What Ever Occurred to Outdated Crow, As soon as the ‘Pinnacle of American Whiskey’?

April 1987.

James B. Beam Distilling Co. makes the liquor deal of the last decade when it acquires all of Nationwide Distillers and Chemical compounds’ liquor portfolio.

Ostensibly, this $545 million deal ($1.5 billion in the present day) was about touchdown DeKuyper’s Peachtree Schnapps, then the most well liked liqueur in America, the second best-selling bar order within the nation (after vodka), and the bottom of such era-trendy cocktails because the Fuzzy Navel and Intercourse on the Seaside.

Additionally included within the sale have been 4 American “Olds,” whiskey manufacturers that had seen higher days.

There was Outdated Overholt, a Pennsylvania-distilled rye gathering mud at a time when nobody was consuming rye whiskey.

There was Outdated Grand-Dad, a bonded, bottom-shelf bourbon.

There was Outdated Taylor, a lower-proof, bottom-shelf bourbon, usually offered in a flask measurement.

The bourbon business was, on the time, almost twenty years right into a glut interval that noticed most American drinkers bypassing brown spirits in favor of vodka, tequila, and, sure, peach schnapps. It will take till the flip of the century for bourbon (and rye) to once more begin promoting. And promote it might.

As we speak, Outdated Overholt is once more again on prime as one of many largest names in American whiskey, a dependable shelf rye that now has line extensions galore together with a 92.6-proof, 11-year-old bottling, a 10-year Cask Power launch, and a current A. Overholt launch meant to imitate the Monongahela-style, Pennsylvania rye of yore.

“Outdated Crow is a number of the highest-in-demand liquid from that [pre-Prohibition] period, primarily as a result of it was distilled by W.A. Gaines on the time.”

As we speak, Outdated Grand-Dad stays a dive bar favourite and cocktail bar workhorse with gussied-up packaging and rumors of a 16-year-old launch to come back.

As we speak, Outdated Taylor is called Buffalo Hint’s E.H. Taylor, an allotted whiskey offered at excessive costs to connoisseurs and bottle hunters, following a 2009 acquisition.

Then there’s the fourth American whiskey model that was a part of that Nationwide Distiller mega-deal again in 1987.

Outdated Crow, nevertheless, has develop into all however forgotten.

The Pinnacle of an Period

It wasn’t simple for me to discover a bottle of Outdated Crow, even in New York Metropolis. I suppose a whole lot of people aren’t consuming ten buck, plastic screw-cap bourbon in Brooklyn. However, ultimately I discovered a bottle of the 80 proofer on the backbar of a neighborhood dive I solely go to after I wish to hear unhealthy political views.

It truthfully wasn’t unhealthy; candy corn, a touch of vanilla, slightly spice, and a skinny, drinkable mouthfeel. Maybe that’s no shock, Outdated Crow has the identical low-rye bourbon mashbills as extra vaunted Jim Beam merchandise like Baker’s, Knob Creek, and Booker’s.

To my data, that was the primary time I’d ever had fashionable Outdated Crow — actually the one time I’d drunk it throughout the final decade or so. (I used to be much less assiduous about monitoring what I used to be consuming in my 20s, to say the least.)

However, the humorous factor is, I’ve had loads of outdated Outdated Crow lately, particularly whereas researching my guide “Dusty Booze: In Search of Classic Spirits.” And that’s as a result of many drinkers take into account classic Outdated Crow a number of the greatest bourbon ever made.

“The head of that period. It’s a number of the tastiest stuff, with big toasted fennel notes and sweet, with a wealthy and splendid mouthfeel.”

“It was as soon as a monolith, a pillar of a model 100 years in the past,” says Zev Glesta, whiskey specialist and assistant vice chairman for Sotheby’s public sale home. “Outdated Crow is a number of the highest-in-demand liquid from that [pre-Prohibition] period, primarily as a result of it was distilled by W.A. Gaines on the time.”

Gaines famously constructed Frankfort, Ky.’s Hermitage distillery in 1868, which was famend for its bitter mash whiskeys, a course of typically erroneously credited to model namesake Dr. James C. Crow, a doctor, chemist, and distiller who died in 1856.

In January of this yr, Sotheby’s auctioned off a 1912 distilled/1918 bottled Outdated Crow quart for over $8,000, with the catalog calling the model “among the many most famed names in Kentucky bourbon, revered so far as London and Paris as the top of American whiskey” previous to Prohibition.

Put up-Prohibition, Outdated Crow was taken over by the aforementioned Nationwide Distillers, one other much-ballyhooed distiller of yore.

On public sale websites and the net secondary market, bottles of Nationwide Distillers-made Outdated Crow often go for a lot of hundreds of {dollars}. The crème de la crème of classic Outdated Crow is the Outdated Crow Chessmen set. This one-time 1969 launch supplied 10-year-old, 86-proof Nationwide Distillers-produced bourbon bottled in 32 totally different ceramic chess piece decanters, sized from 12 to fifteen.5 inches and glazed in golden bronze for the white items and an virtually black “Viridian Inexperienced” for the opposing aspect. (A full set additionally got here with a 45-by-45-inch chess board product of deep-pile carpet.)

“The head of that period,” says Glesta, who at the moment has two sealed Chessmen sitting on his desk at work. “It’s a number of the tastiest stuff, with big toasted fennel notes and sweet, with a wealthy and splendid mouthfeel.”

Many classic collectors who’ve tried a Chessman, myself included, take into account this extraordinarily darkish bourbon a number of the most distinctive liquid they’ve ever tasted. Fellow scribe Fred Minnick is one other fan, having lengthy claimed it’s the most interesting bourbon he has ever tried (“some [decanters] style like chic blissfulness and others style like shoe leather-based”).

“It tapers mid-Seventies when it begins happening a sure path whereas its older brothers [Old Grand-Dad, Old Taylor, and Old Overholt] stay approach cooler.”

Costs have skyrocketed lately — at the moment round $2,200 at retail — and dusty booze bars like Neat in Louisville or the Fountain Inn in Washington, D.C. are sometimes judged by whether or not they have some in inventory — or empties on show to not less than let you realize what sort of joint they’re working.

Which begs the query: Why is Jim Beam, and its mum or dad firm Suntory World Spirits, letting such a legendary title simply die on backside cabinets?

Tasting Mistaken

“As we speak Outdated Crow is a bottom-shelf whiskey,” reads a current Sotheby’s itemizing for classic Outdated Crow, “a shadow of its former self, and this bottle is a testomony to how superb that former self actually was.”

So what occurred?

Bourbon business historian Chuck Cowdery claims a former worker informed him that, within the Sixties when Outdated Crow was nonetheless one of many nation’s best-selling bourbons, Nationwide Distillers enlarged the manufacturing plant, inadvertently altering the share of setback used to situation the mash. (In different phrases, how a lot of the earlier “spent” mash was added again to the brand new batch as a part of the bitter mash course of.)

“Everybody, together with [the former employee] and the distillery tasting panel, informed administration it tasted flawed, however at that time they have been making it as quick as they might and promoting all they might make, so nothing was ever finished to repair it,” Cowdery reported in 2011.

Certainly, by the point the Seventies rolled round and the so-called “bourbon glut” started, Outdated Crow struggled greater than many different manufacturers, with massively declining gross sales for the subsequent twenty years, earlier than Beam acquired it and once more modified the recipe.

Glesta additionally sees it falling off in high quality and desirability nicely earlier than the Beam acquisition.

“It tapers mid-Seventies when it begins happening a sure path whereas its older brothers [Old Grand-Dad, Old Taylor, and Old Overholt] stay approach cooler,” he says.

Having stated that, Glesta thinks Outdated Crow might see its personal revival if Beam merely gave it 20 extra proof factors (as much as 100 proof) and possibly a number of line extensions as nicely. (To make sure, in 2010, Beam launched a barely older [4 years], barely higher-proof [86] Outdated Crow Reserve, which additionally flopped. Whereas in June, yet one more 86-proof product, dubbed Crow 86, had its label accredited by the TTB.)

“At Suntory World Spirits we’re all the time alternatives throughout our full model portfolio that meet a requirement and add worth to our current and new shoppers; and that continues to incorporate Outdated Crow,” claims Bradford Lawrence, world model administration at Suntory World Spirits. He additionally talked about what number of years of improvement it took “guaranteeing executable excellence” in regard to Outdated Overholt and Outdated Grand-Dad.

My principle, for what it’s price, is that Jim Beam needs Outdated Crow to be a bit missed. Bear in mind, it’s the identical precise mash invoice as Jim Beam White Label, the distillery’s flag-bearer. Having a bottom-shelf, $10 bourbon within the portfolio solely improves the standing of the corporate’s $20ish flagship. I’m not even positive the corporate cares in regards to the once-legendary previous of Outdated Crow.

Certainly, at a current press occasion, a Jim Beam govt grilled me on concepts for promoting extra White Label, seemingly having little interest in my ideas on find out how to promote different manufacturers in its portfolio, however particularly Outdated Crow, which I continued to carry up.

“Have you ever thought-about simply releasing an all-new Chessmen collection?” I lastly requested her.

She didn’t know what I used to be speaking about.