A Century of American Whiskey

LDI 1988 Barrel Proof 23 Year Old Rye

The history of MGP distillery has its roots in the mid-19th century, however it is best known for its association to Seagram, who purchased it at the close of Prohibition in 1933. Located in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, the distillery provided whiskey and grain neutral spirits for many of the Canadian distilling giants products for the rest of the 20th century. When an ill-advised move into the entertainment industry saw Seagram collapse in the early 2000s, much of their assets, including the Lawrenceburg distillery were bought up by Pernod-Ricard. They announced in 2006 that they intended to close it, however ended up selling it instead to a holding company in Trinidad called CL Financial. They renamed it LDI (Lawrenceburg Distillers Indiana). It was not long however before the new owners would go bust as well, and the distillery was again sold, this time to MGP Ingredients, who renamed it in the process. The company produced and markets some of its own brands, but its main line of business is a huge contract-distilling operation. Among these are a number of well-regarded grain recipes, and several bourbons. Among its biggest customers are Diageo, and former owners, Pernod-Ricard, alongside an extensive list of independent boutique brands. In 2021 it was announced that MGP had acquired Luxco, which would provide it with a new national distribution for its Indiana-produced brands, but also facilitated it with the Lux Row distillery, which opened in 2018.

This 1988 vintage whiskey was distilled by Seagram using a mashbill of 95% rye. It was bottled in 2011 to commemorate the LDI era, which ran from July 2007 until December 2011. Unusually labelled with \"thanks for being part of the success,\" this was gifted to the staff prior to the takeover by MGP.

Legends of the Wild West 15 Year Old Historic Bourbon 96 Proof

This is a \"historic bourbon,\" aged 15 years and titled Legends of the Wild West and featuring 19th century frontiersman and US army officer Kit Carson on the label. This is almost certainly a Kentucky Bourbon Distillers bottling, although the font style used for the Kit Carson is indicative of the company now known as Preservation Distillers.

Preservation is owned by the Allied Lomar in California, who's other products include Very Olde St Nick, Rare Perfection, Wattie Boone and the Vintage Bourbon and Rye bottles. They have been sourcing bourbon and bottling it for several decades, and they are instantly recognisable from their uniform use of the same cursive script-style typeface. Marci Palatella was Julian Van Winkle III's agent in the Japanese market for many years, and their early bottlings were contracted to him at his Old Commonwealth distillery.

The Van Winkle partnership with in the early 2000's ended this agreement however, with the production of bottles such as this moved to Willett distillery, where they were bottled by its owners, Evan Kulsveen's Kentucky Bourbon Distillers. The stills at Willett were silent at this point and KBD were sourcing most of their whiskey from Heaven Hill.

Preservation Distillers have opened their very own distillery in Bardstown Kentucky in 2018, which will produce around 3-4 barrels of pot distilled bourbon per day.

Lionstone 8 Year Old Gold Panner Decanter 1969

Lionstone Distilleries was a company that sourced whiskey to bottle in commemorative decanter in the 1960s and 1970s. One of its directors was Even Kulsveen, who would marry Martha Willett in 1972 and is now the owner of the Willett distillery. Later examples of these decanters list the bottler as being located in Bardstown, Kentucky, which likely refers to Willett, however these earlier versions from Lawrenceburg could be from a number of disfferent distilleries.

Larceny Barrel Proof Batch #B521

This bourbon brand is named after John E. Fitzgerald, who first gave his name to the classic Old Fitzgerland label, devised by S.C. Hebst in 1870. John E. Fitzgerald Larceny was introduced by Heaven Hill in 2012 as a more affordable wheated bourbon to its premium Old Fitzgerald line.

Larceny Barrel Proof was introduced in 2019 and is a thrice-annual release from Heaven Hill's Bernheim distillery.

Bernheim is a historic Kentucky distillery. It was established by the Bernheim Brothers in the late 19th century, before passing into the hands of the Schenley company following the repeal of Prohibition. When Schenley were bought over by United Distillers in 1987, the distillery was rebuilt as the new owners looked to consolidate their production to a single facility. When United Distillers became Diageo in 1997, the new parent company were interested in bourbon, and sold the distillery to Heaven Hill. Heaven Hill were established in 1935, but their long-serving Bardstown distillery was lost in a devastating fire in 1996. Homeless for three years, the company acquired Bernheim in 1999, and have produced all of their whiskey there ever since.