Stitzel-Weller 14 Year Old - Berghoff Restaurant Exclusive - 1985 Release

Bourbon bottlers W.L. Weller & Sons merged their business in the 1930s with their main supplier, the A. Ph. Stitzel distillery, opening their new Stitzel-Weller distillery in 1935. Company boss Julian ‘Pappy’ Van Winkle famously preferred wheat as the secondary grain in the mashbill for his brands, which included Cabin Still, Rebel Yell, W.L. Weller and the company’s flagship bourbon, Old Fitzgerald.

After Pappy Van Winkle died in 1965, the Stitzel-Weller company was sold in 1972 by his son Julian on condition that he would be supplied Stitzel-Weller whiskey for his Old Van Winkle brand. Stitzel-Weller was bought in 1984 by Diageo forerunner DCL (later United Distillers), who closed the distillery in 1992. United Distillers sold the Stitzel-Weller brands but retained the distillery, and reopened it in 2014 after the sensational success of Van Winkle bourbon, which catapulted Stitzel-Weller distillery to fame in the early years of this century.  Old bottles of the original Stitzel-Weller bourbon brands are now highly sought after.

Distillery bottlings are, as the name suggests, bottled by or for the distillery from which the whisky has originated and are thus often referred to as Official Bottlings or OBs. Distillery bottlings are generally more desirable for collectors and usually fetch higher prices at auction than independent bottlings. They are officially-endorsed versions of the whisky from a particular distillery and are therefore considered the truest expression of the distillery’s character.

This ideal of the distillery character is regarded so seriously by the distilleries and brand owners that casks of whisky that are considered to vary too far from the archetype are frequently sold on to whisky brokers and independent bottlers. When this happens, it is often with the proviso that the distillery’s name is not allowed to be used when the cask is bottled for fear of diminishing or damaging the distillery’s character and status.