Philadelphia Whiskey is neither made nor sold in Philly. It’s a plastic bottle of lies.

While visiting relatives in upstate New York a few months ago, I stopped into a lovely little liquor store to buy a bottle of wine (OK, three bottles).

The store was small, but warm and bright with a wide selection of products, a reminder that the shop was privately owned and not overlorded by a state agency with “liquor control board” in its name.

As I wandered the aisles something caught my eye — a bottle of Philadelphia Whiskey. Not a bottle of whiskey made in Philadelphia, but rather a brand of whiskey from Kentucky that had seemingly usurped our city’s good name and slapped it on the label with pictures of the Liberty Bell to peddle cheap hooch.

I’m no whiskey aficionado, but I felt it safe to assume that a 1.75-liter plastic bottle of “Blended Whiskey with Natural Flavors and Caramel Color” for under $20 was not the pinnacle of high-class drinkery.

Despite the bottle’s claim that it’s been “FAMOUS SINCE 1894,” I’d never heard of it. As it turns out, I was not alone.

When I posted a photo of the bottle on social media, many Philadelphians said they’d never heard of it either.

“I work at the Liquor Distribution center in Philadelphia and have never seen this item pass through our doors,” one said.

The few that had heard of it either warned me not to drink it (”do not buy out of curiosity”) or egged me on to try it: “drink it, i dare you, you won’t regret your entire life when you wake up in a small room with doritos everywhere.”

Yet, I wanted to know more. Was this whiskey ever made in Philly or did they just steal our name, like the Kraft cream cheese people did? Who makes this swill now? Why isn’t it sold in Philadelphia? And what does it taste like?

I had to snifter out the details.

Philadelphia Whiskey’s label offered few clues to its origin, aside from that it was bottled by the Medley Company in Bardstown, Ky.

I searched for that business and even reached out to the Bardstown Nelson Chamber of Commerce for information, but came up empty-handed. Searches for Philadelphia Whiskey were equally fruitless, returning only a mash of online ads from liquor stores for the product.

Then I remembered someone commented on my post that Philadelphia Whiskey may be made by Heaven Hill Distillery in Bardstown, Ky., which also makes the very-Philly-centric-named Rittenhouse Rye, which I am familiar with.

(I had a late editor who often said, “You can have a sip of Rittenhouse Rye and that’ll make every emergency better.” He kept a bottle in his office — for emergencies, of course.)

Heaven Hill spokesperson Kaitlynn West confirmed via email that the company makes and owns Philadelphia Whiskey and has since it acquired the brand in 1993, along with Rittenhouse Rye and a few others.

So why doesn’t Heaven Hill’s name appear anywhere on the bottle? Are they embarrassed to be associated with Philadelphia Whiskey?

“[T]he company felt like, for continuity’s sake, they’d keep the label the same. This included keeping Medley on the bottle,” West said. “Medley Company is no longer in existence, but it is a recognized trade name so when Philadelphia Whiskey was brought in by HH, the team felt like it made sense to keep both the trade name and brand name on the bottle the exact same.”

Still, I have to wonder why on the “our brands” page of Heaven Hill’s website — which reads “We’re proud of the spirits we’ve crafted...” — Philadelphia Whiskey is nowhere to be found (but Rittenhouse Rye and Mellow Corn do appear, along with many others).

Digging into the Inquirer’s archives, I discovered Philadelphia Whiskey was indeed originally made here in South Philly by the Continental Distilling Corporation. The company’s name appeared in a series of absolutely unhinged print ads in the mid-1940s that used illustrations of colonial times in Philly with dudes in powdered wigs and tricorn hats to sell booze.

“‘The Heritage Whisky,’ a special occasion treat, yet one you can afford to enjoy … regularly and often,” several ads read.

“The years add new lustre to the fine old name of Philadelphia, famous for its Colonial heritage of tradition and hospitality. Widely famed today is the whisky which bears this proud name — Philadelphia,” another ad proclaims.

Continental Distilling, which was located at Snyder Avenue and Swanson Street, was a subsidiary of Philly-based Publicker Industries, which was founded in 1913 by Harry Publicker, who got his start in the booze business by “sweating” whiskey that had soaked into the wood of barrels and then selling it, according to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania’s PhilaPlace website.

Robert Cassell, president of the Pennsylvania Distillers Guild and president and CEO of Millstone Spirits Group of Philadelphia, said Continental named a number of their brands after Philly places, including a whiskey called Cobbs Creek.

“You can’t trademark a geographic indicator,” he said. “That part has always fascinated me from a legal standpoint.”

In fact, as Cassell pointed out, there’s actually a Philly-based company called the Philadelphia Whiskey Company, but it doesn’t make Philadelphia Whiskey (get out of here with your logic). It’s just the corporate name of Four Humors whiskey.

Publicker shuttered its facilities in the 1980s and several of its brands, including Philadelphia Whiskey and Rittenhouse Rye, were bought by Medley, which in turn was bought and merged with several other companies before the brands went to Heaven Hill in 1993, according to the Dram Devotees of Bucks County’s website.

Now that we’ve distilled down the facts, it’s on to the burning questions: What does Philadelphia Whiskey taste like and who’s drinking this stuff?

According to West, Heaven Hill sells it “in very limited quantities and in very few markets — namely New York, New Jersey, and Florida.”

Of course Florida man is a fan.

PLCB spokesperson Shawn Kelly said via email that Fine Wine & Good Spirits stores once carried Philadelphia Whiskey, from January 2020 to November 2022, particularly in the Philly area.

“The product did not sell well, so we stopped carrying it,” he said.

At the Total Wine & More in Cherry Hill a 1.75-liter plastic bottle of 80-proof Philadelphia Whiskey retails for $16.49 before tax.

Cassell said it tastes “like a cheap, blended whiskey.”

While in other countries “blended whiskey” is a blend of whiskeys, in the U.S. the blend can be up to 80% vodka, Cassell said.

“It’s always a proportion of vodka and whiskey and caramel coloring, which doesn’t add to the taste, it’s just to fool the eyes,” he said. “This is more of a hangover of Prohibition, to stretch the limited inventory … it’s a thing all of our grandparents drank. Anybody who’s ordered a 7 and 7 has also had blended whiskey.”

Outside of the occasional whiskey sour, I don’t have much of a palate for the stuff, so to grain further insight about the flavor of Philadelphia Whiskey, I gathered some colleagues for a tasting. In the name of journalism. Because we are professionals.

At first sip, many of my coworkers found it “shockingly smooth” and “a little too easy to drink.”

“It’s smooth because it’s whiskey-flavored water,” arts and culture reporter Rosa Cartagena said. “It’s weak-sauce whiskey.”

After the second and third sips, other descriptions like “so sweet,” “nail polish remover,” “an assault on your mouth,” and “the perfect college whiskey” began pouring out. Some suggested its best use would be at large parties, where it could be masked in mixed drinks.

Restaurant critic Craig LaBan said the nose had hints of “dime-store caramel and cleaning detergent.” Upon tasting, he noted the smell and look didn’t match the flavor at all, calling it “cognitive dissonance.”

“It’s like rocket fuel, but for a very small toy car. It’s got no front, no middle, no back. It’s pure empty fumes,” he said. “This is fake. Philadelphia is real and we have a great alcohol reputation. It’s a cheap buzz and we’re more than a cheap buzz.”

There you have it, worts and all. While Philadelphia Whiskey is technically whiskey, it’s definitely not Philly. There’s no muddling about it.

Given my findings, I would like to formally request Heaven Hill stop associating Philadelphia’s hallowed name with this whiskey and rename it for where it’s popular today.

I’d like to suggest: New Florida Jersey Whiskey. It definitely conveys a more accurate description of the taste.