Amir Peay
Quoting the Grateful Dead, Amir describes his journey as an entrepreneur to owning and restoring The James E. Pepper Distillery - “What a long, strange trip it’s been.” Born in Marin County, California, Amir’s family moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, when he was 3 years old and later to the Washington, DC area.
His roots go back on one side to the Revolutionary War and on the other to an old family cemetery in Butler County, Kentucky. Amir’s Great-Great-Grandfather, Commodore Captain John Cassin, was a close personal friend of General George Washington, and the two fought together in the Battle of Trenton. Commodore Cassin served in the War of 1812 and co-founded the Navy Yard in Washington, DC, the first in the United States. One of his duties was to procure goods for the Navy that included ‘good’ whisky at 59 cents a gallon. His distant relatives also founded Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee. Throughout his life, Amir has had a deep interest in American history, enhanced by his deep family roots.
Amir returned to California to attend the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he studied Philosophy. He published a small magazine called ‘Wine and Dine Santa Barbara,’ which came out around the same time as the movie Sideways. Because of his magazine, Amir came to know the wine and restaurant business in Santa Barbara and developed a refined palate for wine. He also had an appreciation for boxing and became a freelance writer for some online publications, where he was paid with ringside seats at some of the great boxing matches, both in Southern California and in Las Vegas.
Moving back to Washington, DC, after college, Amir worked with his father and brother in construction. It was then that he started drinking Irish whisky.. There he met Bill Thomas, who founded a bar called ‘Bourbon,’ and later founded ‘Jack Rose.’
Because of his love for boxing as well as his newfound love for whisky, Amir started a brand of Irish whisky that paid tribute to the last Heavyweight Bare Knuckle Champion of the World – Boston Native John L. Sullivan. Amir worked with the Blender at the Cooley Distillery in Ireland to create his John L. Sullivan Irish Whiskey. Amir poured his life savings into buying a 20-foot container of the whisky. Not knowing anyone in the wholesale or supplier industry, he started making phone calls. Within a year, John L. Sullivan Whisky was available nationwide.
In 2007, after going through online archives of The Library of Congress, Amir came across a picture of a title fight between Heavyweight Champion Jack Johnson and Challenger Jim Jeffries on July 4, 1910. In the middle of the picture was a banner that read, “James E. Pepper Whisky, Born with the Republic.” Intrigued, Amir started doing research on James E. Pepper and realized that this was a “Founding Family Legacy” of Kentucky Bourbon. He also realized that this was an Iconic American Brand that no one knew or cared about. After securing the rights to the brand, Amir contracted with Corsair Distillery, which was in Bowling Green, Kentucky, at the time. After Corsair became successful, Amir reached out to the Lawrenceburg Distillery in Indiana (now known as MGP) to produce a rye that had a similar mash bill to the style that James E. Pepper used to make. Having no marketing budget, salespeople, or brand recognition, Amir trademarked 1776 and put that on the label that is still used today. James E. Pepper used to call his family brand ‘Old 1776’.
Amir embarked upon a years-long campaign of thorough historical research and collection of historic materials in order to relaunch the brand and rebuild the distillery. He partnered with developers in Lexington to restore the historic distillery and recommenced production in 2017 using the same historic mash bill as when it shut down in 1967. Because of that, James E. Pepper is able to use the original license – DSP-KY-5. According to TripAdvisor, the James E. Pepper Distillery is now the 3rd Best Distillery in Kentucky to visit, behind only the historic Buffalo Trace and Maker’s Mark sites.
Contributed by: Erik Bucholtz, Akron, Ohio
with support from Dustin Bowman, The Bluegrass Region Section Editor, Lawrenceburg, Kentucky
