01/04

Václav Lupínek, a twenty-nine-year-old graduate of the Distillery School, took up the position of director of Karlovarská (Carlsbad) Becherovka, and remained there for 34 years (1958).

02/04

Harry MacElhone, bartender and owner of Harry’ s New York Bar in Paris, was one of the first five civilians to be allowed to travel between England and France for business purposes towards the end of WWII (1945).
The Spanish queen Maria Cristina granted Bacardi & Company Ltd. the right to use the royal coat-of-arms on its Bacardi Rum labels (1888).

05/04

King John of Luxembourg decreed that from vintage time until Easter, only wines produced by its citizens and no Austrian wines may be sold in the city of Brno (1325).

10/04

Fire destroyed John Hanning’s Bourbon Whiskey distillery. The losses exceeded $ 6000 (1880).
Stock Cognac Medicinal, H. Planer Božkov near Plzeň (Pilsen), was entered in the commercial register; subject of enterprise: distilling… (1921).

12/04

A French law was passed, on the basis of which the Comité Interprofessional du Vin de Champagne was established. This organization supervises all those who have anything to do with champagne: the vintners, the merchants, the bankers, the suppliers of corks, bottles and labels (1941).
In Austria-Hungary the first vintage law was issued. It defined grape wine and enumerated the permitted and forbidden procedures in its production; its principles were also laid down in the set of regulations known as the Codex Alimentarius Austriaticus, in force in the former Czechoslovakia until 1954 (1907).

13/04

M. Moet sent a basket with one hundred bottles of champagne via Strasbourg to Nuremberg, whence it was dispatched to M. de Meckel, counsel s.a. to prince Archevequa in Prague (1791).

15/04

The British Wine Trade Review reported that a dozen bottles of Pommery Brut which in 1874 cost 71 shillings, was only five years later being sold at Christies for 270 shillings (1882).

18/04

Born in Klášter nad Jizerou near Mnichovo Hradiště, Rudolf Slavík, who later in life became the head bartender of Hotel George V in Paris, knight of the Legion of Honor and the honorary president of the Association of French Bartenders (1900).

20/04

Sir Thomas Philippe obtained the license to distill “aquavite, usquabagh and aqua composita” in the Colrane and Antrim districts, for 13 Irish shillings and four pence (1608). * Based on this document, the Bushmills Distillery claims to be the world’ s oldest licensed distillery (1608).

23/04

By decree # 11959 the Ministry of Finance established the School of the Imperial Royal Food Tax.; its students were to gain perfect knowledge of the regulations pertaining to the taxes on beer, spirit and sugar production (1883).

26/04

The writer Alec Waugh, Evelyn’s brother, gave the first cocktail party (1924).
In Prague, Karel Gott baptized a sparkling wine, naming it Louis Girardot, after the expert vintner of that name whose family has been involved in the production of sparkling wines in Bohemia since the beginning of the 20th century (1995).

29/04

In the Hong Kong Dragon Boat Bar, Andreas Bossard introduced the Taipan Cocktail ; he tossed 4 cl of vodka, 2 cl of orange liqueur, a splash of cream and banana liqueur in the shaker (1986).
After four months, at three o’ clock in the afternoon, Jack Daniel’s distillery store finally closed, having sold out the first batch of whiskey labeled Barrel House 1, proving customers’ interest in quality products (1995).
The American magazine THE COURIER-JOURNAL brought the news that “Evan Williams ran the first distillery”, meaning in Louisville, Kentucky. It refers to a document by colonel Reuben T. Durrett, founder of a leading Kentucky historical society, in which he states: “In 1783 Evan Williams erected a small distillery on the river, at the foot of Fifth street in Louisville…his product was a good medicine for chills and fever, though a very bad whisky.” (1889).