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James E. Pepper is an American whiskey brand.
The brand is named after a historic American whiskey maker with that name who built and operated a distillery in
Lexington, Kentucky, and marketed his whiskey under his family's brand name "Old Pepper" and under his own name. The brand's distillery, known as the Henry Clay distillery and later as the Old Pepper distillery and James E. Pepper distillery, was shut down in 1958 and was left abandoned for more than 50 years until Amir Peay (an entrepreneur with no relationship to the prior brand owners) purchased the historic distillery site and relaunched the brand name in 2008.
[ Distilling resumed at the site in 2017.
]
The person
James E. Pepper (May 10, 1850 – 1906), Master Distiller and Kentucky Colonel
Kentucky Colonel is the highest title of honor bestowed by the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and is the most well-known of a number of honorary colonelcies conferred by United States governors. A Kentucky Colonel Commission (the certificate) i ...
, was a bourbon industrialist and flamboyant promoter of his family brand. He was the third generation to produce "Old Pepper" whisky, "The Oldest and Best Brand of Whisky made in Kentucky", founded in 1780 during the American Revolution. He claimed that his distillery, the Old Pepper Distillery in Lexington, Kentucky, was the oldest in the United States and the largest in the world, and that it made the best whiskey in the United States.
An avid and noted horseman, Pepper operated one of the most regarded stables in Kentucky and paid at the time the highest amount ever per acre for a bluegrass horse farm. His thoroughbreds competed in the Kentucky Derby and various other races across the United States and throughout Europe. He traveled in an ornate private rail car named "The Old Pepper", painted with images of his famed whiskey label, and he spent a considerable amount of time in Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
, where he would travel to promote his brand.
During his visits to New York, often at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, Pepper frequently socialized with various American captains of industry
Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...
, including John Jacob Astor
John Jacob Astor (born Johann Jakob Astor; July 17, 1763 – March 29, 1848) was a German-American businessman, merchant, real estate mogul, and investor who made his fortune mainly in a fur trade monopoly, by History of opium in China, smuggl ...
, Francis G. du Pont, Thomas Eckert, Pierre Lorillard IV
Pierre J. Lorillard IV (October 13, 1833 – July 7, 1901) was an American tobacco manufacturer and Thoroughbred race horse owner.
Early life
Born in Westchester, New York, he was the son of Pierre Lorillard III (1796–1867) and Catherine Gri ...
, Levi P. Morton
Levi Parsons Morton (May 16, 1824 – May 16, 1920) was the 22nd vice president of the United States from 1889 to 1893. He also served as United States ambassador to France, as a U.S. representative from New York, and as the 31st Governor of Ne ...
, Fred Pabst, Charles A. Pillsbury, John D. Rockefeller
John Davison Rockefeller Sr. (July 8, 1839 – May 23, 1937) was an American business magnate and philanthropist. He has been widely considered the wealthiest American of all time and the richest person in modern history. Rockefeller was ...
, Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...
, William Steinway
William Steinway, also known as Wilhelm Steinway (born Wilhelm Steinweg; March 5, 1835 – November 30, 1896), son of Steinway & Sons founder Henry E. Steinway, was a businessman and civic leader who was influential in the development of Astoria, ...
, Charles L. Tiffany, and Cornelius Vanderbilt
Cornelius Vanderbilt (May 27, 1794 – January 4, 1877), nicknamed "the Commodore", was an American business magnate who built his wealth in railroads and shipping. After working with his father's business, Vanderbilt worked his way into lead ...
.[ It was at the Waldorf that Pepper helped to popularize the " Old Fashioned" cocktail, which was said to have been invented by a bartender at the famed ]Pendennis Club
The Pendennis Club is a private social club located at 218 West Muhammad Ali Blvd. (formerly Walnut Street) in Louisville, Kentucky. It originated as a gentlemen's "city" club on the model of the clubs in London, Britain, of which White's Club fo ...
in Louisville
Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border.
...
.
Pepper was a staunch advocate for his whiskey business. He was a vocal opponent of the infamous "Whisky Trust" of the 1890s. In 1890 he got the state of Kentucky to change its laws so that he could bottle his own whisky at his distillery. Before the changes in the law, distillers could only sell their whiskey by the barrel, and if their product was bottled it was because whoever purchased the barrel from the distillery did the bottling. (The Old Forester brand had earlier introduced the idea of selling a whiskey brand only in bottles, but the Old Forester brand was produced by a "rectifier" rather than a distiller.) He introduced the idea of a strip stamp with his signature on it to go across the cork, sealing the bottle. He then advertised that if this signature was damaged, the consumer should be wary of purchasing the bottle because someone may have tampered with the whiskey, and it may not contain real Pepper whiskey. The strip stamp became popular and the government used the idea when they passed the Bottled-in-Bond Act of 1897.
Pepper proudly proclaimed his continued use of his grandfather's original Revolutionary‐era recipes, and as such nicknamed his whisky "Old 1776".
The distillery buildings
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The brand's distillery site originally became a distillery in the 1800s, and was known as the Henry Clay distillery (registered distillery DSP-KY-5). It became a large commercial distillery at a time when long-distance transportation of goods by steamship and railroad networks had become practical and the Internal Revenue Act of 1862, passed to raise funds for the Civil War
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
, had imposed an excise tax on alcohol production that forced many smaller producers out of the business. This post-Civil War period would later be sometimes called the "Golden Age of Distilling".[ Although a number of other producers were then driven out of the business by competition, overproduction, and a reduction in demand brought about by the ]temperance movement
The temperance movement is a social movement promoting temperance or complete abstinence from consumption of alcoholic beverages. Participants in the movement typically criticize alcohol intoxication or promote teetotalism, and its leaders emph ...
, the distillery continued operating until around 1917 when austerity measures related to World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
shut down production and were followed by the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Eighteenth Amendment (Amendment XVIII) of the United States Constitution established the prohibition of alcohol in the United States. The amendment was proposed by Congress on December 18, 1917, and was ratified by the requisite number of ...
and the Volstead Act
The National Prohibition Act, known informally as the Volstead Act, was an act of the 66th United States Congress, designed to carry out the intent of the 18th Amendment (ratified January 1919), which established the prohibition of alcoholic d ...
, which brought about the era of Prohibition in the United States.[
During Prohibition, the site was selected as one of the few places for authorized warehousing of liquor stocks under the Liquor Concentration Act of 1922, and sales of whiskey for medicinal purposes also allowed the brand to continue to be bottled, although the distilling equipment was mothballed. As early as 1890, the Old Pepper brand had been advertised as a medicinal treatment for diverse ailments including ]malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or death. S ...
and consumption
Consumption may refer to:
*Resource consumption
*Tuberculosis, an infectious disease, historically
* Consumption (ecology), receipt of energy by consuming other organisms
* Consumption (economics), the purchasing of newly produced goods for curren ...
, and the brand was placing advertisements in drug stores for medicinal uses by the 1910s. This allowed the brand's name recognition and some of its bottling operations to survive through a period when many producers were shut down and became unable to recover. In 1923, the James E. Pepper brand was being marketed to pharmacists, and was endorsed by more than 40,000 physicians, commanding a price six times higher than before Prohibition began. In October 1929, as warehoused inventory dwindled, some distilling was allowed to resume at the Stitzel-Weller distillery and was used as a source for the brand's bottling operation. The approaching end of Prohibition brought about a period of heavy investment in large production facilities, and the distillery was purchased around 1934 by Schenley Industries
Schenley Industries was a liquor company based in New York City with headquarters in the Empire State Building and a distillery in Lawrenceburg, Indiana. It owned several brands of Bourbon whiskey, including Schenley, The Old Quaker Company, Cream ...
, just as large-scale operation was able to resume. Schenley was the largest distiller in the United States during 1934–1937.[ A few years later, austerity measures enacted during ]World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
would again shut down nearly all whiskey production in the United States until after the war ended in 1945. During this period the distillery was converted to the production of industrial alcohol. After the war, the distillery resumed liquor production on a large scale, and as the Korean War
, date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...
approached, it ramped up its production further, as the managers anticipated that the war might cause production to be forced to shut down again. This led to excess inventory of stored whiskey. Distilling was then curtailed while inventory was drawn down. Further consolidation of the industry caused on-site distilling operations to cease altogether in 1958.[
The distillery was listed in the ]National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...
in February 2009 as James E. Pepper Distillery, with a recognized period of historic significance of 1934–1958, due to its local importance as the only largely intact example of a post-Prohibition distillery facility in Fayette County, Kentucky (although as early as 1810 there had once been as many as 140 distilleries operating in the Lexington area).[
]
2008 brand relaunch and 2017 distilling resumption
Entrepreneur Amir Peay relaunched the brand name in 2008. He spent over a decade doing historic research on the brand and collecting historic materials and whiskey, and had the new still system designed and built to resemble the original mechanical engineering drawings from the last system built in 1934. The new still system was built by Vendome Copper in Louisville
Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border.
...
, the same company that built that system in 1934. The new distillery began operating on the historic site on December 21, 2017, running the same historic bourbon mash bill as when the plant closed in 1967 and drawing water from the historic distillery well. Peay has published many of the historic documents and materials on his website and social media pages, and built a museum at the historic distillery.[
After the European Union placed tariffs on American whiskey in 2018, James E. Pepper lost three-quarters of its foreign business, as its prices became too high for most consumers.
]
The Old Fashioned cocktail
James E. Pepper is credited with popularizing the drink known as the Old Fashioned cocktail, which was said to have been invented by a bartender at the Pendennis Club
The Pendennis Club is a private social club located at 218 West Muhammad Ali Blvd. (formerly Walnut Street) in Louisville, Kentucky. It originated as a gentlemen's "city" club on the model of the clubs in London, Britain, of which White's Club fo ...
in Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...
.[ Pepper introduced the drink to the ]Waldorf-Astoria Hotel
The Waldorf Astoria New York is a luxury hotel and condominium residence in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. The structure, at 301 Park Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets, is a 47-story Art Deco landmark designed by architects Schult ...
bar in New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
.
See also
* List of historic whisky distilleries
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pepper, James E.
Cuisine of the Southern United States
Bourbon whiskey
Distilleries on the National Register of Historic Places in Kentucky
Companies based in Lexington, Kentucky
Alcoholic drink brands
American drink brands
National Register of Historic Places in Lexington, Kentucky