Honoring the Heritage of Hard Work: Julian Van Winkle III
We talk about heritage a lot, but it isn't a word we use lightly. While it has become somewhat of a popularized term to describe the traditions, values, and craftsmanship of a company’s brand identity, we are truly a company deeply rooted in heritage—in our case, four generations of it.
We celebrate the legacy and heritage of our great grandfather, Pappy Van Winkle, and we based much of Pappy & Company’s mission, values and collections on his commitment to quality, his passion, and his work ethic. We reference his pappy-isms regularly, as well as his philosophies and promises, on a daily basis. Through our work, we also proudly stand on the heritage of our grandfather, and father, Julian Van Winkle II and Julian Van Winkle III, as well.
Heritage is passed down through generations, but in our family’s case, it is also earned—the old-fashioned way. While our dad, Julian Van Winkle III, inherited the sense of bourbon being “in his blood,” so to speak, and he both inherited and developed his own palate necessary for his role in bourbon history, the road to being the name of the family brand wasn’t an easy one.
After the distillery was sold and dismantled, and the family brand had faced a series of sales, and hard times, our dad took on the mantle. At 32, with four kids (under four no less - although we suppose having triplets sure speeds up that count), he, as our aunt Sally Van Winkle Campbell described in the story of Pappy Van Winkle, But Always Fine Bourbon, “was alone in the business…it was hard. He was tiny.”
However, this wasn’t a new story. As relayed in But Always Fine Bourbon, ninety years prior, “Pappy had to start somewhere too.” So, this bootstrap mentality, this willingness and desire to start over and build from the bottom up, well that is all part of our Pappy Van Winkle heritage too.
When Dad was starting over, bourbon hadn’t yet entered the golden age of resurgent popularity. The trend of “white-spirits” had taken over, and bourbon was seen as rather old-fashioned. Fortunately for us, we never consider old-fashioned to be a bad thing. Not scared off by the hard work, he persevered. In 1983, he bought an old distillery in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. No ivy-covered walls or plaques on the door; it was rough, broken down, and somewhat lovingly described as “a rat trap.”
But, the most important factor of all - it was his. He spent most of his time at the plant but some time on the road, self-promoting the brand all over the country. Of course, the name Old Rip Van Winkle alone did most of the talking - but the work, the sweat, the worry, the labor, and the time away from home - that was all Dad.
As Sally describes, “he was running the company by himself: driving 50 miles to Lawrenceburg every morning, and 50 miles back each evening…the work was hard. Julian had to learn to operate the bottling line by trial and error.” When something broke, guess who fixed it? Hot in the sweltering summers and cold in the long winters; he was a one-man operation. He drove the truck, handled the barrels and processing himself, and with a small but trusted team, he did the labeling too.
There was even a flood that prompted our mom to relent and call in the troops, and naturally, a cavalry of family members arrived to pitch in. In short, “there was always something.” Fortunately, just as he had his team and his family to rely on, our dad also had something else, something more formidable, and even though not exactly tangible, it was this fortitude that kicked in when he needed it. “Genes are strong, and Pappy and Dad’s courage to just hang in there when things were tough had surely passed to” him.
After all, Pappy had battled prohibition and WWII, and his father had faced the bleak reality of the sale of Stizer-Weller, so this was his battle to face, and luckily, according to Sally, he was built for it: “he just keeps on ticking. He keeps the front wheels in the front.”
In 1995, he began to sell a 20-year bourbon, naturally named after his grandfather. The only 20-year Kentucky bourbon on the market, Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Reserve - aptly named in so many ways. Representative of his reserve of willpower, fortitude, and willingness, the reserve of heritage he refused to let falter, and the name that started it all. Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Reserve stood as a beacon of honor for those qualities, and that, as they say, “changed everything.”
But the story of what happened after, after “the phone started ringing off the hook,” after the brands “began to appear in the best liquor stores and finest restaurants from Madison Avenue to San Francisco,” after receiving “the highest rating the Beverage Tasting Institute had ever given a whiskey,” after the festivals, the honors, the invitations - isn’t the story we think of when we think of the heritage of Pappy Van Winkle as represented by our dad.
It’s the work. The perseverance. The refusal to take a shortcut and compromise quality. The grit and determination it takes to build, rebuild, and maintain not just a brand but a brand that represents a commitment. Of course, we are incredibly proud of carrying on the legacy of Pappy Van Winkle bourbon, but we are equally as proud to have inherited the fortitude of the Van Winkle family, the value of tradition, the uncompromising spirit of doing things the right way, and the willingness to roll up our sleeves and get to work.
We continue to be amazed at our dad’s ability to maintain his authenticity and naturally humble nature. For him, it was simply a matter of doing what mattered to him - he didn’t set out to save the family business or resurrect it into what it is known as today. It was just that hard work was what he knew, and hard work was what he believed in. It was taking his place in the family business, standing on the shoulders of the important men in his life, and putting into practice what he learned from them.
This philosophy is modeled in our everyday approach to business. One of our core values is “we hustle.” We have taken that message as our inheritance. Do work that matters and do it the right way. Our collections reflect these heritages and celebrate these traditions - and most of all, we are so honored to share them with all of you.
Interested in reading more about Julian’s story? We recommend Pappyland: A Story of Family, Fine Bourbon and the Things That Last, by Wright Thompson.
Read more about the legacy of Pappy Van Winkle and the history of the Stitzel-Weller Distillery, told only as it could be, by our aunt, Sally Van Winkle Campbell, in But Always Fine Bourbon.
