Meredith Basil Hayden
"Old Grand Dad”
Staunch Catholics George Hayden and Charity Mary (Morgan) Hayden emigrated from King Henry’s protestant England in the late 1600s due to religious intolerance. They settled in St. Mary's County, Maryland, along the western side of the Chesapeake Bay. During the American Revolution, George Hayden became a wealthy merchant who supplied provisions to the English Colonial Army. George and Mary Hayden had three sons and one daughter. The youngest son was named Basil, who was born in 1744.
Not much is known about the early life of Basil Hayden, but in 1771, he married Henrietta Cole, and a total of 16 children were ultimately born to the union. In 1785, Basil led a contingent of over one hundred Catholic parishioners from twenty-five families along the Wilderness Road, through the treacherous Cumberland Gap. Sixty families in the League of Catholic Families had pledged to emigrate with the group. The first group of 25 families left Maryland in 1785, under the leadership of Basil Hayden. What was left of the group eventually settled on land near Bardstown, Kentucky.
Basil and Henrietta had nine children making the trip with them. Four of them died on the arduous and difficult journey: John Baptist, age six; Joseph, age four; Teresa, age three; and John, age one. Three more of the Hayden’s children who were on the journey later died at an early age. Six more children were born in Kentucky, but two died very young: Hillery, age several months, and an infant, Alexander. Out of Basil and Henrietta’s 16 children, only 6 survived to full adulthood.
Once settled in Kentucky, Basil Hayden took up the art of distilling like many of his Bardstown neighbors. Soon, he was experimenting with high-rye whiskeys, which was somewhat unconventional for the area at that time, but akin to the spirits he was used to in his native Maryland. Due to the novelty and quality of the whiskey, Basil was a popular distiller, and he became one of the wealthier merchants in the area. In time, the Hayden family was able to actually donate the land for the first Catholic church in the state of Kentucky, as well as the first one west of the Allegheny Mountains. Unfortunately, none of his children were interested in whiskey production. Basil Hayden, the “Father of High Rye,” eventually passed away in 1804 in Marion County, Kentucky. He is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery, but there is no marker on his grave.
After his death, Basil’s distillery quickly fell into disrepair, and his whiskey recipe was largely forgotten for many years. Then, around 1885, Basil’s grandson, Lewis Hayden, restored the distillery and began making whiskey again. Lewis married a member of the Dant family, also known for producing whiskey, and together they raised a family there. Raymond Bishop (“R.B.”) Hayden, Lewis’s second son, carried on his father’s occupation as a whiskey maker and eventually took on a former revenue agent as a distilling partner. Together, they grew Basil’s old business into a commercial-scale distillery. R.B. also grew his family’s farming operations until his land was at that time valued at over $30,000, equivalent to over a million dollars today.
Beam-Suntory’s current Old Grand-Dad line of whiskeys (OGD), which R.B. Hayden had named after his grandfather Basil, has now been consecutively produced since 1840, despite several changes in ownership. OGD was even produced during Prohibition, due to its use as “medicinal whiskey for the sick, blind, and lame.” The current picture on the label of OGD was copied from a rendering of Basil Hayden’s likeness. Later, the same image was used, but the OGD marketing team made Basil smile, and still later had him holding a shot glass. OGD remains one of the USA's ten best-selling straight whiskeys. It comes in three different bottling proofs: 80 proof, 100 proof Bottled In Bond, and 114 Barrel Proof.
In 1992, Beam Suntory began producing the Basil Hayden Small Batch line named after the “King of High Rye” himself, and using a very similar recipe made famous by Basil. The brand expression was originally labeled as "Aged 7 Years,” but in 2014, the age statement was replaced by "Artfully Aged, ” indicating that the brand no longer carries an age guarantee, though it is thought to be aged 5-7 years. Its mash bill is 63% corn, 27% rye, and 10% malted barley, and it is bottled at 80 proof.
All five versions of “Old Grand-Dad” display a likeness of Basil Hayden on their labels. Those include (left to right); Old Grand-Dad Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey (80 & 86 Proof), Old Grand-Dad 114 Small Batch (114 Proof) and Old Grand Dad Bottled-in-Bond (100 Proof) and Old Grand-Dad 16 Year Old.
Contributed by Tracy McLemore, Fairview, Tennessee
“The Olds” is a group of some of the four Oldest brands in the country. They were purchased by the James B. Beam Distilling Company in 1987, when it acquired the spirits division of National Distillers: