THE Brown Family behind Jack Daniel's has been raising a toast to its success in the liquor business for over 150 years.
But things haven’t always been smooth for their Kentucky-based corporation, Brown-Forman, which was founded with just $5,500 in 1870.
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George Garvin Brown had been working as a pharmaceutical salesman until he borrowed the money, equivalent to around $128,000 today, to start his own company.
He had the then-novel idea of selling quality bourbon in sealed glass bottles and began this new bottling process with the Old Forester brand, which is still sold today.
SUCCESSION
George’s son Owsley joined Brown-Forman in 1904, beginning the tradition of family stewardship that continues five generations later.
But prohibition posed a major challenge to the corporation when it was introduced in 1920, as it did to all other alcohol companies.
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Owsley was able to obtain just one of six licenses in the country to bottle whiskey for medicinal purposes, keeping the company afloat.
During World War II, Brown-Forman dedicated its distilleries to producing solely industrial alcohol.
‘NECTAR OF THE GODS’
Brown Forman acquired the world-famous Jack Daniels in 1956.
This flagship product grew massively in popularity in the 1950s and 1960s thanks to celebrity endorsers like Frank Sinatra, who described the Tennessee whiskey as the “nectar of the Gods.”
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Sales of Jack Daniel’s tripled from 1973 to 1986, according to The Atlantic.
Over the coming decades, the company diversified into other liquor markets.
In 2007, Brown-Forman acquired Tequila Herradura, a super-premium product made in Mexico.
In recent years, the company has tapped into the trend for small-batch whiskeys and now owns Scotch brands GlenDronach, BenRiach, and Glenglassaugh.
Woodford Reserve bourbon, Fords Gin, and Finlandia vodka are also under Brown-Forman control.
FAMILY SPIRIT
To this day, the Brown family owns about 50 percent of the publicly traded company, putting their collective net worth at $20.4billion, according to Forbes.
Brown-Forman brings in over $5 billion in revenue and remains one of the largest companies in the spirits and wine business.
Campbell Brown, great-great-grandson of the founder, chairs the board after taking over from his older brother in 2021.
In an interview for Kentucky Oral History, he said his favorite thing about working in the liquor business is been the relationships he’s been able to form.
“Obviously the ones that I have the deepest memories for are our family, and then just some great people I’ve been able to work with,” said Campbell.
There are around 40 members of the Brown family alive today, who collectively control more than 70 percent of Brown-Forman Corp.’s voting shares, as per The Globe and Mail.
But the Browns aren’t the only family in the alcohol industry that have acquired a fortune.
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The Busch family has amassed $18 billion after Adolphus Busch invented Budweiser in 1876.
Meanwhile, another American family has racked up an $11.7billion fortune after keeping the business under family control for 150 years.
