KY

• Spirit Type: Bourbon

• Mash Bill: 64% Corn, 24% Wheat, 12% Malted Barley

• Still Type: Column

• Age: Bottled in Bond (minimum 4 years)

• Strength: 50% ABV

• Price: $55

In 2012 after a decade of working as fermentation consultants for other distilleries and alcohol produces, Shane Baker and Pat Heist founded Wilderness Trail Distillery. As with other start-up distilleries, Wilderness Trail began by selling their vodka and an aged spirit distilled from sorghum molasses while their bourbon aged. And rather than developing just one whiskey, Baker and Heist, make three, a wheated bourbon, and a high-rye bourbon and a rye whiskey made from a mash of 56% rye, 33% corn, and 11% malted barley. Wilderness Trail has slowly built a steady following and grew their distribution across the country. Then, in November 2022, Campari Group purchased a 70% stake in Wilderness Trail for $600 million.

TASTING NOTES

Nose: The whiskey has a lovely aroma of dark caramel, with softer notes of vanilla and sweet cinnamon.

Palate: On the palate the bourbon is velvety, umptious, and tick with rich caramel, vanilla, toffee, sweet cherry, and ripe nectarine, balanced with warm notes oak and baking spices.

Finish: On the finish, more of the vanilla and oak flavors come forward with bright notes of hot cinnamon mingled with the alcohol.

Conclusion: Wilderness trail is hands down one of the best new bourbons to hit store shelves in a long time. Despite its 50% ABV bottling strength the whiskey is not overly hot and leans toward the sweeter side of the bourbon flavor spectrum. If it is available in your area, do yourself a favor and buy a bottle.

The Best Alternative to Buffalo Trace Bourbon

Bottle purchased at retail by EZdrinking.

AT A GLANCE

• Spirit: Benchmark Bonded Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

• Owned by: Sazerac Company

• Distilled and Bottled by: Buffalo Trace Distillery, Frankfort, KY

• Spirit Type: Bourbon

• Mash Bill: Buffalo Trace Mashbill #1 (10% or less Rye)

• Still Type: Column Still

• Aged: NAS (minimum 4 years)

• Strength: 50% ABV

• Price: $20

If you cannot find Buffalo Trace Bourbon in your area, it sells out as soon as it hits liquor store shelves, or you are tired of paying over $30 for this once entry level bourbon, Benchmark Bonded Bourbon is the best alternative out in the market.

Ten years ago, Buffalo Trace Bourbon was easy to find and usually under $20 a bottle. At that time it came in second in a blind tasting I organized for so friends of mine. But, as the craze for Pappy and other older whiskeys from Buffalo Trace Distillery grew, it became harder to find a bottle and more expensive when you did. So, if you are a fan Buffalo Trace but cannot get your hands on it, you need to look for Benchmark Bonded.

Today, Benchmark is named after the survey markers placed by the McAfee brothers who were some of the earliest colonial settlers in Kentucky. When they reached the region north of where Frankfort would be founded, they discovered large numbers of elk, deer and buffalos. The area became known as buffalo trace, a migration route used by the buffalo as they moved through Kentucky. The brand was originally distilled in Louisville, and created by Seagram's in the 1960 as a premium bourbon sold in decanters. The association with the McAfee brothers was added sometime after 1989, when Seagram's sold the brand to Sazerac Company. For many years Benchmark held on as a value brand, sold primarily as McAfee's Benchmark Old No. 8. But in 2019, Sazerac decided to expand the Benchmark line to include five new expressions: the Small Batch (45% ABV), Top Floor (43% ABV), Single Barrel (47.5% ABV), Bonded (50% ABV), and Full Proof (62.5% ABV). I suspect that this expansion was a way for Sazerac to maintain the quality and particular barrel selection process they had for Buffalo Trance while also increasing the supply of a more affordable version of their bourbon.

TASTING NOTEs

Nose: On the nose there are light notes of oak, cream corn, and a hint of vanilla.

Palate: On the palate the bourbon begins sweet with notes of vanilla and then transitions to a more complex flavor of sweetened ice tea and peaches.

Finish: On the finish the whiskey is relatively long with flavors of ripe plum, canned peaches (without the syrup) vanilla and oak.

Conclusion: Benchmark Bonded is a solid bourbon that is great as an everyday whiskey for when you want something enjoyable while your attention is focused doing something else like cooking or spending time with friends or family. It is not the most complex whiskey but at 4 years old and 100 proof this a perfect budget pour for drinking neat, on the rocks, with water, with mixers, or as a cocktail. As Buffalo Trace has crept up in price and gotten more difficult to find on a regular basis, Benchmark Bonded is the best alternative you can find.

Review: Spirits Works Bottled-in-Bond Wheat Whiskey

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Free sample bottle received as a gift from 3rd party.

AT A GLANCE

• Distilled & Owned by: Spirit Works Distillery, in Sebastopol, CA.

• Still Type: Hybrid Still

• Spirit Type: Wheat Whiskey

• Strength: 50% ABV

• Price: $60

Founded by Timo and Ashby Marshall, Spirit Works Distillery is a grain-to-glass distillery situated in downtown Sebastopol, California that specializes in a variety of whiskeys and gins. For more than five years, Timo and Ashby have been leading a dedicated team producing some of the best spirits in the state.

The first time I tasted Spirit Works Gin at their distillery in 2014, I became very excited for the eventual release of their whiskeys. One might wonder, what does a gin have to do with how good a whiskey might be when it still a year or two away from being bottled? When Timo described the flavor profile of the gin they were trying to create, it exactly matched what was in the glass. It has been my experience that the flavor profile of what a craft distiller says they are trying to get and what is actually made do not always overlap, but Timo and Ashby demonstrated incredible precision in this. That same day I told my wife, if Spirit Works could manifest their intentions in their whiskeys as clearly as they did with their white spirits, then they would have something very special.

The whiskey was distilled in one season from a fermented mash of 100% Organic California Red Winter Wheat. Post distillation, new charred oak barrels are filled with the spirit and left to rest. True to the Bottled in Bond’s legal requirements, the whiskey was then aged for a minimum of 4 years and bottled at 50% ABV.

Making whiskey takes patients and vision. And, in between runs of vodka and gin, Ashby and current head distiller Lauren Patz have slowly built an aging stock of 53 gallon barrels full of whiskey. Two yeas passed before they bottle their first barrel while others continued their slow maturation. And now, five years later, my hopeful excitement has been realized. Not only have they made some of the best California Whiskey but, Spirit Works Bottled-in-Bond Wheat Whiskey is one of the best new American Whiskeys released in 2019.

TASTING NOTES

Nose: On the nose there is warm whole wheat bread and endives. Layered underneath those top aromas are strong notes of raisins, brandy cherries, and fresh cut oak. As the whiskey breaths lighter notes of candied orange peal and vanilla float to the top.

Palate: At first sip the whiskey is soft and slides across your tongue. On the palate the whiskey opens with notes of oak and burnt sugar which are followed by sweet caramel and cloves. Initially the whiskey starts slightly bitter but after the second and third sip the bitterness completely fades away and is just big bold flavors of cinnamon and sugar.

Finish: After swallowing, the tongue tingles from the higher proof but once the palate adjusts the finish is long light and dry with notes of vanilla, fresh peaches, and a mixture of bergamot and baking spices. As it slowly fades you are left with faint oak tannins that invite you back to the glass to take another sip.

Conclusion: Spirit Works Bottled-in-Bond Wheat Whiskey is a big and bold whiskey with lots of youthful character that is a joy to drink. Fans of their whiskey will love this new bottling and at 50% ABV the whiskey blossoms with a little bit of water or served over one large chunk of ice. The whiskey also does very well in a number of classic cocktails like the Old Fashioned and Manhattan. While I'm not usually a big fan of Old Fashioneds the whiskey really sung in the drink. With just a little bit of sugar, bitters, and an orange peal, the whiskey popped and at 100 proof the drink wasn't completely watered down by the time you get to the end. If you are in Northern California, I highly recommend making the trip to Sebastopol and picking up a bottle.

Blind Tasting Bourbon Less Than $50

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A while ago I organized a blind tasting of bourbons that cost less than $50. I was inspired to put this together after a small group of friends and I did a blind tasting of whiskeys under $20. That tasting was both a lot of fun and introduced me to a couple of bourbons that I really love. Wanting to repeat this process I put together a game plan. First, I wanted to focus the tasting only on bourbons between $20 and $50. I picked this price point for two reasons: one, my expectation was the overall quality would be a little higher than the under $20 bracket; and two, because it falls in the range that I and many of my friends would feel comfortable spending on a bottle to drink at home from time to time without feeling like its so expensive or exceptional we'd have to save it for some sort of special occasion. Second,  I only wanted bourbons that I knew were sold by the distillery i.e. no Non-Distiller Producer bourbons like Bulleit or Black Maple Hill. Third, I didn't want any single barrel products because by nature their flavor profile can change from barrel to barrel and I wanted to help people find a bourbon that they would like and be able to return to and have it taste the same as it was at the party.  With these criteria in mind I went about finding bourbons that fit.

I found over dozen bourbons that matched my criteria however, 12 samples of bourbons even at 1/4 oz each starts to add up. I wanted to be sure that people could get home safely so I limited the field to nine. As I spread the word among my friends I was able to find about 25 people who committed to coming and who were willing to chip in to cover the costs of the whiskey.

Now, because I also wanted to participate in the tasting, the trick was figuring out how to set things up so the tasting was blind for me as well. The solution I settled on was I would mark nine brown paper lunch bags with the planetary symbols, Mars ♂, Venus ♀ etc. and then my wife bagged the bottles. For a couple of the bottles that were more easy to identify we decanted the bourbon into clean wine bottles.

The tasting was hosted at a friend's house and I placed three bottles of bourbon in the kitchen, the living room and a spare bedroom. The reason for this was that it forced people to move around and not just all congregate in one room of the house. I wasn't concerned about the order in which people tasted the bourbons so it worked fine. In a more formal tasting, flight order is important but for our purposes it was an easy sacrifice.

After a few hours or tasting and eating snacks, I collected the score sheets that I handed out the to tasters. They rated each bourbon from 1-10 based on what they liked. When I tallied the results, one of the first things that stood out was there were no bad bourbons in the batch.  While people liked some bourbons more than others there were no clear winners or losers. In the tasting under $20 it was very obvious that there were a couple of whiskeys that everyone liked and a couple that everyone didn't like, but not this time. This was an encouraging result because what it said to me was if you are going to buy a bourbon in the $20-$50 price range, you can be sure that it is a quality product though you can't guarantee the it will be your favorite.

After tallying the scores here were the results from our group of tasters:

1. Russel's Reserve 10 Year Old 90 Proof (45% ABV) Distilled by the Wild Turkey Distillery in Lawrenceburg, KY.

2. Henry DuYore's Straight Bourbon 91.3 Proof (45.65% ABV) Distilled by Ransom Spirits in Sheridan, OR. (This was the only craft bourbon and the only bourbon not from Kentucky in the tasting.)

3. John E. Fitzgerald Larceny 92 Proof (46% ABV) Distilled at the Bernheim distillery in Louisville, KY and owned by Heaven Hill.

4. Colonel E.H. Taylor Small Batch Bottled in Bond 100 Proof (50% ABV) Distilled at the Buffalo Trace Distillery in Frankfort, KY.

5. Woodford Reserve Distiller's Select, 90.4 Proof (45.2% ABV) Distilled at the Woodford Reserve Distillery in Versailles, KY and owned by Brown-Forman.

6. Elijah Craig 12 Year Old 94 Proof (47% ABV) Distilled at the Bernheim distillery in Louisville, KY and owned by Heaven Hill.

7. Four Roses Small Batch 90 Proof (45% ABV) Distilled at Four Roses in Lawrenceburg, KY.

8. Basil Hayden 80 Proof (40% ABV) Distilled at Jim Beam's Clermont and Frankfort distilleries in KY.

9. Maker's 46 94 Proof (47% ABV) Distilled at the Maker's Mark Distillery in Loretto, KY.

From my personal score sheet my highest rating went to Colonel Taylor which was something I had never tried before and I was happy to find a new bourbon  that I really enjoyed. The other interesting thing was I gave my lowest rating to Maker's 46 which didn't surprise me since I'm not a huge fan of Makers Mark. It was reassuring to see that my taste buds are pretty reliable both when I know what I'm drinking and when I tasting things blind. In the end, this was a really fun event to organize and it was a blast getting a house full of people drinking and discovering some really good bourbon.