A Lost Bourbon Brand Founded By a Van Winkle is Being Brought Back to Life

Old Commonwealth, a brand with connections to the Van Winkle whiskeys, is being resurrected from obscurity. (Photo: Old Commonwealth)

On Monday, Robb Report reported that a whiskey brand that had faded into obscurity is being brought back to life. The brand is called Old Commonwealth, and it has a connection to the storied Van Winkle line.

Old Commonwealth dates back to the 1970s when Julian Van Winkle II began to bottle whiskey at Stizel-Weller under his name. His son, Julian Van Winkle III, purchased a distillery in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, and bottled whiskey from the Commonwealth Distillery. The Old Commonwealth brand was launched in 1997, and its flagship expression was a 10-year-old wheated bourbon until it was discontinued in 2002.

The first release from Old Commonwealth upon its revival is a 10-year-old Kentucky bourbon that clocks in at a hefty 131.83 proof. It’s distilled from a mashbill of 75% corn, 15% rye and 10% malted barley by an unnamed Kentucky distillery, per Robb Report.

This massive bump in proof marks a stark increase from the original bourbon, which was bottled at a more modest proof of 107. Its suggested retail price is $200, and on the secondary market, it’s highly likely it will retail for significantly higher.

In 2019, Zachary Joseph and Andrew English bought the rights to the Old Commonwealth name and worked with a family friend named Troy LeBlanc to source barrels of whiskey for references.

“Our mission is to provide premium whiskey that shares our storied history, one glass at a time, and we’re thrilled with this first step in that journey,” Joseph said, according to Robb Report. “Julian is a whiskey legend and a friend of Old Commonwealth. We’ve shown him the facility and what we’re doing to preserve and extend the Van Winkle family history and heritage.”

Gear Patrol referred to it as Julian Van Winkle’s “side hustle bourbon brand” and shared that the owners described the 10-year-old bourbon as “equally fruity, juicy and bold” as its earlier iteration.

On Friday, Old Commonwealth unveiled a second expression, Kentucky Nectar. The double-barreled wheated Kentucky bourbon was bottled at cask strength after being finished in honey casks. Kentucky Nectar hosts a modest proof of 106 and a suggested retail price of $99. The brand shared its distinctive finish would make “honey-finish haters rethink their ire.”

“Finished bourbons shouldn’t be too sweet,” LeBlanc said in a news release. “We created a whiskey that’s tailored to the premium whiskey drinker but still approachable to category neophytes. The honey is subtle, more refined than gimmicky.”

Van Winkle whiskeys are known to fetch exorbitantly high prices in the secondary market and at auction.

A bottle of Van Winkle 18-Year-Old bottled at 60.8% ABV recently sold for $107,715 at an auction.