Julian P. Van Winkle Jr.
Julian Van Winkle Jr., the son of the legendary Julian “Pappy” Van Winkle, was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on February 3, 1914. Upon the death of his father, Pappy, in 1964, he would be chosen to run the historic Stitzel-Weller distillery until it was sold in 1972. Julian Jr. had gotten his start in spirits by operating the ‘J.P. Van Winkle and Son bottling and decanter plant’. After his son Julian III joined Julian, Jr. at Stitzel-Weller in 1977, the near mythological Old Rip Van Winkle brand was begun merely as a side venture for Julian III..
Julian Van Winkle Jr. had begun working at W.L. Weller and Sons in 1932. At the time that he joined his father, Weller was selling medicinal whiskey made by the A. Ph. Stitzel Distillery, and hoping for prohibition to end. In 1933, Junior was rolling barrels around, which he hoped would help him bulk up to play football at Princeton University. On Derby Day of 1935, W.L. Weller and Sons merged with the Stitzel Distillery to become Stitzel-Weller Distilling Company. Julian would continue working at the distillery during summer breaks while away at Princeton until he graduated in 1937. After graduation, he became the treasurer of Stitzel-Weller, which was then booming due to the popularity of its Old Fitzgerald and W.L. Weller brands. In 1941, after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Julian volunteered for the United States Army.
In February of 1942, Julian Jr. said goodbye to his wife Katie for in-processing in the Army at Fort Knox, KY, after which he spent several months at Camp Campbell (now Fort Campbell, KY/TN) for training. In 1943, following officer instruction school, he was placed in Command of Company D, 44th Armored Regiment. After more intense training with his men, Van Winkle was promoted to Captain and soon assumed command of Company A.
In March of 1944, his battalion was deployed to the Pacific theater.
In their run-up to the Battle of Leyte in the Philippines, Van Winkle renamed his M4 Sherman tank “Old Fitz”, after Old Fitzgerald bourbon. As he and his men moved from island to island in the Pacific, he wrote to his father to keep updated on the happenings with the distillery. In one letter, Julian Jr. told Pappy that he had looked over one of the company’s monthly statements, which, he noted, “certainly looked good despite the vast decrease in some of the accounts.” He also asked about rising taxes, the distillery’s efforts to provide alcohol to the War Department, and whether Old Fitzgerald whiskey was “finally on sale in L.A.”
During the battle of Breakneck Ridge in the Philippines, Van Winkle was shot by a sniper in his hand. The bullet went through his side and out of his back. The tankers heard Van Winkle scream, “Damn, that stings!” They were unable to get to him right away because of the sniper. When they finally did, he was evacuated so that his wound could be treated. Van Winkle declined to be sent back to the States because he wanted to stay with his men. He wrote in his journal, “I have not made many regrettable mistakes in my life, but getting shot was certainly one of them.” He finally made his way back first by catching a plane from New Guinea to the Philippines, then hitchhiking to his men on the Island of Luzon as General MacArthur was making his assault on Manila. For his wounds and heroic actions, he received the Purple Heart and Silver Star.
In 1945, Van Winkle returned home and rejoined his father, Pappy, at Stitzel-Weller as its vice president. While Julian Jr., had been away to war, Pappy had hired Charles “King” McClure to head sales and marketing. Soon, the three of them would become known as “The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost” of the now booming Stitzel-Weller enterprise.
In the 1970s and 1980s, whiskey was in decline, but there was a premier liquor store in Kentucky that focused on hard-to-find exotic spirits, whiskey, wine, cognac, and armagnac. Gordy Hue, whose family owned the liquor store Cork N’ Bottle, wondered why ‘No one was doing anything with that amazing bourbon’ of Stitzel-Weller’s. Gordy’s father, who had worked for many years in the industry and in doing so met many legends of the bourbon world, had helped distilleries promote unique bourbons. So to commemorate our nation’s two hundredth birthday in 1976, Gordy hand bottled and labeled some 16-year-old Willett. He had such fun that he decided to go around to other distilleries to purchase their bourbon as well.
One of the projects that Hue had envisioned was a certain squat bottle that was used at Stitzel-Weller. He knew that Julian Jr. had taken some empty bottles when he sold the company to bottle his 7-year-old Rip Van Winkle. One day, Hue called Julian to try to purchase some of the special bottles. Julian had responded by curtly asking, “Why the hell are you asking to buy my bottles?” but the call began a relationship between the two men that lasted the rest of their lives.
One day, Julian told Gordy that he needed to “Fill some coal miner bottles”. The so-called “coal-miner bottles” were unique, ceramic decanters that Julian would fill to help sell whiskey during the decline. Gordy asked why he was filling his decanters with his good product when people couldn’t care less what was inside. Julian had asked if Hue had a better idea, and Hue replied that he did. Gordy had some more attractive glass Cognac bottles, and he told Julian to put his juice in the glass bottles to make his product look as good as it tasted and charge some real money. This began a period in which distinctive and interesting glass decanters were used by all distillers as a gimmick to help sell bourbon.
Julian Jr. became president of Stitzel-Weller in 1947 and under his leadership, the sales of products such as Old Fitzgerald, Rebel Yell, W.L. Weller, and Cabin Still thrived. Junior ran the company until 1972 when he was forced by family co-owners to sell to Norton-Simon Company, who promptly renamed the operation ‘The Old Fitzgerald Distillery’. The company was then sold again to Distillers Corporation Limited, then again sold to Guinness, Ltd., which then became United Distillers. United Distillers had the foresight to change the name back to Stitzel-Weller Distillery before the United Distillers name itself was soon changed to Diageo.
After the distillery was sold, Julian Jr, resurrected a pre-prohibition label, which was the only one whose rights were not sold with the rest of the company: Old Rip Van Winkle. He used old whiskey stocks from the distillery to start bottling the brand. At that time, they had two expressions, a 90-proof and a 107-proof, both aged 7 years. Julian Jr. went to extremes to keep his father’s legacy alive. He purchased as many “Pappy” barrels as he could find throughout Kentucky, bringing his son, the next generation of Van Winkle’s, with him as he traveled. Unfortunately, Julian Van Winkle, Jr. succumbed to cancer in 1981, but the legacy of Pappy Van Winkle was passed on to his descendants, where it remains to this day.
