Please note: the labels of this Very Very Old Fitzgerald 1957 12 Years Old are not pristine
A 1957 Very Very Old Fitzgerald that was made during the prime time of the one and only Stitzel-Weller Distillery. This Kentucky Straight Bourbon was bottled in 1970 at 12 years old. At the time of distilling, Papy Van Winkle still owned and ran the distillery. The side label proudly states: ‘The thought and care that have gone into the making of Very Very Old Fitzgerald have produced a truly great Bourbon, and, because of my affection for V.V.O. it is known here at our family owned distillery as “Mr. Van’s Very Own.” – Julian P. Van Winkle, senior Proprietor.’ The Stitzel-Weller distillery is the result of a union between the wholesale liquor business W.L. Weller & Sons, founded by William Larue Weller in the 1840s, and the A. Ph. Stitzel Distillery, established by Arthur Philip Stitzel in 1903. The whiskey legend Julian ‘Pappy’ Van Winkle was introduced to the world of bourbon when he started working as a traveling salesman for Weller & Sons in 1893. He eventually gained a controlling interest in the company and merged it with the A. Ph. Stitzel Distillery after Prohibition, thus creating the Stitzel-Weller distillery. The distillery was sold to Norton Simon in 1972, who renamed it the Old Fitzgerald Distillery. They closed the facility in 1992, and United Distillers changed its name back to the Stitzel-Weller Distillery. Today, most of the former Stitzel-Weller brands are distilled at Buffalo Trace, but original Stitzel-Weller bourbon is still any whiskey lover’s holy grail. This Very Very Old Fitzgerald 12 Years Old Bottled-in-Bond was imported for the Italian market, meaning that’s in fact not as Bottled-in-Bond as the label states. In Italy in the 1970s 100 proof whiskey was forbidden, so this is in fact 86 proof whiskey.