James E. Pepper (original) (raw)

James E. Pepper is an American whiskey brand. The brand is named after a historic American whiskey maker with that name who built and operated a distillery in Lexington, Kentucky, and marketed his whiskey under his family's brand name "Old Pepper" and under his own name. The brand's distillery, known as the Henry Clay distillery and later as the Old Pepper distillery and James E. Pepper distillery, was shut down in 1958 and was left abandoned for more than 50 years until Amir Peay (an entrepreneur with no relationship to the prior brand owners) purchased the historic distillery site and relaunched the brand name in 2008. Distilling resumed at the site in 2017.