{"id":46619,"date":"2022-08-08T16:41:56","date_gmt":"2022-08-08T15:41:56","guid":{"rendered":"\/blog\/post\/the-sticky-story-of-southern-comfort\/"},"modified":"2024-06-28T11:37:52","modified_gmt":"2024-06-28T10:37:52","slug":"the-sticky-story-of-southern-comfort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/post\/the-sticky-story-of-southern-comfort\/","title":{"rendered":"The sticky story of Southern Comfort\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>We\u2019ve got a treat for you today, a look into the history of Southern Comfort. From its origins in a bar in Memphis, Tennessee to a global brand, taking in <em>Gone with the Wind<\/em>, Janis Joplin&#8217;s fur coat and Prohibition, Dr Nick Morgan guides you through the brand&#8217;s convoluted history and once and for all answers the question, what exactly is Southern Comfort?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I remember that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/distilleries\/southern-comfort-branded-liqueurs\/\">Southern Comfort appeared like a shining beam of light<\/a> in my largely monochrome teenage years in the late 1960s and 1970s. Don\u2019t believe all that \u2018swinging sixties\u2019 stuff. Life was still drab; colour TV was only an occasional treat for those who could (which my parents certainly couldn\u2019t) afford the expensive rented receivers. Explorations of alcohol were mostly confined to surreptitious half-pints of mild and bitter in otherwise deserted village pubs, and perhaps stolen sips of spirits at house parties.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"770\" height=\"578\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nEhnUTyPCrc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen title=\"Southern Comfort Cinema Advert -&#39; Why Do Fools Fall In Love&#39;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h5><b>Southern Comfort in the UK<\/b><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But here out of nowhere was this apparently exotic drink, loaded with humid hot Southern sensuality, sizzling somewhere between the black and white of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A Street Car Named Desire<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and (as the posters said) \u2018the sultry explosive\u2019 colour of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cat on a Hot Tin Roof<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0 Sweet and hot, outrageously expensive, no one really knew what it was or where it came from beyond \u2018the South\u2019. But it had to be <a href=\"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/whisky\/\">whiskey<\/a> didn\u2019t it? After all it was 100 proof, and like Levon Helm had sung on \u2018Rag Mamma Rag\u2019, \u2018the bourbon is a 100 proof\u2019. \u2018Just liked bonded whiskey\u2019 as the adverts said. That was that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And then there was Janis. With a voice that came from somewhere unknowable in her soul, taking onstage swigs &#8220;from a bottle of 100 Proof liquor called &#8216;Southern Comfort'&#8221; said the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Daily Mirror<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in 1969 under a headline &#8220;the wildest happening since Elvis&#8221;. She drank so much of the stuff, so publicly and with such little constraint, that the brand owners, the Southern Comfort Corporation, gifted her that famously photographed fur coat and hat. Of course, Janis would head off to join <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/culture\/culture-lists\/the-27-club-a-brief-history-17853\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the 27 Club<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the following year, but her fame and notoriety remained undiminished with a series of posthumous album releases throughout the decade.\u00a0 Days after her death in 1970 ex-Fairport Convention guitarist Ian Mathews with his new band, Mathews Southern Comfort (later without Mathews simply \u2018Southern Comfort\u2019), achieved their only number on UK hit with Joni Mitchell\u2019s \u2018Woodstock\u2019, a worldwide best seller. The cover of their second album mimicked the Southern Comfort label. A few years later jazz veterans The Crusaders released their album \u2018Southern Comfort\u2019, by which time there was a UK clothing brand of the same name, and for adult film connoisseurs, \u2018Southern Comforts\u2019, playing picture houses throughout the provinces. Suddenly \u2018Southern Comfort\u2019 was ubiquitous, and all of this for not much more than the cost of a Russian Lynx coat.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Southern Comfort was first brought to the UK by long-established wine merchants Charles Kinloch in 1965. At \u00a33.80 this &#8220;unique Bourbon-base liqueur, orange and peach flavour&#8221; was the most expensive single bottle on their published\/advertised Christmas price list. At over \u00a34.00 Southern Comfort outpriced every Scotch whisky \u2013 blend or malt &#8211; on Augustus Barnett\u2019s 1971 Christmas list. They sold no bourbons or Tennessee whiskeys. In 1973 <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Illustrated London News<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> drinks columnist Peta Fordham wrote &#8220;for a quick lift of spirit (in all sense of the word) a drink mixed with Southern Comfort is unbeatable&#8221;; in the following year the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Newcastle Journal<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> reported that &#8220;cocktail king&#8221; Franz Freeburger at the new Kensington Hilton created his Great Gatsby cocktail to mark the release of the Robert Redford movie of the same name. Place a sugar lump soaked in Angostura Bitters in a large champagne glass, add four ounces of Southern Comfort topped up with Asti Spumante, served with a spiral of orange and a cherry \u2013 very cold of course. Southern Comfort T-shirts, \u2018great conversation starters\u2019 were advertised for sale in the press. By now the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Daily Mirror<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> could report that &#8220;even though it costs \u00a35 a bottle the concoction is the fastest selling liqueur in Britain.&#8221; Globally in 1974 the brand had just sold over a million cases for the first time, outselling in the US whiskeys like Jack Daniels and Old Forrester, and Scotches like Chivas Regal and Black and White.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-46624 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/image-3-884x1024.png\" alt=\"Janis Joplin Southern Comfort\" width=\"560\" height=\"649\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/image-3-884x1024.png 884w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/image-3-259x300.png 259w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/image-3-768x889.png 768w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/image-3-216x250.png 216w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/image-3-605x700.png 605w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/image-3-734x850.png 734w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/image-3.png 1102w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 560px) 100vw, 560px\" \/><\/p>\n<h5><strong>A clever mixologist<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The origin story of the brand, like all good origin stories, is shrouded in the mists of time, and as will become apparent, somewhat contradictory. For many years Martin Wilkes Heron was believed to have created Southern Comfort in Memphis in or around 1890. Census records and directories appear to show that Heron had lived and worked in St Louis, possibly as a store porter and later clerk, and definitely from 1883 in the liquor business working for A M Hellman &amp; Co, one of the largest companies in the Southern states, &#8220;renowned&#8221; according to the press, &#8220;for its best brands of whiskey&#8221; (Heron was an old friend of Lewis Hellman, and would return to St Louis from Memphis to act as a pall bearer at his funeral in 1901).\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By 1890 Heron was in Memphis, with a saloon at 515 Main Street at Vance, a site which became known as \u2018Heron\u2019s Corner\u2019, renowned, according to the <em>Arkansas Daily Gazette<\/em>, \u201cas the home of the famous drink called \u2018Southern Comfort\u2019\u201d. A brand of that name was being advertised for sale as \u201cthe grand old drink of the south\u201d as far afield as Wisconsin by 1898.\u00a0 Sometimes it was apparently known as \u2018Heron\u2019s Collars and Cuffs.\u2019 In October 1900 newspapers claimed that Heron, \u201ca clever mixologist\u2019 from Memphis had won a gold medal at the Paris Exposition for his famous mixed drink \u2018Southern Comfort\u2019, for which he has \u201ca private receipts [recipe] and is the sole trader\u201d. Some years later a visitor to Memphis reported visiting a saloon where the owner claimed to have won gold medals at the Exposition for \u201ca sort of cocktail \u2026 called \u2018Southern Comfort\u2019\u201d. In his saloon, reported the traveller, \u201chang his medal and certificate and he still makes and sells the drink, being the only man who can make them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><b>An armed robbery<\/b><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Heron\u2019s fame was assured in the night of Saturday 19<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">January 1902 when three armed raiders entered his bar, demanding the contents of the cash-register and safe, in the region of $700 (equivalent to around $25,000 today). Like any good Memphis bartender would, Heron drew a gun on his assailants. Newspapers reported that Heron shot first, the bar filled with smoke, and \u201cthe battle was terrific\u201d: \u201cHeron fell, seriously wounded, but was game to the last, firing upon his assailants as he lay wounded on the floor\u201d. One of the three assassins, George Day, managed to steal the money from behind the bar and pistol-whipped Heron about the head, before the beleaguered barman wounded him with his final shots. \u00a0 While police pursued the miscreants, Heron lay in hospital seriously wounded in the left arm, an injury from which he would never fully recover. Eventually two, George Day and Lee Cahn (aka \u2018Sheeney Mike\u2019, \u201cone of the most notorious criminals in the annals of Memphis police history\u201d) were brought to justice and sentenced to the maximum fifteen years in jail each.\u00a0 Both escaped from custody in Jackson while waiting on appeal of their sentences and whilst Cahn eventually served his time Day was never recaptured.<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><strong>Hashish accompanied by the Ninth Symphony<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 1909 the Tennessee State Assembly passed two laws that effectively introduced prohibition to the state. The sale of alcohol was forbidden anywhere within a four-mile radius of a school (open or closed) and the manufacture of all alcoholic beverages in the State was outlawed. \u201cI\u2019ll miss dear old Tennessee\u201d said Heron on the verge of relocating his entire workforce to a new property in Pine Street St Louis, where he was soon manufacturing Southern Comfort and Virginia Toddy.\u00a0 Southern Comfort was being advertised and distributed more widely both by Heron (\u201cinventor of the only genuine Southern Comfort\u201d) and his distributors, even in thirsty Memphis. Imitators abounded; \u201cbeware of imitation names, labels and packages\u201d warned one advert. Bates, Wood &amp; Aiken of Memphis were, claimed their advertising, \u2018the home of Wood\u2019s Southern Comfort\u2019. The Volstead Act would be a greater menace, and the imminent closure of Heron\u2019s premises was lamented in newspapers across the country, as was the demise of the \u201cinternationally famous\u201d Southern Comfort. \u201cIn earlier days, the drink, served in a glass of rainbow colours, was served only by Heron\u201d wrote one, \u201cbut in recent years he has permitted others to serve it\u201d. Heron\u2019s bar and manufactory closed at the start of July 1919. Within a year he was dead.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What was this famed drink that Heron served? Hollywood barman Ken Scott, who \u201cconcocted nectarous what\u2019ll-you-haves in Old Man Heron\u2019s place in St Louis\u201d before Prohibition, recalled in 1937 for the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lexington Leader<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u201ca fiendish mixture\u201d named \u2018Old Southern Comfort\u2019 that he was taught to make there. With \u201ca brandied peach or apricot\u00a0 \u2026 and bourbon as a base, the next items are cherry and apricot brandy and Cognac, and dashes o\u2019 this\u2019n\u2019that.\u201d \u201cSeriously\u201d, he added, \u201cone is enough, even though marvellous.\u201d Reminiscences filled the pages of the St Louis newspapers in 1938 following a visit to the city by national columnist and gourmand Lucius Beebe, who described the effect of his encounter with Southern Comfort, made from scratch in one of the city\u2019s bars, as like \u201chashish accompanied by the Ninth Symphony, voluptuous but persuasive\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-46627\" src=\"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/62bd6756cfb101286d50a8146ac4f436-1024x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Southern Comfort\" width=\"510\" height=\"510\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/62bd6756cfb101286d50a8146ac4f436-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/62bd6756cfb101286d50a8146ac4f436-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/62bd6756cfb101286d50a8146ac4f436-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/62bd6756cfb101286d50a8146ac4f436-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/62bd6756cfb101286d50a8146ac4f436-250x250.jpg 250w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/62bd6756cfb101286d50a8146ac4f436-700x700.jpg 700w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/62bd6756cfb101286d50a8146ac4f436-850x850.jpg 850w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/62bd6756cfb101286d50a8146ac4f436.jpg 1080w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 510px) 100vw, 510px\" \/><\/p>\n<h5><b>That high priest of the temple<\/b><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Heron was recalled as \u201cthat high priest of the temple \u2026 the alchemist who found and compounded the ingredients and supervised their merging and mingling with proud paternal devotion.\u201d His small \u201csuperlatively charming\u201d bar sold no beer, simply the best bourbons and Scotches, and \u2018the Comfort\u2019, variously described as \u201cthe jewel in this setting\u201d and \u201cincomparable and unique\u201d served with \u201cpunctilious ceremony\u201d. On a silver slaver, a tall, stemmed glass, a home-made macaroon on a small China plate to accompany the libation, and silver tongs to drop a preserved peach or apricot into the goblet, and \u201cthen from the amphora the nectar was poured in solemn silence.\u201d As with a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/post\/a-love-letter-to-dukes-bar.aspx\">Dukes Martini<\/a> it \u201cwas a rule of the house, as unswerving as the supreme law of the land, that a second Southern Comfort might be had, but never a third. The regulation, it appears, was salutary.\u201d The famous long-serving Pennsylvania senator Boise Penrose was said to have drunk two before breakfast, and three after. The effect \u201cliquid gold, mellerin\u2019 the heart, and puttin\u2019 a song o\u2019 thanksgivin\u2019 on the lips.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In a will signed in November 1919, Heron left his business along with the legal rights to Southern Comfort, effectively worthless with the onset of Prohibition, to his long-time bookkeeper Grant Peoples. In or around 1934, these were acquired by Francis E Fowler Jnr., the head of a long-established St Louis insurance brokers, who set up a business, Midlands Distilleries, at 315 Market Street St Louis, to manufacture Southern Comfort and other alcoholic beverages. Fowler was a renaissance man. He was credited with moving the automobile water temperature gauge from the head of the car radiator to the dashboard, something he patented in 1915, and apparently exchanged for a Cadillac. In the 1920s, having acquired a residential property in La Jolla California, he established a grape juice business, Caligrapo. Working with a chemist, William Holzmark, he developed a range of non-alcoholic flavour concentrates, in both solid and liquid forms.\u00a0 His \u2018Liqueur Essence Extraordinaire\u2019 was, according to an advertising postcard, \u201cthe choice of connoisseurs\u201d; a letter to prospective retailers noted that \u201cPhysicians and Dentists are usually splendid customers\u201d, advising that \u201cour gin flavour especially is by far the best seller.\u201d\u00a0 Following Repeal prices were slashed to clear out stock: \u201csave by making your own gin and whiskey\u201d said the adverts, \u201cmix with tax-paid alcohol.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><b>Secret formula<\/b><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">According to evidence filed in a tax dispute in 1945 Fowler (quite likely with the chemist Holzmark) had discovered a \u2018secret formula\u2019 in 1934 for a flavouring that could be used to produce Southern Comfort. Whisky for the compound was provided by the Merchants Distilling Corporation of Terre Haute, Indiana. In 1941 a new flavouring concentrate, \u201ca superior one in that it could be mixed by anyone and did not require ingredients made non-obtainable by the war\u201d was created following a year\u2019s research and development, by Fowler\u2019s eldest son, Francis Fowler III, whilst working for Caligrapo. Caligrapo (now owned jointly by Fowler\u2019s three sons) retained the rights to the recipe and was contracted to supply the concentrate to what was now the Southern Comfort Corporation, the name \u2018Midland Distilleries\u2019 having fallen foul of the law. Caligrapo continued to supply the concentrate up until the acquisition of the brand by the Brown-Forman Corporation in 1979, who also acquired Fowler&#8217;s secret formula.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 1934 Fowler\u2019s new business boasted a handful of brands, but it was the \u2018repeal debut\u2019 of Southern Comfort that excited the St Louis press: \u201cin pre-Prohibition days it was known as the grand old drink of the south\u201d announced the city\u2019s <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Modern View<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, promising \u201cit has a flavour all of it\u2019s own that defies description completely and one that will linger on when the memory of other drinks have been forgotten\u201d. Adverts led with the brand name in that famous hatched font that appeared on the main label for so many years.\u00a0 \u201cLuscious, potent, loveable.\u201d \u201cEnrich the occasion with the unmistakable feel of luxury \u2026 and distinction\u201d read the copy, \u201cthis most gorgeously potent old aristocrat of fine drinks\u201d. The perfect serve? \u201cFor a touch of regal splendour serve with fruit and ice in a tall cocktail glass.\u2019 By 1937 Fowler had resolved to ditch the other brands and focus solely on Southern Comfort, slowly expanding distribution both to the north, south, east and west.\u00a0 As sometimes happens, the brand seemed to take on a life of its own, \u201cthe most talked about drink in America\u201d as stories and anecdotes appeared in the press.\u00a0 And then came along Fowler\u2019s first Janis Joplin.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-46625\" src=\"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/unnamed-1-717x1024.png\" alt=\"Gone with the Wind - Southern Comfort\" width=\"424\" height=\"605\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/unnamed-1-717x1024.png 717w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/unnamed-1-210x300.png 210w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/unnamed-1-768x1097.png 768w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/unnamed-1-175x250.png 175w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/unnamed-1-490x700.png 490w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/unnamed-1-595x850.png 595w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/unnamed-1.png 840w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 424px) 100vw, 424px\" \/><\/p>\n<h5><b>Gone with the Wind<\/b><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Margaret Mitchell\u2019s <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gone_with_the_Wind_(film)\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Gone with the Wind<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> had been published in June 1936, winning its author a Pulitzer Prize in the following year. Its popularity was immediate, immense, and long lasting, the best selling novel in the United States for two consecutive years. David O Selznick was producing a film version starring Clark Gable; on January 13<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">th<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> 1939 it was announced that Vivien Leigh had been cast in the role of Scarlett O\u2019Hara. A few days later a Miami newspaper reported that Tom Edmonds, barman at the Whitman Hotel, was serving a Scarlett O\u2019Hara, \u201ca cocktail with a Southern accent\u201d with \u201cthe delicate scent of magnolia blossoms \u2026 concealing the heels of a Missouri Mule\u201d. The recipe was secret, but its heart was 100 Proof Southern Comfort, \u201ctraditional of the old South since Civil War days.\u201d Soon, in what was a cleverly orchestrated campaign, the cocktail was being served all over the country, its creation claimed by many. Rumour spread across the country that MGM were trying to ban the drink, but as the largest grossing film in history was finally released in December its popularity soared. Southern Comfort adverts urged consumers to see the movie, and then enjoy \u201cAmerica\u2019s sensational new cocktail\u201d, cautioning \u201cno more than two lest you be gone with the wind!\u201d The United States had rediscovered a forgotten South, \u201ca dream remembered \u2026 a civilisation gone with the wind\u201d through the distorted lens of Mitchell\u2019s book and Selznick\u2019s movie, and at its heart was Fowler\u2019s Southern Comfort.<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><b>The whiskey runs out<\/b><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Southern Comfort entered the war buoyed by this success, and with the new 1941 reformulation created by Fowler\u2019s eldest son, which \u201cdid not require ingredients made non-obtainable by the war\u201d, most likely meaning whiskey. The company had obtained new, larger premises in St Louis in order to meet \u201crapidly increasing sales\u201d according to Fowler Jnr, who claimed that more than 8 million Southern Comfort drinks had been served in the previous year, no doubt many of them Scarlett O\u2019Hara cocktails. The supply of whiskey was problematic. Early in 1942 Merchants Distilling, like other firms, stopped producing whiskey and converted production to industrial grade spirit for use in munitions production. As the war progressed distillers were given brief opportunities to distil with grain, but most chose to produce only neutral grain spirit to blend with their diminishing stocks of maturing pre-war whiskey.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The post war years saw grain supplies to distillers further disrupted by the demands of the Marshall Plan to send foodstuffs to a hungry Europe ravaged by war \u2013 some, including Merchants Distilling, used potatoes to distil alcohol. New and old grain based whiskey was in increasingly short supply. In spite of these potential obstacles sales of Southern Comfort continued to grow apace during the war years, and one might speculate that the introduction of the new 1941 war-proof formulation was when whiskey was first dropped from the Southern Comfort recipe to be replaced by grain neutral spirit and a whiskey flavouring, a fact that only became general public knowledge following the acquisition of the brand by Sazerac in 2016.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As war progressed the saliency of the brand name was aided by the predilection of US pilots to name their planes \u2018Southern Comfort\u2019. One of these planes, a B17F Flying Fortress, captured the imagination of the American public in February and March 1943 as it completed dramatic bombing missions over Germany and Holland before being brought down in flames off the Essex coast, with remarkably only one fatality. The pilot later claimed the name was a celebration of the Southern states rather than of the drink, but the benefit to the brand was clear.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_46623\" style=\"width: 609px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-46623\" class=\" wp-image-46623\" src=\"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/image-4.png\" alt=\"Southern Comfort Cartoon\" width=\"599\" height=\"660\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/image-4.png 772w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/image-4-272x300.png 272w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/image-4-768x846.png 768w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/image-4-227x250.png 227w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/image-4-636x700.png 636w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 599px) 100vw, 599px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-46623\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Southern Comfort cartoon by\u00a0<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Victor Vaccarezza\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<h5><b>Rise and fall<\/b><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In September 1944, Merchants Distilling signed a new contract with Southern Comfort to blend and bottle over two hundred thousand cases of the brand during 1945. They were also committed to providing over a hundred thousand cases during the remainder of the year. Their distilling capacity, they claimed, meant that the Southern Comfort contract could be covered in a month leaving the rest of the year for making industrial spirit for the government or, if grain were available, whiskey. In November 1944 the Southern Comfort Company launched a relentless nationwide multi-executional advertising campaign, with drawings by noted St Louis cartoonist Victor Vaccarezza (\u2018Vic Vac\u2019) announcing that \u201cit\u2019s great news when more of the good things of life become available in larger quantities. There\u2019s more Southern Comfort now!\u201d Merchants Distilling recorded a 300% increase in gross sales and record profits in the year 1945-1946.\u00a0 Southern Comfort sold in total over 600,000 cases. Francis E Fowler Jnr was number four in the IRS list of top paid executives, earning over $370,000, rubbing shoulders with movie moguls and starlets. But it wasn\u2019t to last. As supplies of domestic whiskeys (blended and straight) eased and Scotch started to pour over the pond, so Southern Comfort\u2019s sales plummeted dramatically, to less than 50,000 cases in 1947.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Enjoying his newfound wealth Fowler acquired actor Fred MacMurray\u2019s former Hollywood home (notable for its heated swimming pool) and began what would be a life-long passion of collecting, initially focussing on drinking-vessels, before turning his attention to fine English and American silverware, firearms and ivory.\u00a0 Eventually this obsession, through the benevolence of the Fowler Foundation, would lead to the opening of the Fowler Museum of Cultural History at the University of California Los Angeles in 1992. Parts of the collection featured in in-store sales promotions in the 1950s as the brand slowly clawed its way back from the disastrous year of 1947. It announced its largest national advertising campaign in 1950: \u201cThe reason more people are drinking Southern Comfort? Simply because Southern Comfort is a 100 Proof drink that really tastes good.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><strong>Southern heritage<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For over thirty years the brand stuck to a very simple combination of messages: Southern heritage, taste, strength, mixability and versatility (\u201crecipe books available on application\u201d).\u00a0 Recommended cocktails included the Confederate Highball, Rebel on the Rocks and the old favourite Scarlett O\u2019Hara. Slowly drinkers came back, production facilities in St Louis were increased, and in 1974 produced over a million cases, with an additional 100,000 cases produced in Canada. Adverts never claimed the brand contained whiskey, but it claimed to outsell Jack Daniel\u2019s, Old Forrester, Chivas Regal and Black &amp; White.\u00a0 Exports accounted for around twenty per cent of sales, with the UK being the leading market (for which the author can claim the very smallest amount of credit). Francis E Fowler died the following year, and three years later his sons gave Brown-Forman (makers of Jack Daniel\u2019s) an option to buy the business, which it acquired, including Caligrapo, manufacturers of the secret flavourings, the following year for a total of $89 million.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By this time most people had forgotten about \u2018old man Heron\u2019 as the brand\u2019s origin story had slowly headed down south since the 1950s.\u00a0 It was plucked from the comfort of patrician parlours in plantation mansions and relocated to the racy bars of the Crescent City. Francis E Fowler Jnr claimed it had \u201cworked its way up to the Planter\u2019s Hotel [a St Louis landmark, and allegedly the birthplace of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/post\/cocktail-of-the-week-the-elderflower-collins.aspx\">Tom Collins<\/a>] by way of New Orleans\u201d, and that he had acquired the recipe \u201cfrom a New Orleans Frenchman\u201d. Advertisers embellished this new tale. By the 1950s the brand apparently originated in \u201cromantic New Orleans, its popularity swept the South during the golden days of the ante-bellum period, then virtually passed away after the Civil War.\u00a0 The original formula \u2013 a secret closely held by a member of an old Southern family was discovered after Repeal.\u201d By the mid-1970s drinkers were told that \u201cin the days of old New Orleans a talented gentleman was disturbed by the taste of even the finest whiskeys of his day, so he combined rare and delicious ingredients to create a superb and unusually smooth liqueur.\u201d \u201cOld man Heron\u201d, and his \u201csuperlatively charming\u201d bar of happy memory were no more.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_46626\" style=\"width: 578px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-46626\" class=\" wp-image-46626\" src=\"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/unnamed-744x1024.png\" alt=\"Southern Comfort\" width=\"568\" height=\"782\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/unnamed-744x1024.png 744w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/unnamed-218x300.png 218w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/unnamed-768x1057.png 768w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/unnamed-182x250.png 182w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/unnamed-508x700.png 508w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/unnamed-617x850.png 617w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/unnamed.png 982w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 568px) 100vw, 568px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-46626\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Love that old timey advertising<\/p><\/div>\n<h5><b>Old man Heron returns<\/b><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Brown-Forman\u2019s initial high expectations for Southern Comfort failed to materialise, and what had been a 1.5 million case brand on acquisition slumped to 500,000 cases by 1983.\u00a0 Recovery was slow but steady, advertising budgets large, and sales largely export driven.\u00a0 By the millennium the brand stood at around two million cases, almost equally divided between home and overseas sales, principally driven by the UK and Australia. Marketing executives decided that the good old brand of the South needed, as one might say, \u2018Jacking up\u2019, and turned again to its origin story and rediscovered \u201cold man Heron\u201d. With the assistance of local historians in Memphis they pieced together some of his story, and also, to avoid any dissonance with the focus on New Orleans, traced him, or a Heron, to New Orleans (better than this author managed).\u00a0 And from that point onwards, with something of a leap of faith, \u201ccompany legend\u201d has it that M W Heron first created his famous beverage in the Big Easy in 1874 rather than Memphis.\u00a0 A Heron signature appeared which was added to a new bottle shape, the slogan \u2018Born in New Orleans\u2019 was adopted, and the musical culture of the city duly appropriated by the brand in advertising and sponsorship \u2013 who can forget Dr John singing in that storm-bound French Quarter bar? Only the copy of the old engraving of the Kansas City riverfront on the bottle label remained as testament to the past. But not for long.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the increasingly competitive spirits market of the new century Southern Comfort struggled to hold its own against a surge of new flavoured whiskey and spirit drinks, of which one was its stable mate Jack Daniel\u2019s Honey and another Sazerac\u2019s Fireball, and a rush of possibly misconceived innovations did little to halt the decline of the brand. In 2015 it was sold to New Orleans-based Sazerac (owners of Buffalo Trace), who surprised at least some of the drinking world by announcing that Southern Comfort would be made with whiskey for the first time in generations, the finger of responsibility for taking it out of the recipe being gently pointed at the Fowler\u2019s.\u00a0 Since then, the brand, with yet more new packaging and variants, has slowly moved back into growth.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_46643\" style=\"width: 780px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-46643\" class=\"size-large wp-image-46643\" src=\"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/ttt-1024x874.jpg\" alt=\"Southern Comfort\" width=\"770\" height=\"657\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/ttt-1024x874.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/ttt-300x256.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/ttt-768x655.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/ttt-293x250.jpg 293w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/ttt-820x700.jpg 820w, https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/ttt-996x850.jpg 996w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 770px) 100vw, 770px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-46643\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">New Southern Comfort label on the left<\/p><\/div>\n<h5><strong>Forensic 1970s conditions.<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Only one question remains to be answered.\u00a0 What did it taste like, that exotic liquor that briefly lit up my teenage years? A couple of 100 Proof miniatures from the 1970s, with a current 40% ABV version for comparison provided the answer.\u00a0 Tasted of course under the most forensic 1970s conditions. Janis Joplin singing \u2018Another little piece of my heart\u2019 in the background. Warm tumblers, no ice, and R White\u2019s lemonade as a mixer. The \u201870s samples were incredibly viscous with a sharp spirituous nose, followed by rich fruits. To taste neat lots of alcohol, overwhelmingly sweet and sticky with tinned peaches in syrup. The R White\u2019s lemonade calmed the spirit down and made what I could imagine to an adolescent must have been a \u201cperilously drinkable\u201d fruit-forward cocktail. The modern sample was altogether more balanced and pleasant on the nose with a gentle whisky character, although to be frank it didn\u2019t stand up to the lemonade as well as the older, stronger, ones. And for a moment, the strong sweet-smelling saccharine tasting spirit with Janis\u2019s voice in the background took me to a house party somewhere in Oxfordshire many years ago, and a vivid memory of why I hadn\u2019t drunk Southern Comfort since. You can guess the rest.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>Header image courtesy of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lelandlittle.com\/items\/405093\/southern-comfort-liqueur\/\">Leland Little<\/a> auctions.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We\u2019ve got a treat for you today, a look into the history of Southern Comfort. From its origins in a bar in Memphis, Tennessee to a global brand, taking in&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":46633,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[893],"tags":[1971],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The sticky story of Southern Comfort\u00a0 | Master of Malt blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We\u2019ve got a treat for you today, a look into the history of Southern Comfort. 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