Stitzel-Weller Distillery

The legendary Stitzel-Weller Distillery was founded by Julian ‘Pappy’ Van Winkle in 1935. The company was a combination of the wholesale liquor business W.L. Weller & Sons, where Pappy started his career, and the A. Ph. Stitzel Distillery, from where Weller sourced its whiskey. Old Weller Antique and Old Fitzgerald were among the brands made at Stitzel-Weller. Their wheated recipe, opposed to rye recipes that were more common in that time, was a smash hit. But a crisis hit the bourbon market, and Julian Jr. was forced to sell the distillery and all its brands to Norton Simon in 1972, who renamed it the Old Fitzgerald Distillery. Norton Simon moved production to the new Bernheim Distillery in 1992, closing the Old Fitzgerald Distillery, and United Distillers (nowadays known as Diageo) changed the facility’s name back to the Stitzel-Weller Distillery. Today, most of the former Stitzel-Weller brands are distilled at Buffalo Trace, but original Stitzel-Weller bottlings are still any bourbon lover’s holy grail.