George Carragan, the Money Man of Cook & Bernheimer

The Cook & Bernheimer Company was a New York City liquor wholesaler that distributed its whiskey in the United States from 1863 until 1917 and the coming of National Prohibition.  The firm boasted branch offices from coast to coast.  It marketed dozens of national brands, controlled the production from several distilleries, and made the first American investments in Scotch whiskey.   Behind this liquor behemoth was George B. Carragan, a New Jersey grocer turned financier.

Carragan represented a major change that occurred in the liquor trade late in the 19th Century.  New York money men became increasingly aware of profits to be made selling whiskey and financial opportunities for themselves.  Paris, Allen, about whom I have written in several prior posts, was one such investor, targeting distilleries.  Carragan invested in a liquor distributor, a firm that traced its origins back to the Civil War and eventually boasted a nationwide customer base. While not owning distilleries outright, through contracts Cook & Bernheimer insured a steady supply of product by purchasing the total output of distilleries. 

The “money man,” George Carragan, was born in Saratoga Springs, New York, in March 1844, the son of James and Mary Vanderwerker Carragan, a surname of Welsh origin. He was their third child and second son.  His maternal great-great-grandfather was Rip Van Dam, one of the early members of the New York Colonial Council and subsequently Governor of New York.  His father was a farmer and George grew up on a farm.

 After being educated in the public schools of Saratoga Springs, Carragan moved to Bayonne, New Jersey, apparently more interested in city life than agriculture.  There he eventually opened a grocery store in a building owned by an uncle.  It was described as a "general dispensary of  groceries, clothes, tobacco, farm utensils, drugs, paints, wet goods [read liquor] and every conceivable kind of merchandise needed by the farmer or fisherman.”  

Calling his mercantile enterprise Geo. Carragan & Co (later, George Carragan & Bro.) within two years he had built his own store several blocks away on 31st Street. It was a frame structure with a mansard roof that the Bayonne Herald hailed as an “ornament to the city.”  The newspaper went on to call the store “the grand emporium of Bayonne.”   George made use of the floors above the grocery, renting out two floors to the fledgling municipal government of Bayonne.

During this period, Carragan married.  His wife was Margaret Vreeland, a member of an old and well known New Jersey family. They would have one daughter, Ella.  While making Bayonne his home for the rest of his life, Carragan was expanding his horizons to New York City, nine miles away.  He went to work as an sales manager for the Big Apple-based Shieffelin Drug Company, over time becoming a manager and major investor in the company.  

By 1900 Carragan had built a reputation as New York financier.  He was the “financial head” of August Kress & Co., importer of grocer specialties; headed the wholesale commission house of R. B. Poucher & Co; and co-owned Carragan & Tilson, a New York company that manufactured badges, rubber stamps, stencils, and seals.  Back in Bayonne he was a founder and director of the Mechanics Trust Company and later the First National Bank.  Said his biographer:  “These various business associations indicate in a small measure Mr. Carragan’s ability and success as a financier.”

When Carragan engaged with Cook & Bernheimer is not clear.  Founded in 1863, the company had been in business for a number of years before he became involved, investing in it and becoming president. I have been unable to find information about Cook but Meyer Bernheimer, perhaps a son of the founder, was listed as a officer in 1910.   Carragan apparently was on board by the late 1890s when the company had a burst of energy, operating from a large building at 144-150 Franklin St. in Manhattan, shown right, and opening offices around the country: Chicago on Wabash Avenue in 1897, a year later in Cincinnati, San Francisco and Terre Haute, Indiana.  In 1900 Cook & Bernheimer took a gold medal for whiskey at the Paris Exposition.

By this time the liquor house was merchandising a blizzard of brands, including  “Diadem,” "Hoffman House,” “Gold Lion Old Whiskey,” “Joke,”, "Lenox", "Long & Short,” "M. V.,” “Manhattan,” "Mantoue's Upper Crust Rye,” “Monarch,” “Old Private Stock Rye,” ”Monongahela A,” “Navahoe,” "Old Berkshire,” "Old Woodburn,” ”Province,” and "St. Anthony” whiskeys as well as multiple gins.  Cook & Bernheimer’s flagship was “Old Valley Whiskey,” first registered with the government in 1872 and when trademark laws were strengthened again in 1905.  Liquor labels and other artifacts are shown throughout this post.

Cook & Bernheimer also had obtained an exclusive contract to bottle and distribute Mt. Vernon Whiskey distilled by the Hannis Company of Baltimore and Philadelphia, outbidding a Baltimore grocer and liquor dealer named George W. Torrey [See my post of October 2013].  This national brand was easily recognizable for its square bottle.  The company also commanded all or part of the output of other U.S. distillers in Pennsylvania, New York, and Maryland.  In 1905 Cook & Bernheimer took control of the Dalwhinnie Distillery in the Scottish Highlands, marking the very first U.S. investment in the Scotch whiskey industry.

The Scottish adventure ended in 1920 with the imposition of National Prohibition when all legal sales of alcoholic beverages in the U.S. were forced to cease.  After more than a half century of successful operation this juggernaut among liquor houses closed its doors for good.  George Carragan lived on another five years, dying at the age of 81 at his residence at 39 East 33rd Street in Bayonne.  The cause given was septic poisoning.  With Margaret grieving at his gravesite he was interred at the Bayview-New York Bay Cemetery in Jersey City.  His widow joined him there five years later.  Their monument is shown here.

The last word I will leave to Cornelius Burnham Harvey who in his 1900 tome, Genealogical History of Hudson and Bergen Counties, New Jersey, had this to say about George Carragan: “He has been eminently successful, and through his efforts has built up a reputation for integrity and uprightness of character which is recognized by all who know him.”

Joseph Leopold Brought Seven Belles to Belleville

Pity Joseph Leopold of Belleville, Illinois.  Each time his wife was pregnant, he hoped for a boy, a son and heir to inherit his thriving whiskey business.  Time after time, however, the doctor would emerge from the delivery room to announce:  “Its a girl!”  In the final tally the Leopolds would have seven daughters — seven belles in Belleville.  No sons.

The benignly smiling gentleman shown here, Leopold was born in Belleville in 1859, the son of Joseph Sr. and Philippine Rosche Leopold.  Both his parents were immigrants and early residents of the town, his father, a hotel keeper from Alsace-Lorraine; his mother a native of Bavaria.  Joseph Jr.  was educated in local schools and in the 1880 census listed working as a delivery clerk. That occupation was not to be his life.  While still a very young man he partnered with his brother Edward in a wholesale liquor house.  They called it “Joseph Leopold & Bro.”  

In addition to being their home town, the brothers had picked a good location for their business.  By 1870 an estimated 90% of Belleville’s population was either German born or of German descent.  Many were Roman Catholics, Lutherans and other denominations not adverse to alcoholic beverages.  Moreover, after the Civil War Belleville became a manufacturing center producing nails, printing presses, agricultural equipment, iron castings and stoves, becoming known as “The Stove Capital of the World.”  The largest town in Illinois south of Springfield, a port on the Mississippi River, and the seat of St. Clair County with its many productive coal mines, Belleville was thriving economically.  In other words, it was a good place to open a liquor dealership.

According to contemporary reports, the Leopolds’ enterprise grew rapidly, said to be doing business “on a large scale,” importing more than 80 different kinds of liquor, wine and cordials, as well selling American brands.  They also supplied customers with their own labeled whiskey, likely brought in by the barrel from Kentucky and decanted into jugs of three, four and five gallons.  Most ceramics featured an under-glaze label with an Albany slip top and Bristol glaze body and the motto, “Fine KY. Whiskies.” 

Several variations of labels can be noted on the examples shown here and below. Those containers would have been sold to saloons, restaurants and other establishments.  For retail customers the Leopolds featured a proprietary brand called “Camp Springs Whiskey,”  likely a blend, and “Blooming Valley Pure Rye.”  They never bothered to trademark either name.

In October 1883, at the age of 25, Joseph married.  His bride was Margaret, called “Maggie,” Rhein, the daughter of Frederick and Charlotte (Nenninger) Rhein. Maggie was a member of a well-established local pioneer family.  Her grandfather, Fred Rhein, a native of Rheinpflaz, Germany, came to the United States in 1839 and settled on a farm outside Belleville where he became known as a stock-raiser and dealer.  This farm of nearly 1,000 acres remained in the Rhein family. 

It can be assumed that like most men Joseph Leopold was keen to have a son.  If their business was successful as Leopold’s was, whiskey men were anxious to pass the enterprise on to a male heir.  The history of the trade is replete with stories of sons, as soon as they reached 18 or so, being brought in by a father as a clerk or salesman and taught the business with the expectation of the next generation ultimately taking command.  We can imagine Leopold’s sense of expectation with Maggie’s first pregnancy in 1886.  “Its a girl,” announced the doctor, however, and Elsa joined the family.

The next year August brought Meta to the fold and in September 1889, Alvina.  Three years later the three girls were joined by a fourth, Ophelia, and in 1893, a fifth,  Anie.  As Leopold likely grew more and more desperate for a boy child, he kept hearing, perhaps even in his dreams, “It’s a girl.”  Accordingly, number six, Anita, was born in January 1896 and Marguerite, the last, in March 1898.  The Leopolds had given Belleville a family of seven daughters.  Whatever disappointment Joseph may have felt must soon have been assuaged by the attention girls traditionally lavish on their fathers.  He reciprocated by providing them with a beautiful, spacious home at 112 North Pennsylvania Avenue in Belleville, shown below.

Leopold’s sorrow over not producing a son may also have been lessened by the rise of the “dry” forces in America.  The Temperance Movement in Illinois had its start around 1833 and grew stronger over the years.  By early in the 20th Century, the General Assembly had passed a local option law, allowing cities and counties to ban alcohol.  While Belleville stayed “wet,” surrounding areas were affected and as a result Leopold found his customer base gradually shrinking.  When National Prohibition took hold in 1920, he was forced to shut down Joseph Leopold & Bro. forever.

Although Leopold lived long enough to see Repeal, by that time he was 75 years old and retired.  His brother and partner, Edward, had died in 1929.  Joseph was living in the family home with Maggie.  One daughter had died and others were married, providing him with grandchildren and even two great grandchildren upon whom to dote.  Maggie died in 1939.  Joseph himself had been in failing health, but continued to be active.  His obituary of June 13, 1940, told the story:  “Joseph Leopold, 80-year-old prominent retired wholesale liquor dealer died suddenly of a heart attack at 1:30 o’clock this morning in his home….”

His funeral was held at his home, with the Rev. B. J. Koehler,  pastor of St. Paul’s Evangelical Church, officiating.  With an escort from his fellow members of the Belleville Lodge of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, he was carried to Walnut Hill Cemetery where he joined his wife at  Annex 9, Block 8.  Among those gathered at graveside were six of the seven “belles” Joseph and Maggie Leopold had presented to Belleville.  

The Muehleisens of Washington, D.C., Knew Liquid Assets

       

The Muehleisen, William Sr. and William Jr., father and son, were proprietors of one of Washington, D.C., best known and most prosperous liquor businesses. Then Congress in a fit of political correctness voted the District  “dry” and the son gravitated to running one of the more unusual banking institutions in the history of the Nation’s Capital.

William Muehleisen Sr. was born in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1840 or 1841, sources differ.  The name means “mill iron.”  At the age of 15, in 1855 he emigrated to the United States, settling in the District of Columbia.  According to a biographer, he “engaged in the liquor business in early life,” likely working for one of the local wholesale houses.

About 1867, in the wake of the Civil War, Muehleisen Sr. struck out on his own, establishing himself as an importer and dealer in foreign and domestic wines and liquors at 918 Fifth Street, NW.  During the conflict the Nation’s Capitol had swelled with population as the war effort brought tens of thousands of newcomers to the area.  Muehleisen’s business flourished under peacetime conditions.  He also linked with Christian Xander to open a wine-oriented store on Massachusetts Avenue between Seventh and Eighth Streets N.W., a partnership that was dissolved after three years. [See my post on Xander, January 2014.]

During this period William Sr. was pursuing a personal life.  About 1867 he married Louisa, who like himself was a immigrant.  She had come to the United States from Germany with family members in 1860 as a 12-year-old girl and was under 20 when they married, seven years younger than her husband. Over the next 15 years they would have five children, two boys and three girls.  The eldest they named William Jr., born in 1868 in the District.

Through ensuing years Muehleisen Sr. continued to prosper in the liquor trade, eventually outgrowing his first store and in 1897 building a new one next door at 916 Fifth Street N.W.. This was a three-story brick structure measuring 22 by 90 feet with a cellar extending its entire length, reported to feature the latest in lighting and ventilation equipment.  The first floor held Muehleisen’s salesrooms and offices, the upper floors stored his stock of “bourbon and rye whiskies, foreign and domestic wines, and mineral waters, including the most popular brands of each.”  By this time, his son, William Jr., had been brought into the business.

In addition to selling nationally known liquors, the Muehleisens were “rectifying” their own brands of rye and sour mash whiskey, that is, blending raw whiskeys to achieve particular taste and color.  In contrast to others in the trade who hid their rectifying, the Muehleisens trumpeted the fact in their ads.  Their flagship proprietary brand was “Oakmont,” a label trademarked in 1901.  As shown here, they packaged some whiskey in “coffin” shaped amber bottles with the family monogram embossed on the front.

Just two years after moving into the new company quarters, William Sr. died and was buried in Washington’s Prospect Hill Cemetery. “Historical Sketches of the Capital City of Our Country” (1887) said of Muehleisen Sr:  “His long experience and practical sense has placed him prominently among the successful business men of Washington.”

Willliam Jr. now was at the controls of Wm. Muehleisen Company.  The 1900 Census found him, now 31 years old and still single, living with his widowed mother and a sister, Caroline.  Also with them, age 20, was J. Alwin Muehleisen, a brother who was working for William Jr. as the liquor store bookkeeper.

It is worth taking a closer look at the the Oakmont bottles shown above. To a certain extend they can be dated by the message contained on the labels.  One I consider likely to be the earliest indicates that the whiskey therein had been bottled under the personal supervision of the Muehleisens.  They warn if the seal is broken, its “purity” might be in jeopardy.  With the passage of the Food and Drug Act of 1906 the message was altered to add that the whiskey was guaranteed under the Act.

Many rectifiers were making that assertion, a claim being challenged by Kentucky bourbon distillers and, more importantly, by the federal officials who were responsible for enforcing the Act.  The third bottle marks another change.  Gone is the reference to the Food and Drug Act and in its place “Contents One Pint” another requirement being enforced on liquor bottlers.   My guess is that selling whiskey in Washington, D.C. and co-existing in town with food and drug authorities, Muehleisen Jr. was reacting to official pressures.

On the personal side, William Jr. continued to live with his mother until she died in 1913.  Louisa’s death notice indicated that she had been active in the D.C. community as a board director of the German Orphans Asylum and president of the Ladies Aid Society of the First Reformed Church, obviously a denomination not opposed to alcohol.  William Jr. continued to be a bachelor until at the age of 53 in 1922 he married Adelaide, a woman born in Kentucky of native Kentuckians, who was eleven years his junior.

Muehleisen Jr. bought Adelaide a mansion in a row of mansions on North Sixteenth Street in Washington.   By this time he had left the liquor trade, a wealthy man, forced out by the District-wide 1917 ban on alcohol.  His transition from liquor to liquidity seems to have been an effortless one. He founded a bank.  A 1921 D.C. business directory listed him as president of the Mount Vernon Savings Bank, located in the International Machinists Building at 9th St.  and Mount Vernon Place, N.W.  Shown below, the building later was demolished.

As related in an historical account of D.C. banks, Muehleisen’s financial institution was an unusual one, aimed at a special group of customers, in this case the working class.  It is regarded as the first bank in the U.S. in which a labor union owned a large bloc of the stock, apparently purchased from Muehleisen Jr.  Known as a “labor bank,” its original purpose was to secure a larger return on worker money than other banks were providing.  Mount Vernon Saving Bank paid three percent on savings and four percent on certificates of deposit.  Eventually the rationale of the institution was expanded to protecting the gains of organized labor and helping friendly employers during a strike.  The bank also worked closely with credit unions, holding their deposits and extending them loans.

Even after relinquishing the presidency of Mount Vernon Savings, Muehleisen Jr. stayed on as a director, listed as late as 1828 as among their number.  The coming of the Great Depression, however, had a negative effect on this unusual financial institution as many small borrowers were forced to default on loans.  The bank went out of business in the early 1930s.  William Muehleisen Jr. died in his mansion home on Sixteen Street in September 1942.  He was buried with his father and other family members in Prospect Hill Cemetery.  The Muehleisen monument is shown here.  

While combining liquor sales and banking was not completely unknown in the pre-Prohibition era, Washington, D.C., was particularly fertile grounds for both occupations, with whiskey and money flowing freely.  That environment allowed the two Muehleisens to make the most of their liquid assets for three quarters of a century.

Note:  All the photographs of bottles included in this article are through the courtesy of Dr. Richard Lilienthal, a premier collector of Washington area bottles.

The Dants “Permeated” Kentucky Distilling

Families in the development of American whiskey were nowhere more important than in Kentucky — and in Kentucky no family name was more renowned than Dant.  As one author accurately has said:   “The Dant family permeated the Kentucky bourbon industry.”  The Dant saga needs a book to do it justice.  As a result, I will be featuring only three of its members, the founding father and two of his sons.

Joseph Washington Dant — The progenitor of the the Dant family was J. W. Dant, born in May 1820 in Loretto, Marion County, into a farm family.  The little that is known of Joseph’s early life is that he received some elementary education and that his first occupation was as a blacksmith.

At the age of about sixteen in Joseph apparently decided that making whiskey held more promise than beating hot iron.  In 1836 he founded his first distillery in Marion County on Walnut Ridge Farm, a site located ten miles west of Loretto.  When the Louisville and Nashville (L & N) Railroad made it a stop, it became known as Dant Station. 

Joseph’s first still was hewn from a log, a primitive method used by pioneers in Kentucky when they did not have the money for a copper kettle.  The process used logs of of about ten feet in length.  The timber would be split, hollowed out, and a copper tube inserted;  then the two halves would be joined.  The hollowed areas would be filled with fermented mash and steam would be fed through the piping for the initial distillation.  A second distillation would follow.  The process was called “making it on a log” or “running it on a log.”   Although crude, this method could result in good whiskey in the right hands — and Joseph had them.

In February 1849 he married Ann Catherine Ballard, a woman of 19 who was ten years his junior.  The couple would have ten children, seven boys and three girls.  The eldest, of whom we will hear more later, was J. Bernard Dant, born in 1850.  The chart below shows the Dant family lineage involved with distilling in Kentucky.

The Dant family has related a story about Joseph early on producing more whiskey than local consumption could absorb so he determined to expand his territory.  He would cart barrels of whiskey by wagon to the Beech Fork River, build a raft, and float it down the Mississippi to New Orleans.  Dant himself is reputed to have accompanied three of those shipments, walking back to Kentucky from Louisiana, a distance of more than 600 miles  By the third trip, it is said, he was able to afford a mule and rode back.

As the years progressed, the reputation of Dant's whiskey grew.  Joseph produced much of his own grain for the distillery on his 196 acre farm and eventually established his own cooperage, building barrels onsite.  By 1870 he had sufficient resources to build a state of the art distillery.  A unique aspect of the operation was that it was built to take advantage of gravity.  The mash tub was much higher than the fermenters and with the aid of a very large pipe, Joseph was able to fill his tubs without the need for pumping.  The flow was said to be intense.  Gravity also was employed in the bottling process as whiskey was filtered by gravity to a tank and then to the bottling line.

According to insurance underwriters records, Dant’s facility was of frame construction with with a shingle roof.  It had a single warehouse, built of brick with a metal or slate roof, located 225 feet west of the still.  After passage of the Bottled-in-Bonding Act, the warehouse became bonded. By that time it held 3,300 barrels of aging whiskey and the distillery was mashing about 200 bushels a day, equivalent to a twenty barrel output.  Downwind about 100 feet were cattle pens where livestock was being fed the spent mash.  A photo shows Dant Station as it looked in the late 1800s.  With railroad tracks adjacent, a siding gave easy access to load barrels on freight cars for customers nationwide.  As shown here on an advertising flyer, the whiskey was sold under the J. W. Dant name and the slogan, “The Kind I Have Always Used.”

Sometime during the 1880s, Joseph retired from directing the distillery, turning the management over to a son, Wallace, joined later by a younger brother, George.  Under their leadership the company incorporated in 1897, with George as the largest shareholder.  The founding father died in February 1902 and was buried in St. Francis Cemetery, Marion County.  The Dant family monument is shown here.  J. W. Dant company would survive and prosper until the coming of National Prohibition.  Under the guidance of George Dant and other family members, the distillery was resurrected after Repeal, operating for seven years until being sold in 1941.  The facility shut down for good in 1951.

Joseph Bernard Dant —  The eldest child of Joseph and Anne Dant, Bernard Dant, as he was called throughout his life, began his career in distilling working for his father while still in his teen years.   Although he continued to be associated with the J. W. Dant Co. for a number of years, about 1882 he moved from Dant Station to Gethsemane Station about 10 miles down the L & N. line and built his own distillery.   Shown below, insurance records indicate that the facility was of frame construction.  The property included two warehouses, both ironclad and located adjacent to each other.  

Listed as Registered Distillery No. 240, District 5, Bernard called it “Cold Spring Distillery.”  Its claim to fame was for creating “Yellowstone Whiskey”.  Bernard is given credit for its popularity but the brand did not appear bearing the Dant name, rather under the label of Taylor & William, Inc.  This was a Louisville wholesale liquor house established in 1865.  In 1871 a Taylor sales manager visited the newly opened Yellowstone National Park and noting the enthusiasm over its natural wonders, decided to name a brand of whiskey after it.  

Later J. T. Williams joined the firm and it became Taylor & Williams.  Because the company had no distillery of its own it was dependent on getting adequate supplies for the increasingly popular Yellowstone brand.  As a result, Taylor & Williams in the 1880s contracted with Dant and his Cold Spring Distillery to produce and bottle it and other company proprietary labels.

Meanwhile, Bernard was having a personal life.  About 1875 he married Nancy Ellen Ferriell, a Kentucky native.  They would have a family of six sons, two of whom died in young adulthood,  and two daughters.  Meanwhile this Dant’s reputation as a master distiller was redounding through Kentucky and beyond.  In 1900 he moved to Louisville and became president of Taylor & Williams.  In 1903 the company incorporated with Bernard at the helm and his eldest son, Sam J. Dant, as the treasurer.  Eventually each of Bernard's surviving sons would be involved in the distilling industry.

With National Prohibition, the Cold Spring Distillery shut down and Taylor & Williams closed.  Bernard, known as “The Grand Old Man”  of Kentucky whiskey, lived long enough to see Repeal, when the family dismantled the distillery at Gethsemane, created Yellowstone, Inc., as a distilling company,  and built a new facility in Jefferson County.  Bernard was listed as vice president of that firm.  

Bernard Dant died several years later at 89 years, accounted by the Louisville Courier Journal as “the oldest active distiller in the country.”   His wife Nancy Ellen had proceeded him in death two years earlier.  With his brothers and sisters, children, thirteen grandchildren and four great-grandchildren gathered at the graveside, he was interred next to Nancy in Louisville’s Calvary Catholic Cemetery.  

John Procter Dant —  John P. was the third of J. W. Gant’s sons, born in 1856.  Like his brother, Bernard, John early on went to work for his father at the Dant Station distillery.  As indicated by his letterhead below, in 1890 John struck out on his own, buying a distillery that may have been established as early as 1855.  It was known as RD #174, District 5, and located in a town then called Chicago, now St. Francis, Kentucky.  Dant called it the “Old Danton Distillery” after his flagship brand.  

Insurance records compiled in 1892 indicate that the distillery was of frame construction and included two bonded warehouses.  Both warehouses were frame and located adjacent to one another about 90 feet from the distillery.  The illustration on the letterhead confirms those records.  Note that a rail line is shown serving the plant.  John employed a nephew, Thad Dant, as his distiller.  After operating the facility for several years, he sold out and moved to Louisville where he started a wholesale liquor house.

Meanwhile John also was having a personal life.  About 1884 he married Ann Josephine Smith, born in Marion County, the daughter of William Henry and Rosella Lancaster Smith, both native Kentuckians.  The Dants would have a family of four, according to records.  Their first son named after Joseph William Dant sadly died in infancy.  Then came two daughters and in 1890 a second son, John Jr.

John Dant was very successful as a liquor wholesaler, operating from his address at 909 Broadway as the “Pioneer Bottling House” and featuring “Old Dant Sour Mash Whiskey.”  His store featured a large jug bearing his name.  As shown here, John also favored ceramic jugs for his products.  Those came in a variety of formats including an Albany glaze with an underglaze transfer and a “scratch” jug.  

He also featured a number of giveaways to special customers, including his “Old Ballard” brand on a shot glass and a decorative calendar advertising Old Danton Whiskey.  From 1909 to 1913 he also maintained a liquor outlet in New Albany, Indiana.

John Dant’s Louisville operation came to a halt in 1919 with the imposition of National Prohibition.  Perhaps sensing that the “dry” era would be relatively short, he bided his time.   Soon after Repeal at the age of 68 he built a new distillery at Meadowlawn in South Jefferson County.  He called it the John P. Dant Distillery (RD #39) and leased the Grosscurth Distillery (RD #26) located in Anchorage, Jefferson County.  Both operations were incorporated as the Meadowlawn Distillery Company, with John P. Senior as president and John P. Junior as vice-president, treasurer and distiller.  The total mashing capacity was a hefty 471 bushels a day and six warehouses had the capacity to hold 7,500 barrels of aging whiskey.  Among his post-Prohibition brands were “Old Boone,” “Distiller’s Choice,” and “Old 1889.”   

Described in his obituary as a “veteran Kentucky distiller and a member of a family long identified with the industry,”  John P. Dant died at his Louisville home at the age of 89 in April 1944.  His wife, Ann, had preceded him by 16 years.  After a funeral service at Christ the King Catholic Church, John was interred next to Ann in Louisville’s Calvary Cemetery.  Management of his distilleries was taken over by his son, who sold off the remaining family interest in 1950.

This post has profiled just three of the many Dants involved in Kentucky whiskey.  As noted earlier, it would take a book to do full justice to all involved family members in the years since J. W. in 1836 began distilling, thus insuring that the Dant name would become an integral part of American whiskey history.

Note:  The information for this post has come from a wide variety of sources.  A principle reference on J. W. Dant was from a newspaper obituary, unattributed as to source, to be found online.