Schenley Distilleries

Schenley was a liquor company based in New York, N.Y. with headquarters in the Empire State Building and a distillery in Lawrenceburg, Indiana. It owned several brands of Bourbon whiskey, including Schenley, The Old Quaker Company, Golden Wedding Rye, I.W. Harper (Named after proprietor Isaac Wolfe Bernheim) and possibly others. It also owned a controlling interest in Blatz beer and made a Canadian whisky called Schenley Reserve, also called Schenley Black Label. It was the only liquor available to submarine officers at Midway in World War II, where it was held in low regard and known as "Schenley's Black Death". It also imported Dewar's White Label Scotch.

Schenley Products Company was organized in the 1920s by Lewis Rosenstiel. The company bought numerous distillers, including one in Schenley, Pennsylvania, and acquired a license to produce medicinal whisky. (The United States government had authorized six companies to produce medicinal spirits. The others were: Brown-Forman, Frankfort Distilleries, the A. Ph. Stitzel Distillery, the American Medicinal Spirits Company, and James Thompson and Brother.) In 1933, when Prohibition ended, Schenley Distillers Company was formed as a publicly owned company. The name was changed to Schenley Industries in 1949. Schenley became one of the largest liquor companies in the United States. It was one of the "Big Four", which dominated liquor sales, and included Seagram, National Distillers and Hiram Walker.