Old Grand-Dad

Old Grand-Dad is a brand of bourbon whiskey distilled at the Jim Beam Plant in Clermont, Kentucky. The brand was created by Raymond B. Hayden and named after his grandfather Meredith Basil Hayden Sr., who was a well known distiller during his lifetime.

The Hayden family's first commercial distillery was created in 1840, and the whiskey has been in production since that time despite several changes of ownership. In 1899, Old Grand-Dad was sold to the Wathen family, whose broad interests in the whiskey business later formed the American Medicinal Spirits Company and the foundations of National Distillers Group. During prohibition, the company produced "medicinal whiskey" for sick, blind, and lame patients. National Distillers had facilities in Cincinnati, Ohio and Frankfort, Kentucky, and also produced Old Crow, Old Overholt and Old Taylor. In 1987, National Distillers Group sold the spirits business to the Fortune Brands holding company, which became Beam Inc.

Today, Old Grand-Dad is one of the ten best-selling straight whiskeys. It comes in three different bottling proofs: 80 proof, 100 proof Bottled In Bond, and 114 Barrel Proof in a short-height bottle gift box package. In 2013 the lower proof offering went from 86 proof to 80 proof.

Since 1992 Beam has also marketed another brand of Kentucky bourbon, Basil Hayden's, named after the same person.