Here's an odd little gem. Original Proof Rye. While all the modern day distillers are touting their single barrels and barrel proof offerings, again, a little distillery in the PA countryside beat them to it. Yup. You guessed it- Pennco/Michter's. Looking at this decanter, you'll first notice a striking similarity to the original batch of Michter's "crocks" that were released from ~1957 until 1970. You'll see it has green text, it's the same size, and has the same glaze. On the bottom, it even has the mysterious #153 on it (Only thing I can figure is that that was the part number from the maker of the decanters at that time.). The only difference is the text. Note that this was a bottling sold by M. Lehmann, Inc. Not much info exists about this company, but it was most likely one of a plethora of wholesale distributors that had proprietary brands made for them. Note too that this dandy of a whiskey was a straight rye whiskey, unlike Michter's, which was always simply a "Pot Still Whiskey." So we know for sure what resided in this bottle. Note too that the bottle is numbered and the cask number is listed, along with a proof of 101.1. Pretty cool, especially considering the era in which this would have been bottled and sold! It's also a solid 6 years old, which, in my opinion, is plenty for a good rye. But 101.1 as original proof? Indeed. Distillery distillation proofs, and more often, barrel entry proofs have risen over the years. Michter's and their predecessors would enter whiskey into the barrel at much lower proofs than most modern distillers today. Dick Stoll told me that they for many years put the white dog into the barrels at 109 proof, later they rose to 115 proof. So an ending proof of 101.1 is certainly feasible or at least not that far off what it would've entered the barrel at. A keen eye would note that on the decanter, there is no mention of Michter's or Pennco, but only a "Hammer Creek Distilling Company, Schaefferstown, Pennsylvania." During the time this would have been bottled, Michter's only existed as a brand and not a distillery. The distillery that became known as Michter's was still called Pennco. I've written before about this subject, so I won't go in depth here. But, during the Pennco era, they went under many names. Hammer Creek is just another one. I have a binder full of Pennco labels, and I'd bet there are at least a half dozen or more names the distillery was using at that time. I don't know why this was done, but there must've been some purpose. This practice still remains today. Look at the back of a bottle of Evan Williams or Old Grand Dad and it does not say Heaven Hill or Jim Beam. We can only guess at how good the rye was inside this bottle, but, as history has shown us, there was little, if any, whiskey that left that distillery that wasn't spectacular. Without further ado, the pictures:
