Rebel Yell (bourbon)

The W.L. Weller & Sons company was founded in 1849 by William Larue Weller, who pioneered using wheat instead of rye in his mash for a lighter flavor than the older style of bourbons. The W.L. Weller company merged with the Stitzel distilling company (est. 1872) to form the Stitzel-Weller distilling company in 1910.

The "Rebel Yell" brand was created for Stitzel-Weller in the mid-1900s by Charles R. Farnsley (a former mayor of Louisville) around the 100th anniversary of the original Weller company, with the idea of distilling it in limited batches for exclusive distribution in the Southern United States. In the early 1980s, after some other changes of ownership following the break-up of Stitzel-Weller around 1972, the brand was purchased by the David Sherman Corporation of St. Louis, Missouri (now Luxco). By 1984, Rebel Yell was distributed nationally.

• Other wheated bourbon brands produced by the Stitzel-Weller distillery:
  • W. L. Weller, a brand named after the distiller who is said to have pioneered the use of wheated bourbon recipes
  • Old Fitzgerald, another bourbon brand, originally produced by another company but purchased by Stitzel-Weller soon after Prohibition and thereafter converted to using a wheated recipe
  • Pappy Van Winkle's Family Reserve, another wheated bourbon brand, named after a leading figure of the Stitzel-Weller history
  • Cabin Still bourbon, originally produced in the 1840 by E. G. Booz, later becoming a Stitzel-Weller wheated brand, possibly no longer wheated in its current brand expression
• Maker's Mark, a well-known wheated bourbon developed from a recipe influenced by Pappy Van Winkle of Stitzel-Weller

Tasting notes have been reported[1] as:

• "Nose" (scent): Honey, butter, raisins
• "Mouth" (taste): A big, round body with a palette that directly follows the nose – honey, butter and just a hint of dark fruit (plums, raisins). The finish is long, warm and interesting in that a touch of spiciness, not present in the palette, comes into play.

• In the novels of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta favors this particular bourbon (e.g. Book of the Dead).
• In the extended edition of Stephen King's post-apocalyptic novel The Stand, a maniacal character dubbed "The Kid" has a fanatical taste for Rebel Yell.
• Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones was once known to be an avid drinker of Rebel Yell. In fact, Billy Idol has said in his episode of VH1 Storytellers that his hit "Rebel Yell" was inspired upon joining Richards, Mick Jagger and Ron Wood in taking swigs from a bottle of Rebel Yell at a gathering they all attended. He liked the sound of the brand name, and said he recalled that he actually asked if they (Jagger and Richards) had no objections to his use of the brand name for a future song title. "I've got it now . . . little did they know."[2]
• In Dr. Dog's song "100 Years," the singer makes a reference to Rebel Yell: "When the sun shines down on what's left of me/About a hundred years from now/Gonna cut my water with Rebel Yell/And claw my way back to town."
• In one of Norm Macdonald's final Saturday Night Live sketches, he hosted a game show entitled "Who's More Grizzled?" featuring Garth Brooks and Robert Duvall as two old men in a trivia contest to find out who indeed was more grizzled. The grand prize for the show was salted meats and a bottle of Rebel Yell.
• William G. Tapply's fictional Boston attorney Brady Coyne's favorite libation, in more than fifteen mystery novels, was Rebel Yell.
• Rebel Yell Bourbon is featured in the lyrics to "Honky Tonk Hell" a song performed by Webb Wilder on his 1995 album Town & Country: "One wife, two on the side; Too many stories I can't tell; Too much loss of memory; Too many bottles of Rebel Yell; One more night in a roadhouse; I figure I might as well; I know when it's all over for me; I'll be headin' down to honky tonk hell."

• Rebel yell

• Rebel Yell homepage
• Luxco website