Old Forester
In the 1800's, American whiskey was sold in bulk to rectifiers, wholesalers, brokers and retailers. Barrels were branded with a distillery or 'brand' name. Package stores and druggists bottled their own labels from bulk supplies. Unscrupulous rectifiers, jobbers and retailers would often tamper with the quality and integrity of the whiskey in a barrel. In 1870, George Garvin Brown, a young pharmaceuticals salesman in Louisville, Kentucky, saw the need for a consistently high-quality whiskey that met medicinal standards. With $5,500 in saved and borrowed money, Brown and his half brother started J.T.S. Brown and Bro. They sold Old Forester Bourbon Whiskey exclusively in sealed glass bottles to assure its quality, making it America's first bottled bourbon.