Schenley International Corporation

History

In 1892 was company established in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania by Schenley family.

In 1923 bought company Lewis Rosenstiel from Cincinnati, Ohio.

in 1935 acquired New England Distilling Company.

... it was originally called by Frank Sinclair who started it on land he acquired from Mary Schenley.

It did put an end to nearly all of the hundreds of large distilleries (including the Large distillery). In 1924, New York entrepreneur Lewis S. Rosentiel began acquiring distilleries. He started with Sinclair's Schenley distillery, and also bought another in the same vicinity, the Joseph S. Finch distillery. Like the Overholts, Joseph Finch began distilling commercially in the mid-1850s and had a reputation for excellence. Rosentiel named his corporation Schenley after the location, and began modernizing and expanding the Joseph S. Finch Co. They produced a wide range of Schenley-label beverages, and the new corporation went on to become the leading U.S. distiller until 1937 and then again from 1944 to 1947.

Schenley eventually acquired (and closed down) many, many distilleries, including several small-to-medium sized Kentucky bourbon distilleries. They maintained one very large one, Buffalo Trace (known then as Ancient Age) which they operated until 1983.

In Canada, Schenley was right up there with Seagram and Hiram Walker. There is a lot we'd like to learn about Schenley, but that will have to wait until we're ready to bring in the whole world of Canadian whisky and the Prohibition years, and the connections between the American distiller barons and the Canadian ones.

All the Canadian Schenley brands, including the ones that used to be American bourbon and rye brands, like OFC (once George T. Stagg's brand), Golden Wedding (Finch and maybe Guckenheimer), Gibson's, and others, are now distributed (and probably made) by Barton in Bardstown Kentucky.

There is no Schenley anymore. Well, there is, but it pretty much consists of a train station and some steel rail track. If you're planning to visit the ruins of the Schenley distillery, you'd better not even try getting there by way of a Pennsylvania road map. Go to http://www.kiskijunction.com/roadsigns.html and check out the outstanding (and entertaining) directions.

... remains of the Pennsylvania Distilling Company [...] They might also have been part of the Schenley group ...