{"id":3030,"date":"2015-07-03T03:11:03","date_gmt":"2015-07-03T09:11:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/?p=3030"},"modified":"2015-07-04T10:33:58","modified_gmt":"2015-07-04T16:33:58","slug":"it-came-from-the-bottom-shelf-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brutalhammer.com\/it-came-from-the-bottom-shelf-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"It Came From the Bottom Shelf II"},"content":{"rendered":"
Being a knockoff isn’t necessarily a crime. But being a bad knockoff is cause for relegation to the bottom shelf Hall of Shame. Such is the case with that transparent Jack Daniel’s clone, Ezra Brooks<\/a> bourbon.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n “Ezra Brooks” wasn’t even a real person. The brand was conjured up in the 1950s by a shady outfit called Frank Silverman & Company. Its sole purpose was to take advantage of a Jack Daniel’s shortage that occurred just after Jack started becoming popular (and then sold out to Brown-Forman). The distiller who cooked up the booze, according to the book Bourbon, Straight<\/a><\/i>, by Charles Cowdery, was a man named Ezra Ripy. Ripy and his employers agreed that “Ezra Brooks” sounded more melodious, and so the fictional Ezra Brooks was born.<\/p>\n Silverman & Co. then set out to imitate Jack’s appearance in every way possible: square bottle, black and white wrap-around label, artwork of an old-time distillery below the curving name, a claim to be “Sippin’ Whiskey,” and on and on. Jack sued Ezra immediately (the case is viewable here<\/a>) but lost, since Ezra did at least claim to be Kentucky bourbon. Thus Ezra’s copycatting went on and continues in varying forms to this day.<\/p>\n