Old Crow


Old Crow is a low-priced brand of Kentucky-made straight bourbon whiskey distilled by Beam Suntory, which also produces Jim Beam and several other brands of whiskey. The current Old Crow product uses the same mash bill and yeast as Jim Beam, but is aged for a shorter period of time.
The Old Crow brand has a venerable history as one of Kentucky's earliest bourbons. Old Crow is aged in barrels for a minimum of three years, and in the United States is 80 proof while the slightly higher quality, but still inexpensive Old Crow Reserve is aged for a minimum of four years and is 86 proof.

History

, a Scottish immigrant, started distilling what would become Old Crow in Frankfort, Kentucky, in the 1830s. Reportedly a very skilled distiller, he made whiskey for various employers, which was sold as "Crow" or, as it aged, "Old Crow" – and the brand acquired its reputation from the latter. Crow died in 1856. W.A. Gaines and Company acquired the name and continued to distill the bourbon similar to his recipe, but the original distillation formula died with its creator. The substantial remaining stock of original Old Crow acquired near-legendary status. After the Civil War the Old Crow logo was changed from a picture of James Crow to the current crow perched atop grains of barley. In 1875, offering drinks from the last available cask reportedly secured the election of Joseph Clay Stiles Blackburn of Kentucky to his first Congressional term. A dispute over ownership of the name "Old Crow" was decided in 1915 in favor of the Gaines company.
Although the whiskey had been at one time the top selling bourbon in the United States, it underwent a swift decline in the second half of the twentieth century. A production error in the amount of "setback" negatively impacted the taste of the whiskey, and the distiller's inability or unwillingness to correct it led to many customers switching to other brands. Parent company National Distillers was sold to Jim Beam in 1987. The Old Crow recipe and distillery were abandoned and the product became a three-year-old bourbon based on the Jim Beam mashbill. In 2013 Glenns Creek Distillery started operations in part of the former Old Crow Distillery.

Famous drinkers

Besides Blackburn, many American politicians have declared their love for Old Crow. It has been said that it was the drink of choice for American general and later 18th President of the United States, Ulysses S. Grant. An apocryphal story about Grant's drinking has the general's critics going to President Abraham Lincoln, charging the military man with being a drunk. Lincoln is supposed to have replied, "By the way, gentlemen, can either of you tell me where General Grant procures his whiskey? Because, if I can find out, I will send every general in the field a barrel of it!"
Confederate General Jubal Early was also a fan of Old Crow.
Another famous politician who preferred Old Crow was Henry Clay, of Kentucky, who was even featured in Old Crow advertisements.
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World War II "triple ace" Bud Anderson named his P-51 Mustang Old Crow, after the whiskey.

In popular culture

Old Crow is said to have been the favorite bourbon of American writers Mark Twain and William Faulkner. Journalist Hunter S. Thompson liked it. Twain reportedly visited the distillery in the 1880s, and Old Crow advertised this heavily; John C. Gerber sees in this commercial exploitation a sign of Twain's continuing popularity. As for Thompson, the frequent occurrences of the drink in his writing, semi-autobiographical as well as fictional have led to similar associations. The manufacturer actively pursued such publicity: in 1955, they took out an ad in College English, the journal of the National Council of Teachers of English, offering $250 for every literary reference to their product.
In the 1903 book The Log Of A Cowboy by Andy Adams, the cook goes to Abilene for supplies and also brings back a box of cigars and "several bottles of Old Crow".
It is mentioned by Japanese author Murakami Haruki in Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.
In his 1998 HBO special "Driven to Drink", comedian Paul F. Tompkins said "Now if you've never had Old Crow, then you've never accidentally sprayed hairspray into your mouth."
Throughout “Up a Road Slowly” Irene Hunt’s 1966 Newbery Award-winning novel, Uncle Haskell drinks copious quantities of Old Crow, taking the empty bottles in a golf bag to bury them at a creek. He claims the Old Crow is rare French wine, so the children begin referring to it as Le Vieux Corbeau.
In the 1953 John Wayne Movie, "Trouble Along The Way", Wayne's character, Steve Williams, is seen to be clearly drinking Old Crow in a bar.
In the 2nd season of Beavis and Butt-Head in No Laughing, Principal McVicker is shown to keep a bottle of Old Crow inside his desk drawer and drinking it in front of Beavis and Butt-head.
In the 1974 movie Chinatown, Jack Nicholson's character, JJ Gittes, pours his distraught client a shot of Old Crow whiskey to calm him down, after showing the man photos of his wife having an affair. This is the first scene of the film and the label is clearly visible on the bottle.
Mentions in popular music have included the following: