Evan Williams (bourbon)

Production

The product is distilled at the Heaven Hill distillery in Louisville, Kentucky, though bottled in Bardstown. The standard mass-market variety is the Black Label, bottled at 43% alc/vol (86 U.S. proof).

Other varieties include a White Label bottled in bond, a limited-quantity Evan Williams 1783, and a vintage-dated single barrel bourbon aged 7–8 years sealed with black wax. A Green Label, 80 proof, is a younger, lighter-bodied version available in some regions. As of 2010, Evan Williams was the second-largest-selling Kentucky straight bourbon brand and had the fastest-growing market share among top-volume American whiskey brands, with a 12.4% sales growth rate according to A.C. Nielsen Scantrack 2010 data.

Origin of the name

The Evan Williams brand takes its name from a Welsh immigrant born in Dale, Pembrokeshire, who moved to North America near the close of the 18th century. He settled in Kentucky and started distilling in 1783 on a site in what is now Louisville, Kentucky, which a historical marker identifies as the state’s first commercial distillery. In 1797, Williams was elected Louisville’s first wharf master. The black label variant, the brand’s top seller, features the phrases “Since 1783” and “Kentucky’s 1st distiller,” but this does not mean the brand has operated continuously since then.

Heaven Hill introduced the modern whiskey in 1957. Historian Michael Veach of the Filson Historical Society has challenged key parts of the historical story. He notes that the claim Williams was Kentucky’s first distiller only appeared in an 1892 work by Reuben Durrett, over a century later. A record of Williams traveling from London to Philadelphia in May 1794 suggests his distillery began much later.

Veach says the true first distiller may never be known, as record-keeping was poor, and other candidates—Jacob Myers and the brothers Joseph and Samuel Davis—arrived in 1779 according to records. The Evan Williams name was patented in the 1960s.