Hello, fellow Bourbon enthusiasts !
I write today in the hopes someone can offer a bit of background on an odd bottling I found this week sitting in an antique shop, of all places. It is described as follows:
A bottle of "Kentucky's Finest", with a simple, cream-colored label and red & black, late 40's / early 50's Kentucky tax decal on the shoulder.
The black plastic neck seal has a Roman-esque, gold horse's head in profile, and the heavy, "Full Quart" bottle itself is nearly indistinguishable from a fine, bottle-shaped, ground-pontil decanter.
The legend on the label states that the contents are a blend of 6, 7, and 8-year old Whiskies, emanating from the "John Stewart Distillery" in Frankfort, KY. The back label shows this bottle's unique serial number to be in the 21,000-range.
Finally, the front label conspicuously states that this bottling was done exclusively for "The Honorable Sam Rayburn", almost certainly a reference to the United States Congressman from Texas who died in 1961, after serving for 5 or 6 decades in the US House, and who (according to the Internet bio) was LBJ's political mentor. (The same bio also defines Mr. Rayburn as "perhaps the most underappreciated, unrecognized public servant that the modern-era United States ever had as a US Congressman".)
An oddball bottling, indeed. My curiosity revolves around just where this Kentucky-based "John Stewart Distillery" disappeared to (as nothing seems to exist about it according to a Goggle search, outside of the eponymous, Single Malt distillery in Scotland), how long it was in business, and what other products it might have put into the U.S. Bourbon marketplace. lol...I'd also be very keen to lay my hands on another, sealed bottle of this stuff so opening one for tasting would thereby become a bit less of a dilemma !
Many thanks in advance for any insights on this bottling that the Bourbon Enthusiast community might be able to offer.
Cheers ! Simon