Bootlegger's Justice™

Old Overholt

Distilled: 1938 

Location: Pennsylvania 

Valuation $3750

Three Feathers Reserve

Distilled: 1943 

Location: Maryland 

Valuation: $800

Old Vandegrift

Distilled: 1917 

Location: Indiana 

Valuation: $900

Old Overholt:

Old Overholt is one of America's oldest whiskey brands, tracing its roots back to 1810 when Abraham Overholt took over distilling operations at his family's farm in West Overton. A family business until the early 20th century, it was reorganized as A. Overholt & Co by Abraham's sons, Jacob and Henry, although it was not until 1888 that the Old Overholt brand was first introduced. Despite its historical links to West Overton, which is still a museum today, most Overholt whiskey was produced at the larger, more modern Broad Ford facility, built in 1859. Both were run in tandem until shut down by Prohibition. Fortunately, Broad Ford was able to survive America's decade of temperance. When Abraham's grandson, Henry Clay Frick died in 1919, he left the ownership of the company to Andrew Mellon, who would later become President Warren G. Harding's Secretary of the Treasury, a position which allowed him to grant Broad Ford a license to bottle "medicinal" whiskey. Considered a political liability, Mellon was under pressure to offload the company, however, and he sold it first to New York grocers, Park & Tilford in 1925, who in turn sold it on to National Distillers in 1932. National Distillers were consolidating interests in as much of the industry as possible with the repeal of Prohibition expected the following year, most notable was their acquisition of the Wathen family's American Medicinal Spirits Co. National Distillers produced Old Overholt until 1987, bottling it with whiskey from Broad Ford and the neighbouring Large distillery until the 1950s, and at an unknown Pennsylvania plant in the intervening years until its acquisition by Jim Beam. Today they continue to make it at their distilleries in Kentucky. This Bottled in Bond rye was produced at Broad Ford and bottled in 1938.

Three Feathers Reserve Blended Whiskey 1943:

Three Feathers is a blended American whiskey produced by Schenley, who were one of the "big 4" American whisky companies who dominated the post-Prohibition market, alongside National Distillers, Seagram's and Hiram Walker. This was bottled at the height of the second world war in 1943.

Old Vandegrift 1917 Bottled in Bond Pure Whiskey Pint / Prohibition Era Bottling

This was distilled in the Fall of 1917 at Hammond Distillery in Indiana, and was presumably some of their last whiskey given they were forced to close down when Prohibition was enacted in April that year. The Hammond Distilling Company was incorporated in 1901 and was run by none other than John E. Fitzgerald, after whom the Stitzel-Weller (and now Heaven Hill) classic, Old Fitzgerald is named. Following its closure, Hammond Distillery has an infamous subsequent history of association with illicit bootlegging and smuggling, attributed to none other than Al Capone. The whiskey used for this was likely saved from the hands of prohibition gangland by the Pennsylvania Distillery Inc, who bonded it in New York and bottled it in 1934 under a special medicinal license, despite the fact prohibition had already been repealed a year earlier.