Rebel Yell

The W.L. Weller & Sons company was founded in 1849 by William Larue Weller, who pioneered using wheat instead of rye in his mash for a lighter flavor than the older style of bourbons. The W.L. Weller company merged with the Stitzel distilling company (est. 1872) to form the Stitzel-Weller distilling company in 1910.

The "Rebel Yell" brand was created for Stitzel-Weller in the mid-1900s by Charles R. Farnsley (a former mayor of Louisville) around the 100th anniversary of the original Weller company, with the idea of distilling it in limited batches for exclusive distribution in the Southern United States. In the early 1980s, after some other changes of ownership following the break-up of Stitzel-Weller around 1972, the brand was purchased by the David Sherman Corporation of St. Louis, Missouri (now Luxco). By 1984, Rebel Yell was distributed nationally.