There was a long relationship between Edmond Haynes Taylor and Edward Pepper. Taylor started in the whiskey industry after the American Civil War with a partnership in Gaines, Berry and Company, the company that owned the Old Crow brand. About the same time, Oscar Pepper died and left his distillery to James Pepper, who was still a minor and couldn’t own a distillery, so Taylor was appointed his guardian for the distillery. Taylor and Pepper had a good relationship starting with this guardianship.
In the 1870s, Taylor started the OFC distillery. He built the distillery into a modern distillery that would make excellent whiskey and be a showplace for people who wanted to visit the distillery and see how whiskey was made. At the same time, Taylor gave Pepper a loan to improve the Oscar Pepper Distillery. Things went well until the panic in the economy in 1878 and Taylor was deep in debt. He had sold the same barrels of whiskey to two different customers and ended up declaring bankruptcy. He needed the money back he had loaned Pepper, but Pepper could not pay it. In the end, the Oscar Pepper distillery was sold to Labrot and Graham and Taylor lost control of the OFC distillery to the firm Greggory and Stagg, out of St. Louis.
Both Taylor and Pepper had to start over in the whiskey industry. Pepper never blamed Taylor for what happened and they continued to be friends. They would often correspond with each other and Pepper even purchased some suits for Taylor while he was in New York City in the 1880s. Taylor goes on to found the Old Taylor Distillery and Pepper founded the James E. Pepper Distillery in Lexington. The two men continued to be friends and both of their new distilleries survived and made good whiskey. Taylor and Pepper were both excellent marketing men. Taylor was a leading force behind the Bottled-in- Bond Act of 1897 and Pepper was one of his supporters. Pepper had the law in Kentucky changed to allow the distilleries to bottle their own whiskey and created a strip stamp with his name over the cork and advertised that if this seal was broken, don’t purchase it because it could be counterfeit Pepper whiskey.
James E. Pepper died in 1906 after slipping on ice in New York City. Taylor lived until 1923. The two men were friends who left a rich legacy in Kentucky’s whiskey industry.
Photos from the archives of Michael Veach and courtesy Rosemary Miller