Old Grand-Dad is a brand of
bourbon whiskey
Bourbon whiskey (; also simply bourbon) is a Aging (food), barrel-aged American whiskey made primarily from corn (maize). The name derives from the Kingdom of France, French House of Bourbon, although the precise source of inspiration is uncerta ...
distilled
Distillation, also classical distillation, is the process of separating the component substances of a liquid mixture of two or more chemically discrete substances; the separation process is realized by way of the selective boiling of the mixt ...
at the
Jim Beam
Jim Beam is an American brand of bourbon whiskey produced primarily at James B. Beam Distilling Co. in Clermont, Kentucky by Suntory Global Spirits.
It is one of the best-selling brands of bourbon in the world. Since 1795 (interrupted by Prohi ...
distillery in
Clermont,
Kentucky
Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...
. The brand was created by Raymond B. Hayden and named after his grandfather Meredith Basil Hayden Sr., who was a well known distiller during his lifetime. A fanciful portrait of Hayden Sr. is depicted on the front of each bottle. Today, it is owned and produced by
Suntory Global Spirits
Suntory Global Spirits Inc., formerly known as Beam Suntory, Inc., is an American beverage company that is a subsidiary of Suntory Holdings, a Japanese multinational beverage conglomerate. The company produces alcoholic beverages.
It is the th ...
.
, Old Grand-Dad and
Old Overholt
Old Overholt is America's oldest continually maintained brand of whiskey. It was founded in West Overton, Pennsylvania, in 1810. Old Overholt is a rye whiskey distilled by A. Overholt & Co., currently a subsidiary of Suntory Global Spirits, whic ...
– both of which are Beam Suntory brands – are marketed together as "The Olds".
History
The Hayden family's first commercial distillery was created in 1840, and the whiskey has been in production since that time despite several changes of ownership. In 1899, Old Grand-Dad was sold to the
Wathen family, whose broad interests in the whiskey business later formed the American Medicinal Spirits Company and the foundations of National Distillers Group. During
prohibition
Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic b ...
, the company produced "medicinal whiskey" for sick, blind, and lame patients. National Distillers had facilities in
Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...
,
Frankfort, Kentucky
Frankfort is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Kentucky. It is a list of Kentucky cities, home rule-class city and the county seat, seat of Franklin County, Kentucky, Franklin County in the Upland Sou ...
and Louisville, KY., and also produced
Old Crow
Old Crow is a low-priced brand of Kentucky-made straight bourbon whiskey distilled by Suntory Global Spirits, which also produces Jim Beam and several other brands of whiskey. The current Old Crow product uses the same mash bill and yeast as ...
,
Old Overholt
Old Overholt is America's oldest continually maintained brand of whiskey. It was founded in West Overton, Pennsylvania, in 1810. Old Overholt is a rye whiskey distilled by A. Overholt & Co., currently a subsidiary of Suntory Global Spirits, whic ...
and
Old Taylor. In 1987, National Distillers Group sold the spirits business to the
Fortune Brands holding company, which became
Beam Inc.
Versions
Old Grand-Dad remains one of the USA's ten best-selling
straight whiskey
Straight whiskey (or straight whisky), as defined in United States law, is whiskey that is distilled from a fermented (malted or unmalted) cereal grain mash to a concentration not exceeding 80% alcohol by volume (abv) and aged in new charred ...
s. It comes in three different bottling proofs: 80 proof, 100 proof
Bottled In Bond
Bottled in bond (BIB) is a label for an American-produced distilled beverage that has been aged and bottled according to a set of legal regulations contained in the United States government's Standards of Identity for Distilled Spirits, as origin ...
, and 114
Barrel Proof in a short-height bottle gift box package. In 2013 the lower proof offering went from 86 proof to 80 proof.
Since 1992 Beam has also marketed another brand of Kentucky bourbon,
Basil Hayden's
Basil Hayden's is the lightest-bodied bourbon whiskey in the family of Jim Beam small batch bourbons produced by Suntory Global Spirits (a subsidiary of Suntory Holdings of Osaka, Japan). It is 80 proof, in contrast with its three sibling brands ...
, named after the same person.
Reviews
Food critic
Morgan Murphy said "The sweet corn of this whiskey is hot on the lips but has a mild finish of vanilla and baking spices."
References in media
* In ''Travels with Charley'', John Steinbeck's 1961 account of a road-trip across America, he stocks Old Grand-Dad on his truck and regularly offers "a dollop" to people he meets.
* ''Old Grand-Dad'' is featured prominently in the opening scenes of the film ''
Bad Santa
''Bad Santa'' is a 2003 American Christmas black comedy crime film directed by Terry Zwigoff, written by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, and starring Billy Bob Thornton in the title role, with a supporting cast of Tony Cox, Lauren Graham, Bre ...
'' and in the Nick Stefanos novels by
George P. Pelecanos, as well as in
John Hawkes's classic novel ''Second Skin''.
* Former
Pennsylvania State University
The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsyl ...
football coach
Joe Paterno
Joseph Vincent Paterno (; December 21, 1926 – January 22, 2012), sometimes referred to as JoePa, was an American college football player, athletic director, and coach. He was the head coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions football, Penn ...
's son suggested that his father enjoyed ''Old Grand-Dad'' on the rocks.
* The fictional character
Morgan Kane
Morgan Kane is a fictional western character and antihero, created by Kjell Hallbing under the pseudonym Louis Masterson.
The Morgan Kane series has become the biggest success in modern Norwegian leisure reading literature. The 83 books in the s ...
, from the book series of the same name, always drank ''Old Grand-Dad'' if it was available and took a bottle or three with him most of the times he had to venture too far from a liquor store or a bar to his liking.
*
George Thorogood
George Lawrence Thorogood (born February 24, 1950) is an American musician, singer and songwriter.
His "high-energy boogie-blues" sound became a staple of 1980s US rock radio, with hits like his original songs "Bad to the Bone" and "I Drink Al ...
references ''Old Grand-Dad'' whiskey in his song "
I Drink Alone", in the lyrics "...the only one who will hang out with me is my dear ''Old Grand-Dad''..."
* Australian producers
Vanda & Young
Vanda & Young were an Australian songwriting and producing duo composed of Harry Vanda (real name Van den Berg) and George Young. They performed as members of 1960s Australian rock group the Easybeats where Vanda was their lead guitarist and ba ...
recorded an album titled "Tales of Old Grand-Dad" with future
AC/DC
AC/DC are an Australian rock band formed in Sydney in 1973. Their music has been variously described as hard rock, blues rock and Heavy metal music, heavy metal, although the band calls it simply "rock and roll". They are cited as a formativ ...
guitarists
Angus
Angus may refer to:
*Angus, Scotland, a council area of Scotland, and formerly a province, sheriffdom, county and district of Scotland
* Angus, Canada, a community in Essa, Ontario
Animals
* Angus cattle, various breeds of beef cattle
Media
* ...
and
Malcolm Young
Malcolm Mitchell Young (6 January 1953 – 18 November 2017) was an Australian musician who was the rhythm guitarist, backing vocalist and a founding member of the hard rock band AC/DC. Except for a brief absence in 1988, he was a member of AC ...
under the alias "Marcus Hook Roll Band".
* ''Old Grand-Dad'' is cited in the
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Lynyrd Skynyrd (, ) is an American Rock music, rock band formed in Jacksonville, Florida in 1964. The group originally formed as My Backyard and comprised Ronnie Van Zant (vocals), Gary Rossington (guitar), Allen Collins (guitar), Larry Junstrom ...
song "Whiskey Rock-a-Roller" (from the 1975 album ''
Nuthin' Fancy'') saying, "She likes to drink Old Grand-Dad, and her shoes do shuffle around".
* ''Old Grand-Dad'' is specified by
James Bond
The ''James Bond'' franchise focuses on James Bond (literary character), the titular character, a fictional Secret Intelligence Service, British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels ...
in the novel ''
Live and Let Die'' for his
Old Fashioned
Old-fashioned, an idiom meaning something not modern, or may refer to:
* Old fashioned (cocktail), a whiskey cocktail
** Old fashioned glass, a type of drinking glass named after the cocktail
* Old Fashioned (film), ''Old Fashioned'' (film), a 201 ...
.
* It is also mentioned in the
Hank Williams, Jr. song "Women I've Never Had": "I like sweet young things and ''Old Grand-Dad'', and I like to have women I've never had".
* In
Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy (born Charles Joseph McCarthy Jr.; July 20, 1933 – June 13, 2023) was an American author who wrote twelve novels, two plays, five screenplays, and three short stories, spanning the Western, post-apocalyptic, and Southern Got ...
's ''
Cities of the Plain'' novel, ''Old Grand-Dad'' is the drink of choice for many of the characters.
* In his book ''
Truman'',
David G. McCullough writes extensively about President
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. As the 34th vice president in 1945, he assumed the presidency upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt that year. Subsequen ...
's love for bourbon, in which he was joined by his wife
Bess. He further writes that the President's preferred drink was ''Old Grand-Dad'' on the rocks.
* In
Raymond Chandler
Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was an American-British novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at the age of forty-four, Chandler became a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive durin ...
's 1953 novel, ''
The Long Goodbye'', the main protagonist, detective
Philip Marlowe
Philip Marlowe ( ) is a fictional character created by Raymond Chandler who was characteristic of the hardboiled crime fiction genre. The genre originated in the 1920s, notably in '' Black Mask'' magazine, in which Dashiell Hammett's The Cont ...
, offers ''Old Grand-Dad'' to his friend Terry Lennox after he arrives at Marlowe's apartment despondent and with a gun.
* In
Robert P. Davis's 1976 novel ''The Pilot'', Mike Hagen, the alcoholic airline pilot, keeps his (hidden) hip flask filled with ''Old Grand-Dad''.
* The author
Charles Bukowski
Henry Charles Bukowski ( ; born Heinrich Karl Bukowski, ; August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994) was a German Americans, German-American poet, novelist, and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural, and economic ambien ...
frequently mentioned ''Old Grand-Dad'' in his stories. For example, in ''
Post Office
A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...
'', the protagonist Chinaski buys Grandad for breakfast.
* In
Hank Searls' 1978 novelization for the film, ''
Jaws 2
''Jaws 2'' is a 1978 American horror thriller film directed by Jeannot Szwarc and co-written by Carl Gottlieb. It is the sequel to Steven Spielberg's '' Jaws'' (1975), and the second installment in the ''Jaws'' franchise. The film stars Roy ...
'', one of the attack victims drinks coffee laced with ''Old Grand-Dad'' to calm his nerves before going scuba diving.
*
Kolt "Racer" Raynor, the lead character of
Dalton Fury's books ''Black Site'' and ''Tier One Wild'', prefers ''Old Grand-Dad''.
* In the ''
Veronica Mars
''Veronica Mars'' is an American teen neo-noir Mystery fiction, mystery Drama (film and television), drama television series created by screenwriter Rob Thomas (writer), Rob Thomas. The series is set in the fictional city, fictional town of Ne ...
'' film, Cindy "Mac" Mackenzie insists that Veronica bring her a glass of ''Old Grand-Dad'' after being dragged to their ten-year high school reunion.
* On ''
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
''The Mary Tyler Moore Show'' (also known simply as ''Mary Tyler Moore'') is an American television sitcom created by James L. Brooks and Allan Burns and starring actress Mary Tyler Moore. The show originally aired on CBS from September 19, 1970 ...
'', Lou offers Mary ''Old Grand-Dad'' at a party; Mary mistakenly assumes he's referring to her 68-year-old date.
* On the show ''
Mad Men
''Mad Men'' is an American historical drama, period drama television series created by Matthew Weiner and produced by Lionsgate Television. It ran on cable network AMC (TV channel), AMC from July 19, 2007, to May 17, 2015, with seven seasons ...
'', Roger Sterling orders Freddie Rumsen a "Grand-Dad Rocks" while out for the evening with Donald Draper.
* On the show ''
The Love Boat
''The Love Boat'' is an American romantic comedy-drama television series created by Wilford Lloyd Baumes that originally aired on ABC from September 24, 1977, to May 24, 1986. In addition, three TV movies aired before the regular series pre ...
'', Julie McCoy jokes with a passenger that he looks more like Old Grand-Dad, after he asked her if she would believe his name was Jack Daniels.
* On the show ''
M*A*S*H
''M*A*S*H'' (an acronym for Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) is an American media franchise consisting of a series of novels, a film, several television series, plays, and other properties, and based on the semi-autobiographical fiction of Richa ...
,'' Hawkeye (
Alan Alda
Alan Alda (; born Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo; January 28, 1936) is an American actor. A six-time Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award winner and a three-time Tony Award nominee, he is best known for playing Captain Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pier ...
) gives Klinger (
Jamie Farr
Jamie Farr (born Jameel Joseph Farah; July 1, 1934) is an American comedian and actor. He is best known for playing Corporal Maxwell Klinger, a soldier who tried getting discharged from the army by cross-dressing, on the CBS sitcom '' M*A*S*H'' ...
) a quart of "Old Grand-Dad" as his contribution to a potluck.
* On the show ''
The Wayans Bros
''The Wayans Bros.'' is an American sitcom television series that aired on The WB from January 11, 1995, to May 20, 1999. The series starred real life brothers Shawn Wayans, Shawn and Marlon Wayans, comedian John Witherspoon (actor), John Withe ...
,'' When a woman is giving birth in the diner, Pops asks for Shawn to bring some hot water, towels and half a pint of "Old Grand-Dad".
*In the classic 1931 Warner Brothers talkie ''
The Public Enemy
''The Public Enemy'' (''Enemies of the Public'' in the UK) is a 1931 American pre-Code gangster film produced and distributed by Warner Bros. The film was directed by William A. Wellman, and starring James Cagney, Jean Harlow, Edward Woods ...
,''
James Cagney
James Francis Cagney Jr. (; July 17, 1899March 30, 1986) was an American actor and dancer. On stage and in film, he was known for his consistently energetic performances, distinctive vocal style, and deadpan comic timing. He won acclaim and maj ...
and
Edward Woods are seen smuggling crates of ''Old Grand-Dad'' bourbon, this while
Prohibition
Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic b ...
was still in place. This is believed to be an early example of
Product placement
Product placement, also known as embedded marketing, is a marketing technique where references to specific brands or products are incorporated into another work, such as a film or television program, with specific promotional intent. Much of t ...
of liquor in sound film.
*During Season 3, Episode 6, of the television series ''
Boardwalk Empire
''Boardwalk Empire'' is an American period crime drama television series created by Terence Winter for the premium cable channel HBO. The series is set chiefly in Atlantic City, New Jersey, during the Prohibition era of the 1920s. The series sta ...
'', the main character, Nucky Thompson, is arrested by Revenue Agents during Prohibition at Union Station in Washington, D.C., when he buys a pint of Old Grand-Dad from the newspaper seller for his ride back to Atlantic City on the train. This is the only incident during the series in which Nucky is arrested, charged with, and convicted with a crime, despite his long list of criminal exploits. Nucky mentions this during Season 5, Episode 1, when he says, "I won't lie, I have been arrested and convicted. In 1923 I bought a pint of Old Grand-Dad in Union Station in Washington, DC. I paid a $5 fine and I spent the night in jail. It's haunted me ever since."
*In the episode "The Mihn Who Knew Too Much," of the show ''King of the Hill,'' Hank references this drink when someone deposits their garbage in his trashcan, remarking "We don't use canned milk, or drink Old Grand-Dad."
*In the 1996 Canadian film, ''
The Boys Club'', the three boys, Kyle, Brad, Eric and Megan as well as Luke drink this.
References
External links
Old Grand-Dad Brand Page
{{Alcoholic drinks
Suntory brands
Beam Suntory
Bourbon whiskey
American brands
Kentucky cuisine
1840 introductions
Nelson County, Kentucky