Brown-Forman Distillers Corporation

In 1970, this Louisville, Kentucky business celebrated its one hundredth year as an independent distillery owned and operated by the same family. The programs staged for the centenary were designed to promote the company and its products and to provide its employees and the local community with an historical perspective of this Louisville firm.

The company was organized in 1870 by George Garvin Brown, in partnership with his half-brother, John T. S. Brown, Jr., and located on Louisville's Main Street, then known as Whiskey Row. In the beginning, the company did not distill its own spirits. Instead, the firm purchased whiskey from other distillers, blended it, and sold it under its own labels. Some of the early brands were Sidroc Bourbon, and Mellwood and Atherton Bourbon. In 1874, the company's most famous brand, Old Forester, was bottled.

The Brown brothers partnership dissolved in 1874. George Garvin Brown, who remained as principal partner of the company, recruited George Forman into the business. Money from major stockholder Henry Chambers resulted in expansion, and the firm became Brown, Chambers, and Company, and later, Chambers and Brown. After Chambers retired and sold his stock, the expanded company became Brown-Thompson and Company and sent its salespeople to several states to take advantage of the widening markets for whiskey. After a principal partner, James Thompson, left the firm, it became Brown, Forman and Company, and was later incorporated as Brown-Forman Distillery Company (1902).

At that point, Brown-Forman was operating a distilling plant at St. Mary's, in Nelson County, Kentucky. Some of the company brands included Old Forester, Old Forman, Beech Fork, Old Tucker, and Old Polk. George Garvin Brown's son, Owsley, joined the firm as secretary and oversaw plant and warehouse additions in Marion County.

The entire liquor industry began to experience the effects of the Prohibition movement, and by 1912, 95 of 120 Kentucky counties were dry by local referendum. Food control laws, brought on by World War I, also damaged the industry, and finally, the Volstead Act and the Eighteenth Amendment put Prohibition in effect nationwide. During Prohibition, Brown-Forman was licensed to sell whiskey to druggists, who could sell it by prescription. After Prohibition was repealed in 1933, Brown-Forman began to revive and built a plant on Howard Street in Louisville.

The firm faced other problems after Prohibition. Powerful Canadian distilleries threatened to envelop Brown-Forman, and during World War II, production of whiskey was cut back. By this time, Owsley's sons, Lyons and Garvin, and his brother, Robinson Brown, had joined the firm. Lyons and Garvin Brown turned the company away from producing post-Prohibition, inferior brands and renewed the effort to distill quality liquor. To expand its range of production, the company began buying other companies, including the Jack Daniels Distillery, Korbel California Champagnes, Chequers Scotch, and Pepe Lopez Tequilas, as well as production rights to other scotch products, liqueurs, and Italian wines. The company moved its corporate headquarters to Dixie Highway in Louisville in 1968.