Tom Moore Put Bardstown on the Whiskey Map

                                  

When Thomas Selvin Moore, shown left, in 1889 purchased acreage near Bardstown, Kentucky, he was far from the only distiller in the area.  Through the quality of his whiskey, however, he was responsible for making the town synonymous with good bourbon.  Today Bardstown is considered the central stop on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail.  Tom Moore is the reason.

Moore was born on March 18, 1853, to Charles A. and Catherine Ann (known as ‘Kate”) Moore, both natives of Nelson County.   They were descended from among the many Irish families who had come west to Kentucky looking for fertile, inexpensive land and resulted in Bardstown being the first Catholic diocese west of the Appalachian Mountains.

Charles Moore died when Tom was only eleven years old, likely shortening the boy’s time in school and thrusting him early into the workforce.  The 1870 census found him living with his widowed mother, a brother and two sisters, one of them married to Charles Willett, part of a well-known local distilling family.  Despite the death of the principal breadwinner, the household seems fairly affluent with a cook and two domestic servants in residence.

In 1874, two years after his mother’s death, Moore at the age of 22 married Mary Virginia (“Jennie”) Collings, 18, the daughter of John W. and Mary Sutherland Collings of Nelson County.  About the same time he went to work for the Willett family in its distilling interests.  Joining him there was Ben Mattingly, who had married into the Willett clan.  The “pater familias,”  John D. Willett, among other properties, owned a Louisville company called Willett & Frenke that operated a distillery at Morton’s Spring in Nelson County, just south of Bardstown.  In 1876, Willett reputedly transferred his interest in that distillery to Tom and Ben and they began operating the facility under the name “Mattingly and Moore.”

The partners made a bourbon of that name, along with “Belle of Nelson” named for a race horse owned by John Willett, and “Morton’s Spring Rye,”  after the limestone water they used that flowed from a spring on the property.  Just about the time that their whiskey was coming of age, Mattingly sold out to a group of investors.   Moore continued to work with the new management for eight more years until 1899 when he withdrew to finance his own distillery.

Tom did not go far, however, purchasing 116 acres adjoining the original distillery, just a half mile from Bardstown on Jackson Highway, U.S. 31 East.  With financial help from T. E. O’Keefe, an Irish liquor wholesaler from Oswego, New York, who needed an assured supply of whiskey, Moore built a new distillery.  Initially this plant had a mashing capacity of 100 bushels daily, yielding ten barrels of whiskey a day.  According to insurance records, the distillery itself was of frame construction with a fire-resistant roof, surrounded by five warehouses, variously made of brick, stone or iron-clad, all with fire-resistant roofs.  Shown above in an artist’s drawing, four warehouses were adjacent to the still; a fifth stood on a hilltop 280 feet west.

Moore may have been motivated to strike out on his own as a distiller by the growing needs of his family.  By this time he and Jennie had six children:  Mary, Alice, Cornelius known as “Con,” Thomas, Marguerite, and Lawson.  As they matured the boys would be deployed to assist the distillery workforce, shown here in a photo from about 1900.

The Tom Moore Distillery seems to have been a success from the beginning.  It was producing “Tom Moore,” “Dan’l Boone,” and “Silas Jones” whiskeys, the last brand bought from Stoner & McGee at Hunters Depot when that firm disbanded.   Moreover, just a year after opening, Moore and O’Keefe moved to buy the Eagle Distillery (RD #8) in Daviess County, following the death of its owner, Richard Monarch.  They operated that facility under the name “Imperial.”

Despite precautions against fire, a conflagration in 1892 destroyed two of Moore’s Bardstown warehouses with the loss of some 14,000 barrels of whiskey.  Other warehouses were saved, as well as the distillery and the bottling house.  The loss to Moore and O’Keefe was estimated at $450,000 with $750,000 in tax revenues lost by the federal government. 

The facility quickly was rebuilt and over the years continuously expanded.  By 1899 warehouse capacity had been increased to 15,500 barrels.  By 1905 Moore was mashing 300 bushels a day and the warehouses held 20,000 barrels.  A photo above shows the layout.

That same year, Moore knew personal tragedy as Jennie, his wife of thirty-one years, died at the age of 49, their youngest son still not in his teens.  She was buried in St. Joseph’s Cemetery, Bardstown.  Within several years, Moore appears to have married again.   According to census records she was Millie, a local woman who was twelve years Tom’s junior.  An descendant (see below)  says this was an error and that her name was Nellie.

Throughout these years, the Moore distillery flourished as his bourbon and other whiskeys gained a national following.  Shown here is a photo from the Bowery in New York City.  The sign in the window advertises a bottle of 10-year-old Tom Moore Rye for 75 cents.  

As shown here on a label, Moore was working with the Pfeiffer Brothers, wholesaler liquor dealers of Louisville,  to distribute his products.  Moore also did private-label bottling for wholesalers Hilmar Ehrmann and Hermann Bros. of Louisville, as well as for Applegate & Sons Distillery (RD #15) of Marion County.   Moore’s wealth allowed him to buy and operate The Old Talbott Tavern in Bardstown, built in 1779 and believed to be the oldest standing western stagecoach stop in America, an historic site even in Moore’s day. 

As he aged, Moore, shown left, could be pleased with the success of his whiskey. He is said to have provided day-to-day management for his distillery and liquor interests up until National Prohibition in 1920.  Sixty-seven years old at that time, he appears subsequently to have retired. 

Moore lived to see Prohibition repealed in 1934.  At that time his son, Con, with partners, rebuilt and expanded Tom’s original distillery, giving it a mashing capacity of 2,400 bushels.  Three warehouses had the capacity to age 50,000 barrels.  In the late 1930’s Con Moore left Kentucky to build a new distillery in Denver and non-family members took ownership and continued to expand the plant, shown here

in about 1940, operating under the Moore name until 1944.  After several subsequent ownership changes in 2008 the name was changed back to the Tom Moore Distillery.

Tom Moore died in 1937 in Bardstown at the age of 84.  Cause of death was given as bronchial pneumonia aggravated by senility (dementia).  He was buried in St. Joseph Cemetery beside his first wife, Jennie.  He has been hailed for his contributions to the development of the Kentucky whiskey industry and in 2007 was voted into the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame. 

The Heaven Hill Company of Bardstown, a stop on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, bears a plaque dedicating the site to “our founding father,” Thomas S. Moore.   After imparting other information, the plaque concludes:  “Here’s to you, Tom Moore.  Cheers!” — a fitting ending to this pioneer distiller’s story.

Note:   This blog contains posts on several of the other whiskey men referenced here.  They include T. E. O’Keefe (May 2013), Richard Monarch (January 2017),  Pfeiffer Bros. (October 2011),  Hilmar Ehrmann (April 2016) and Applegate & Sons (June 2012).

Thomas O'Keefe and His Whiskey Pipeline

Tom Moore Distillery

Eagle Distillery

   

A liquor dealer from Oswego, New York, faced a problem plaguing many in his trade:  How could he insure a steady supply of good whiskey?  There he was, located in a small city perched on the eastern banks of Lake Ontario, 40 miles north of Syracuse, more than 600 miles from the distilleries of Kentucky with their bountiful outputs of bourbon and rye.  Thomas E. O'Keefe's answer, while not unique, was significant. He prospered by investing at the source.

Born in 1842 in New York State of Irish immigrant parents,  O’Keefe shows up in the public record in 1869 when he opened a liquor dealership at 114-118 First Street in Oswego.  For the next 20 years he apparently struggled to assure supplies for his multiple brands. In 1892, for example,  Federal documents record him as having made a warehouse transaction from the Atherton Distillery, located in LaRue County, two miles south of New Haven, Kentucky.   But that same year liquor dealers in Pittsburgh, Detroit and other places were competing with him for that same distillery supply.

In 1889, after two decades of apparent frustration,  O’Keefe saw his opportunity.  Thomas S. Moore, a master distiller who had worked in the Mattingly & Moore distillery near Bardstown, Kentucky, was restless to strike out on his own.  O’Keefe provided him with the cash to purchase 116 adjoining acres just a half mile from town.  There the partners built the Tom Moore Distillery.  Pictured here, insurance records indicate that the still itself was housed in a frame construction with a metal roof.  Two warehouses were adjacent.  One was ironclad with a metal roof and located 150 feet south of the still and the other was frame with a composite roof, located 310 feet south of the still.

O’Keefe and Moore must have found their collaboration mutually beneficial.  About a year later when the Eagle Distillery located in Daviess County, Kentucky, came up for sale,  the partners bought it.  That facility, shown here, had been built in 1869 by a member of the Monarch distilling clan and had stayed in the family ever since.  Insurance records from 1892 indicate that the building where the still resided was brick with a metal roof.  That still supplied two bonded and three free warehouses,  all of them were of frame construction with shingle roofs.  One of the bonded warehouses was heated by a boiler located 100 feet south of the still.   A cattle barn was also part of the property, housing livestock to which the spent mash could be fed, a frequent feature of distilleries in that day.

The Eagle Distillery was a much more developed property than their own at Bardstown. The cost to O’Keefe and his partner probably was in the neighborhood of $150,000, a substantial sum in those days and 20 times that in today’s dollar.  It gave the New Yorker an assured supply of whiskey for his multiple brands, including “Beaver Run Bourbon,  “Mont Eagle Rye,” “Hazlewood Rye,”  “Woodcock Bourbon,” “O’Keefe’s Pure Malt Whiskey,” “Chippewa,” “Oak Valley” and “Ontario.”

O’Keefe merchandised all these labels strongly not seeming to have had a “flagship” brand.   Some, like his Pure Malt Whiskey, he put in stoneware jugs underglazed with a decor very similar to Irish whiskey jugs like Cruiskeen Lawn. Others, like Woodcock Bourbon he bottled both in glass and ceramic.  His Woodcock label is particularly attractive for the simplicity of the wording and the color picture of the bird. 

O’Keefe also was generous with his giveaways to favored customers, including saloons.  He seems to have  had a particular penchant for gifting shot glasses, issuing them not only for Woodcock, Mont Eagle Rye and Beaver Run Whiskey, as shown here, but also for Oak Valley and Chippewa.   He also give away more expensive items, such as a celluloid and metal match safe with the image of the Tom Moore distillery on it.  While many tip trays were mass produced and most were thin painted medal, O’Keefe’s was sold brass and advertised his Hazelwood Rye.

Note that both the match safe and tray identify T. O’Keefe as a distiller.  Unlike some whiskey men who claimed to be distillers but were not,  O’Keefe had a legitimate claim to that distinction through his co-ownership of two Kentucky distilleries.   He was able to sell whiskey excess to his needs to liquor dealers elsewhere.  A 1906 billhead records that he sold a barrel of whiskey (43.67 gallons) to C. S. Tallcott & Sons, a liquor dealer in the small New York town of Parish.  The cost was $65.51.

 But O’Keefe would find that the owner’s role also had a downside.  In 1909 fire destroyed two of the three Bardstown warehouses with a loss of 14,000 barrels of whiskey.  Although some of the loss likely was covered by insurance and no other damage occurred,  his supplies must have been disrupted.  The warehouses were quickly rebuilt, again at some cost to him.

National Prohibition brought an end to all O’Keefe’s enterprises.  The Eagle distillery, name changed in 1908 to “Imperial Distillery,” was shut and the plant dismantled.   Moore and O’Keefe’s Bardstown whiskey operation terminated.  According to one writer,  all the whiskey that was not stolen subsequently from the Tom Moore warehouses was taken by Federal agents to “concentration houses” and all the equipment was salvaged.  After Repeal in 1934 Moore’s son rebuilt the distillery on the same property to a 2,400 bushel a day capacity.  O’Keefe was not involved.

Facts about Thomas O’Keefe’s personal life are scanty. The public record lists him in 1877 as having  been a member of the Oswego Board of Public Works Commissioners.  In 1888 he was among the incorporators and an investor in the Oswego Agricultural Fair Association, capitalized at $30,000.  O’Keefe appears never to have married.  The 1900 census, found him, age 58, listed as the head of the household living with his sister, Katherine Doyle, and her husband,  Patrick.   Two servant girls rounded out the household.   As information about his personal life is uncovered, I will add it here.  In the meantime we can remember him as the canny Irish whiskey man who built a personal “pipeline” for whiskey from Kentucky to New York.