William Howard Taft

The Taft family in about 1908: Nellie and the President, Robert Helen and Charles

Taft  was appointed a federal circuit judge at the young age of 34 in 1891. President McKinley sent him to the Philippines in 1900 as chief civil administrator there and he was soon appointed Governor General of the Philippines. He improved the economy, built roads and schools, and increased participation in government. Incoming President Theodore Roosevelt made him Secretary of War in 1904, and by 1907 had decided that Taft should be his successor to the White House. The Republican convention nominated him the next year.

While Taft was still a federal judge, largely due to industrialization and the increase of newly automated food-production processes, the quality of food and medicine in the US was declining rapidly. Many food producers used harmful preservatives, and quack medicines were common, often containing addictive substances. The issue was highlighted by Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel "The Jungle," which exposed the horrific practices in meatpacking. This led to a demand for federal regulation to ensure the safety and labeling of food and drugs. To ameliorate the public and the press, on June 30, 1906, Congress passed the Pure Food and Drugs Act, but even then, federal officials struggled to apply it to whisk(e)y. The law condemned “adulterated” or “misbranded” foods and drugs, and, as Taft later noted, treated potable liquors as “articles of food.” But the statute never defined “whiskey.” That gap inflamed a long-running argument between “straight” whiskey distillers (who made and aged whiskey in wood) and “rectifiers” (who redistilled or blended spirits and often used coloring and flavoring). Under then-president Theodore Roosevelt, Internal Revenue Order No. 723 passed in April 1907 effectively reserved the word “whiskey” for “straight whiskey,” pushing many grain spirits toward “imitation whiskey.” The stage was set for appeals.

Soon after taking the office in 1909, President William Howard Taft agreed to rehear the matter. At his direction, Solicitor General Lloyd Bowers took testimony from all sides, manufacturers, the trade, and consumers, amassing more than 1,200 pages of evidence about what “whiskey” meant in actual commerce at and before the 1906 law. Taft, the ever-methodical jurist, read the record, heard argument with the attorney general and the agriculture secretary present, and prepared to issue a determination.

On December 27, 1909, Taft announced what quickly became known as the “Taft Decision”: a detailed ruling on “the meaning of the term ‘whiskey’ under the Pure Food Act and the proper regulations for branding various kinds of whiskey under the internal-revenue act.” The core holding was practical and consumer-oriented. First, he concluded that, “For a hundred years the term ‘whiskey’ in the trade and among the customers has included all potable liquor distilled from grain,” not only the subset later called “straight.” Second, he required labels to tell buyers what kind of whiskey they were getting: “straight whiskey,” “whiskey made of neutral spirits,” or a “blend” of the two, so that consumers could choose knowingly.

Taft’s opinion is unusually specific about bourbon’s place in that framework. He explicitly permitted producers of straight whiskey to brand their packages “straight whiskey,” and, if the grain bill justified it, add the descriptors “Bourbon” or “Rye.” That passage directly protected Kentucky’s traditional practice (new charred oak aging of a mash dominated by corn) while keeping the broader marketplace honest via truthful labeling. The point, as Taft put it, was “not one of health,” but “one of correct branding to prevent deceit of the public as to what it is buying.”

For bourbon, the practical effects were immediate and long-lasting. The decision validated “straight” as a distinct category: whiskey made and aged in wood without additions other than water, and it gave legal cover to the long-standing “Bourbon” and “Rye” descriptors when used on straight whiskey. Meanwhile, blends could still be sold as whiskey if labeled as such and if the neutral spirits component was derived from grain, not molasses (a crucial clarification for a rum-adjacent practice). This taxonomy, straight, blended, imitation, became the backbone of US labeling practice and, decades later, informed federal standards of identity enforced by the Treasury and then TTB. Bourbon writers still point to Taft’s 1909 lines when explaining why a bottle can say, “Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey” versus “Blended Whiskey.”

Taft also explained the technological context with a clarity rare in political documents. He traced the move from pot-still “raw white whisky” through charcoal “leaching tubs,” to “rectified” and “redistilled” spirits, and finally to patent-still “neutral spirits” at 160°–188° proof—each step lowering fusel oils and changing flavor. He acknowledged that traditional straight whiskey acquired color and aroma through time in charred oak, yet he emphasized that for “one hundred years” American commerce had used the umbrella word “whiskey” for all grain spirits reduced to potable strength. With that factual premise established, the law’s job was to sort labels, not to reorder language.

Taft never distilled whiskey; his “entry” into whiskey was judicial, not practical. Yet that is precisely why his imprint endures. He approached the whiskey war like a case, framed issues for evidence, weighed a century of trade usage, and produced a decision that bourbon has lived with ever since. In the years after his presidency, as Chief Justice of the United States, he remained the measured legalist his 1909 whiskey opinion displays. But for Kentucky’s signature spirit, the decisive chapter came during William Howard Taft’s single White House term, when he wrote the paragraphs that stabilize whiskey label language and is still acknowledged and used, worldwide, to this day.

Sources:

1. Univ. California-Santa Barbara/The American Presidency Project (full text of ruling), “Decision on the Meaning of the Term ‘Whisky’ Under the Pure Food Act and the Proper Regulations for Branding Various Kinds of Whisky Under the Internal Revenue Act”, presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/decision-the-meaning-the-term-whisky-under-the-pure-food-act-and-the-proper-regulations, December 27, 1909

2. Los Angeles Herald, “Taft Decides Whiskey Must Be Classified”, Volume 37, Number 87, December 27, 1909

3. Distillery Trail, “What is Whisky? The Taft Decision of 1909”, distillerytrail.com/blog/what-is-whisky-the-taft-decision-of-1909,  August 24, 2021

4. The Bourbon Review, “The Taft Decision”, Bob Eidson, February 17, 2014

5. Westerville History Center, “Food Inspection Decision 113, Whisky or Whiskey” westervillelibrary.org/antisaloon-whisky

6. Miller Center, Univ. Virginia, “William Taft: Life Before the Presidency”, millercenter.org

7. White House Historical Association, “The Life and Presidency of William Howard Taft”, whitehousehistory.org/the-life-and-presidency-of-william-howard-taft

8. WhiteHouse.gov Archive, “Helen Herron Taft”, obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/1600/first-ladies/helentaft

9. Journal Article: “Wiley and the Whiskey Industry”, Jack High & Clayton Coppin, jstor.org/stable/3116002, 1988

Contributed by Tracy McLemore, Fairview, Tennessee

Examples of the whiskey labels tha Taft pushed for