History
The brand was originally introduced by the Frankfort Distilling Co., and was purchased by Seagram in 1943. It was the top selling brand of Bourbon in the United States in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. Around the end of the 1950s, despite the popularity of the brand, Seagram decided to discontinue the sale of Four Roses Bourbon (and all other straight Bourbons) within the U.S., in order to focus on sales of blended whiskey there. Four Roses Kentucky Straight Bourbon marketing was shifted to Europe and Asia, which were rapidly growing markets at the time. In these markets, it became the top selling Bourbon. However, in the U.S. during this period, the Four Roses brand name was used on a blended whiskey, made mostly of neutral grain spirits and commonly seen as a sub-par "rotgut" brand. Four Roses continued to be unavailable as a straight Bourbon in the U.S. market for more than forty years – until the brand ownership changed again in 2002 after Seagram was purchased by Vivendi, and then sold most of its brands to Diageo, which sold the Four Roses brand to Kirin. Its new owner (Kirin) discontinued the sale of blended whiskey to focus exclusively on Four Roses Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey.
The master distiller for Four Roses has been Jim Rutledge since 1995.
Read more about this topic: Four Roses
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