After Prohibition, Old Crow advertising emphasized the brand’s history.The tale of the 1895 Brown-Gordon murders may seem like a stretch for a publication devoted to American whiskey, but the involvement of a principal in America’s most successfu…
Made in Louisville, but on their way to Tennessee.Brown-Forman started its press release today by reminding us that the company is 155 years old. That’s one way to say they take a long view. In part, that’s their business. They are one of the fou…
A Lazarus newspaper ad from a little before my time (1928).It was fifty years ago, yet I remember the moment. 1975. I had just joined an advertising agency in Columbus, Ohio, to work on the Lazarus account. I was with some Lazarus executive, and …
In this stock image, ‘business’ is represented by a guy in a white shirt and tie while ‘creativity’ is represented by a lightbulb bursting with color, which is some pretty lazy creative.About ten years ago, I wrote about what happened when a very…
Every year at this time, everyone publishes their “best of” lists for the year. Sure, nobody wants to work very hard over the holidays, that includes most writers and editors and many readers. We all know these lists are just lazy editorial fille…
Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits, LLC is the largest wine and spirits distributor in the United States with operations in 44 states and Washington, D.C. Its portfolio is 45% wine and 55% spirits. It was the 10th largest private company in the U…
Everybody is getting into the single barrel act.Blanton’s was the first single barrel bourbon but it sure wasn’t the last. These days, they’re everywhere.But so what? What’s so great about “single barrel” whiskey?You probably think single barrel is hig…
Bourbon de Luxe Batch 2024-01, by Rolling Fork Spirits.I became aware of Bourbon de Luxe in the early 1990s. I was helping Jim Beam Brands absorb the National Distillers portfolio it acquired a few years earlier. Before National, Beam was essenti…
The E. J. Curley Distillery, later known as Kentucky River, was on the site of Camp Nelson, a Civil War Union Army base.Last night, PBS broadcast an episode of its “Secrets of the Dead” series entitled “The Civil War’s Lost Massacre.” Althou…
Bessie Smith had the first hit with “Careless Love” in 1925.The tremendous success of Old Crow, the first modern bourbon, produced several fortunes in the decades before Prohibition. Few profited more than the Berry family. Hiram Berry joined the…
