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Next Auction starts Friday 29 March. Bottle Deadline: 18 March.

Early Times Kentucky Straight Bourbon Miniature 1980s

Lot: 5073361

Early Times Kentucky Straight Bourbon Miniature 1980s

Winning Bid: £15

Currency Estimate

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Lot:
Distillery: 
Brown-Forman
Age: 
N/A
Vintage: 
N/A
Region: 
Kentucky, USA
Bottler: 
Official
Cask Type: 
N/A
Bottled Strength: 
40%
Bottle Size: 
5cl
Distillery Status: 
Operational
product Details

Early Times Kentucky Straight Bourbon Miniature 1980s

The origins of the Brown-Forman company date back to 1870 when George Garvin Brown went into business with his brother, John Thompson Street Brown. The pair had struck upon the innovation of selling whiskey in sealed glass bottles in order to ensure quality control to capitalise on the medicinal whiskey trade in the 19th century. They introduced their Old Forester brand in the same year in order to do just that. The two brothers’ business relationship quickly deteriorated however, and George Garvin founded a new venture with his accountant, George Forman, taking the Old Forester label with him. His early investment in the medicinal whiskey trade paid huge dividends when National Prohibition was enacted in 1920, seeing Brown-Forman granted a license to continue making whiskey. It was one of just six, alongside Glenmore, Frankfort Distilleries, Schenley, A. Ph. Stitzel and the American Medicinal Spirits Co. The company then bought the Early Times distillery in 1923 in order to make use of its huge stocks, and for nearly 100 years Early Times whiskey was one of its flagship brands (then sold to Sazerac in 2020). Brown-Forman emerged from Prohibition as one of America's powerhouse distilling companies, adding the Labrot & Graham distillery (later Woodford Reserve) to its portfolio in the 1940s, and the Jack Daniel distillery in Tennessee in the 1950s. The company remains a global player in the whisky industry to this day, opening a new Old Forester distillery in 2018, and acquiring a foothold in the Scotch market in 2016 through its takeover of Benriach, Glenglassaugh and Glendronach.

A miniature bottle of Kentucky straight bourbon from 1980. This is one of the last to be labelled as a bourbon as Brown-Forman opted to begin using refill barrels in the ageing of the product, thus necessitating a label change to simply "Kentucky Whisky."

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Please note: Due to the various ages of bottles and their seals, condition of liquid is at the buyer's discretion and no claim can be lodged against failure/leakage in transit.