James Anderson is not The Father of American Whiskey

February 21, 7:20 PMChicago Drinks ExaminerCharles Cowdery

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Spencerfield Spirit, a four-year-old company, has gone a long way to link itself to an 18th century Scottish-American distiller for promotional purposes.

In the process, they have created a dubious new historic claim, declaring James Anderson to be “The Father of American Whiskey.”

Sorry, not buying it.

What we have here is a perfect example of how history often is corrupted, or at least subverted, for marketing purposes.

Spencerfield Spirit, founded in 2005, has its headquarters at Spencerfield Farm in Scotland. There were distilleries at Spencerfield historically but there aren’t now. The new company’s products are not made there.

James Anderson was born near Inverkeithing, Scotland, in 1745. Spencerfield is also near Inverkeithing. Anderson was a tenant farmer and farm manager who probably did some distilling too. He brought his family to Virginia in 1791.

The Andersons had their own farm and James took work as an estate manager. In 1797, he landed the plum job of George Washington’s plantation boss at Mount Vernon. The farm already produced a lot of grain, so Anderson thought a distillery would be a good way to add value. Washington approved and the distillery was very successful. It recently was reconstructed on the original site and is open to the public.

All of that is true, but from that Spencerfield has concocted the title for Anderson of “Father of American Whiskey.” Presumably, the claim was inspired by the honorific, “Father of His Country,” that is often applied to Washington.

However, there is nothing in Anderson’s story to suggest that he was the father of anything other than his seven children. He missed being America’s first distiller by about 150 years. Mount Vernon wasn’t the first distillery in America, it wasn’t the first to make whiskey, and it wasn’t even the first to make any particular kind of whiskey. The only historically supportable claim for the distillery being exceptional is that it may have been among the largest distilleries of its day. Even Spencerfield concedes that it was a distillery very much like the distilleries Anderson would have seen in Inverkeithing.

None of this is intended to belittle James Anderson, whose accomplishments are what they are. It’s just that the only reason anyone knows about James Anderson is because he worked for George Washington, and making whiskey for the father of our country doesn’t make him the father of American whiskey. This is the kind of thing that starts out as seemingly harmless marketing fluff and winds up in history books, at least in badly-researched history books.

Spencerfield, of course, doesn’t care, as all they want is a hook to promote each year around President’s Day. The only problem is, it isn’t true, because in no sense is James Anderson The Father of American Whiskey.