This is a question that was very much discussed with my good friend, Al Young, when he was still with us. He would often call me and ask this question and we had several interesting telephone calls as a result. 

The first thing I considered is when the trademark was registered. According to Mida’s Criteria Register of Trademark from 1899, the trademark has been in use since 1869. The brand uses the date of 1886. It is this difference that makes me believe my theory is correct. The official story is that Four Roses comes from an event where Paul Jones proposed to a young lady and she was to show her acceptance by wearing four roses to a dance. Interesting bit of folk lore, but Paul Jones died a bachelor. It sheds doubt upon the story. I believe that the whiskey was Paul Jones’ first brand when he was a rectifier in Atlanta, Georgia. He was the main distributor of the whiskey from the Rose Distillery in that city. The name comes from the fact that the Bourbon was a marriage of four different whiskeys from the Rose Distillery. The trademark discrepancy comes from the fact that when prohibition hit Georgia in 1886, the Rose Distillery closed and Paul Jones moved to Louisville, Ky., but not before purchasing the trademark from the Rose Distillery. The brand is much older than 1886, but that was the year that Paul Jones acquired the trademark.

mike veach and al young
four roses al young bottle
Bourbon Affair 2018– Al Young 50th Anniversary

This theory makes more sense than the proposal theory. The Rose Distillery could have created the brand and Paul Jones was their major distributor of the brand. This is an era before there were any regulations defining whiskey, let alone Bourbon, and the four whiskeys could have been corn whiskey or rye whiskey in the marriage of whiskeys. Corn whiskey was very popular in the south and could have been a major whiskey produced by the Rose Distillery. Paul Jones, as a rectifier without owning a distillery, could have been purchasing barrels of the four whiskeys and blending them himself or he could have been getting the whiskey blended by the distillery. In any case, he had a close relationship with the distillery. This was a common practice in the 19th century. Rectifiers often formed close relationships with the distillery or distilleries, where they purchased their whiskeys. 

This is my theory of where Four Roses became Four Roses. Al and I discussed this several times and I believe he wanted to agree with me, but could not turn his back on a century old story of the origins of the name. What do you think?

four roses
Four Roses
four roses
Four Roses

Photos Courtesy of Rosemary Miller