🥃 Old Crow

Old Crow is a Kentucky straight bourbon brand named after James Crow, a Scottish chemist and distiller. In the 1950s and 1960s it was the best-selling bourbon in the US. Today it is a budget brand of Suntory Global Spirits, made at the Jim Beam distillery in Clermont and bottled at 40% ABV (80 proof). ¹⁵⁶

James Crow. Crow worked at Kentucky distilleries, including Oscar Pepper's on Glenn's Creek, and died in 1856. ¹² A Kentucky Historical Society marker at the former Pepper distillery says Crow brought scientific methods to bourbon making. ⁸ He did not invent the sour mash method, however; he applied it with scientific rigour. ²

Birth of the brand. As early as the 1840s, Pepper and Crow barrels were marked C-R-O-W. In February 1867 the firm Gaines, Berry & Co. leased the Pepper distillery and named its whiskey Old Crow. Trademark no. 102 was registered in November 1870. ⁶

Prohibition. During these years Old Crow was sold on prescription as a medicine, and from 1922 it was made under licence at the Corby distillery in Ontario. Four months after repeal, National Distillers bought the distillery and the brand. ⁶

The peak. In late 1953 the proof was cut from 100 to 86, and sales took off. In May 1954 Old Crow became the first bourbon to sell over a million cases. In 1967 it sold 2.55 million cases and was the fifth-biggest spirits brand in the US. In 1970 Jim Beam overtook it. ⁶

Decline and Beam. In 1974 the proof was cut to 80 and the ageing shortened to make the bottle cheaper. ⁶ Bourbon historian Chuck Cowdery believes the taste had already gone wrong in the 1960s, after the distillery was expanded. ⁷ In April 1987 James B. Beam bought the National Distillers portfolio. The old distillery was closed and production moved to Clermont, using the Jim Beam recipe. ⁶⁷

Today. Sales fell from 520,000 cases in 1987 to 347,000 in 2017. Old Crow Reserve came out in 2015: 4 years old, 43% ABV. ⁶ The brand's official page lists one version, 80 proof: medium gold, with honey, candy corn and citrus on the nose and vanilla, caramel and a little oak on the palate. ⁵

What bourbon means. The mash is at least 51% corn, the spirit is aged in new charred oak barrels, and straight bourbon needs at least two years. ³

Why it matters to you. The brand itself says Ulysses S. Grant and Mark Twain drank its whiskey. But ads from 1949–1960 named long-dead writers as "fans", so this is marketing, not proof. ⁵⁶ The name points to history, not to an old recipe: proof and ageing have changed since then. WHO: no level of alcohol is safe. ⁴