Elmore Sherman

“Kentucky’s King of Copper”

When William Elmore James Sherman was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on October  13, 1878, his father, Henry Charles Sherman, was 26, and his mother, Sarah McCormick, was 24. Raised in a turn‑of‑the‑century Louisville where industrial growth sometimes clashed with strong cultural tradition, Sherman found his calling not in distilling, but in crafting the copper vessels that are the backbone of all whiskey-making. In doing this, he would reshape the industry and improve the quality and consistency of the products of distilling forever.

Sherman's early years are documented through the steps he took at Hoffman, Ahlers & Co., a Cincinnati-based coppersmith firm that operated a Louisville branch. In 1901, at twenty‑three, Sherman joined Hoffman & Ahlers as a bookkeeper. Over the next few years, through both diligence and circumstance, he rose to become Vice President and acting head of the branch, particularly after several untimely deaths among the senior leadership relegated George Ahlers back to Cincinnati permanently.

Meanwhile, Sherman married Lutzia Isabelle Ewering on October 14, 1902, and they built a modest home in Louisville. Before long, they were the parents of 5 sons and 2 daughters.

With no experienced senior leadership onsite, it wasn’t long before Hoffman, Ahlers and Company was struggling, despite Sherman’s best efforts. His ambition crystallized, however,  and he decided to take over the failing branch in 1904. That same year, he formally purchased the operation, marking the birthplace of a family-owned legend. As soon as the company was his, Sherman renamed it Vendome Copper & Brass Works.

As Prohibition approached, Sherman anticipated the downturn. He pivoted, partnering with Gus Kleinstuber in boiler manufacturing to keep himself solvent between 1923 and 1925. Then he undertook a remarkable feat that whiskey fans still recount 100 years later: Sherman completely dismantled a distillery in Henderson, Kentucky, and reassembled it 2,500 miles away in Vancouver, British Columbia. In order to accomplish the exploit, Sherman packed his entire family and worked across international borders for six months in a place that still required distilling equipment.

During the ten or so years when Vendome was absent from business directories (roughly 1923–1933), Sherman stayed resilient. In 1927, he even launched a bold but short-lived venture manufacturing copper gasoline pumps. By 1932, Sherman repurchased land on North Shelby Street in Louisville and began reviving Vendome, preparing for Prohibition’s end, the repeal of which finally came on December 5, 1933.

By the time spirits were once again legal, Vendome was positioned to build distillation equipment for a dozen Kentucky distilleries, including those that had been making “medicinal whiskey” throughout Prohibition. From the repealing of the 18th Amendment into the late 1930s, demand surged as new distilleries cropped up all across the state. 

In 1937, a destructive flood nearly washed out Vendome’s shop. Then, World War II repurposed businesses toward industrial alcohol production for war materials. For a while, it seemed as though every time an industry “boom” happened, a “bust” was sure to follow. By the early 1950s, Sherman Sr retired. His oldest son, Elmore Sherman Jr, then assumed leadership. Junior immediately extended Vendome's reach into stainless steel fabrication, refined workflows, and began designing equipment for pharmaceutical, brewing, and food sectors alongside distilling operations.