Brown-Forman’s Bourbon Legacy: From Old Forester to Jack Daniel’s
When we as a whiskey community think of the big names in bourbon we tend to think of Jim Beam, Heaven Hill, Buffalo Trace and maybe even Wild Turkey. One of the so-called “big boys” that often gets overlooked is Brown-Forman.
“Bourbon’s first bottler,” Brown-Forman, remains with Old Forester the longest continually available bourbon on the market. That legacy stretches back to 1870, but we’re going to take a trip even further back.
George Garvin Brown: A Kentucky Legacy
George Garvin Brown was born in Mumfordville, Kentucky, in September 1846. Notably, George was the son of the eponymous JTS Brown and half brother of JTS Brown Jr. Brown became the man of the house at a young age due to his father and brother being sent off to fight in the Civil War.
He was actually sent to Louisville to attend Male High School but left six months before graduation due to an inability for his family to continue supporting him from afar.
Brown became a pharmaceutical sales representative during his teenage years, and one of the many products he was moving was medicinal whiskey.
Whiskey Rectifiers and the Bottled-in-Bond Act
Before the Bottled-in-Bond Act of 1897, whiskey was often adulterated by so-called “rectifiers.” Distillers, by-and-large, at this time were at the very least attempting to make high quality products. For the most part, though, distillers weren’t selling directly to the public. They sold their barrels to rectifiers. These unscrupulous wholesalers added harmful ingredients like prune juice or iodine to increase their profits, damaging the reputation of whiskey. Brown’s experiences with poor-quality whiskey pushed him toward change.
Then came the Bottled-in-Bond Act of 1897, which changed everything. Click here to learn more about that.
The Start of JTS Brown and Brother Co.
As Brown met with his sales contracts he heard the shouts and complaints about the quality of the whiskey they were prescribing. Due to the rectifiers, the whiskey could be good, bad or even harmful. This whiskey was being sold by the barrel via the rectifiers, and bottling was still too expensive in the 1860s and 1870s. You would have to go and fill a jug up at the general store, tavern or pharmacy.
Because of all of his experiences, Brown decided to start a whiskey business with his half-brother. JTS Brown Jr. had quite a bit of experience in the whiskey business with a small company of his own.
Together they launched JTS Brown and Brother Co. They started by purchasing barrels directly from the distilleries of J.M. Atherton Co. and J.M. Mattingly Co. and batching it for consistency. From there, they would bottle and seal it as a guarantee of safety to their customers. Brown had his signature placed on the label as a guarantee to his word. They would then sell to doctors and pharmacies alone at first but quickly expanded to the public.
The Transition to Old Forester
The original name for the brand was Old Brown, but they quickly decided that name wasn’t appropriate for a bourbon and named it Old Forester after the famous Louisville physician, Dr. William Forrester.
Expanding the Business: Partnerships and Expansions
In 1872, JTS Brown & Brother hired George Forman as a salesman. He would later become the company’s bookkeeper and partner to Brown.
Over the years, the company changed names several times, eventually becoming Brown-Forman in 1890. This was the foundation for the global company we know today.
In 1881, stockholder Henry Chambers retired, and the company was renamed to Brown, Thompson & Co., with Forman becoming a junior partner.
Brown-Forman: The Company Name Takes Shape
Finally, in 1890 Thompson sold his shares to Brown and Forman to buy the Glenmore distillery, with Brown owning 90% and Forman owning 10%. The company was then renamed to Brown-Forman.
Forman died in 1901, and his widow sold his shares back to the company — but they kept the name. In 1902, the company acquired Ben Mattingly Distillery and became the Brown-Forman Distillery Co.
The Prohibition Era: Brown-Forman’s Survival
In 1904, Brown’s son, Owsley, joined the firm. in 1917, when his father died, Owsley took over the company. Owsley was a keen businessman and in 1920 secured one of only 10 federal permits to distribute, store and produce whiskey for medicinal purposes during prohibition.
This left Brown-Forman as one of the only distilleries with aged stock coming out of prohibition in 1933. Despite that, their sales were not as expected going into 1934, and Brown offered up half his shares to investors.
Post-Prohibition and Further Acquisitions
In 1940 Brown-Forman purchased the Old Kentucky Distillery in Louisville which is the Old Forester Distillery today. In 1941, they purchased the Labrot and Graham Distillery, which would become the Woodford Reserve Distillery, before moving into World War II industrial alcohol production.
Jack Daniel’s and the Expansion of the Brand
1945 came along; Brown founded the Bluegrass Cooperage, which is still in use today producing the barrels for Brown-Forman. They made their first attempt at buying the Jack Daniel Distillery in 1950. They would eventually successfully purchase it in 1956.
The Legacy of Lincoln Henderson: Master Distiller
Lincoln Henderson, beginning in 1966, would start his 40 year tenure at Brown-Forman becoming one of the most prolific master distillers in history. He oversaw all of the major brands up through Woodford Reserve before retiring in 2006 (to then form Angel’s Envy with his family). The man is a legend and deserves his own writeup!
Woodford Reserve
The B-F brand sold the land for Labrot and Graham in the 1960s and would reacquire it in 1993, forming the Woodford Reserve Distillery and introducing the brand in 1996.
Brown-Forman is still family operated and owned and is one of the largest companies in the spirits and wine business today despite a surprising sale of Early Times in 2020. As with any company, there have been many successes and many failures (the word “Frost” is banned by the company for a reason) along the way, but by and large Brown-Forman has done incredible both in the bourbon space and outside of it.
