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Bottle Details
Old Rip Van Winkle 7 Year Old Third Design Decanter 1978
This is an incredible piece of bourbon history. Following the forced sale of Stitzel-Weller distillery by the Van Winkle family in 1972, Julian II (son of the legendary 'Pappy') was granted an office and a license to continue procuring and bottling Stitzel-Weller stock on site, as a gesture of goodwill by new distillery owners, Somerset Imports. He named his company the Old Commonwealth Distillery Co.
Although Julian had sold the distillery and all of its brands, he retained one, the pre-prohibition Old Rip Van Winkle label, which he immediately revived. The earliest releases from the Old Rip Van Winkle brand were decanters like this. Bottled in 1978 at 7 years old, the Stitzel-Weller whiskey it contains would have been barrelled at the distillery while Julian II was still in charge. While Old Rip Van Winkle was generally always bottled using Stitzel-Weller stock procured form its new owners, there aren't many like this that contain Van Winkle era Stitzel-Weller whiskey.
Following the death of Julian II, his son, Julian III took over the family business, moving bottling to Hoffman distillery in 1983, renaming it Old Commonwealth after his fathers company. With Stitzel-Weller's closure by United distillers in 1992 causing his stocks to begin thinning out, Van Winkle reached an agreement with the Sazerac company to store and bottle his remaining stock. He also entrusted production of new Van Winkle whiskey to their Buffalo Trace distillery, who were already using the familiar recipe to produce W.L. Weller, another former Stitzel-Weller brand. The Pappy Van Winkle brand we are familiar with today has been produced at Buffalo Trace since 2002.
This then, a Van Winkle era Stitzel-Weller bourbon, bottled for the Old Rip Van Winkle brand is a true collector's item. The decanter itself is the third limited edition design of Rip Van Winkle himself.
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