Liquor – Bay Bottles

Melchers Distilleries Limited

Melchers Distilleries Limited, along with its predecessor, The Melchers Gin and Spirits Distillery Company, operated a distillery just north of Montreal, in Berthierville, Quebec, Canada, from 1898 to 1977.

The business grew out of a relationship between a Dutch distiller named Theodore Melchers and a Canadian businessman and later politician named Joseph Marcelin Wilson. According to Theodore Melchers’ obituary, found in the January 9, 1922 edition of the “Montreal Star,” in the late 1800’s he was the senior partner of the firm of J. J. Melchers of Schiedham, Holland. Gin distillers and exporters, the firm was founded by his grandfather in the early 1800’s.

In the meantime, as early as 1889, J. M. Wilson was partnered with B. J. Boivin in the Montreal based wholesale grocery business of Boivin, Wilson & Co.

In 1898 Wilson, Boivin and Melchers got together and established the Canadian business of the “Melchers’ Gin and Spirits Distilling Company Limited.” Wilson, Boivin, and Theodore’s son Jean (also called J. J.) were named as “First or Provincial Directors” in the company’s August 6, 1898 incorporation notice.

The incorporation notice went on to describe the company’s objectives.

(a.) To carry on business as distillers, malters, etc., in and to extend the same to any and all of the provinces of the Dominion of Canada, the manufacturing, distilling, rectifying, aging, buying, selling and dealing in all kinds of spiritous and alcoholic liquors, and malting; (b.) So far as necessary for the purpose of carrying on to advantage and without waste the business described in clause (a.), to carry on the business of stock raisers and cattle feeders, the operations of the company to be carried on at Berthier, in the province of Quebec, and elsewhere throughout the Dominion of Canada.

The company immediately went about establishing their Berthierville distillery with much of the distilling equipment being brought over from Holland, and within a year the distillery was up and running under the Melchers name, as evidenced by this February 21, 1899 “Montreal Star” item advertising “A COMPRESSED YEAST” to local bakers.

This early 20th Century depiction of the distillery appeared in an October 13, 1911 advertisement published in Toronto’s “Globe and Mail.”

According to Theodore Melchers’ obituary, his son Jean would go on to serve as the distillery’s managing director for over 20 years.

In the Spring of 1900, the first shipment of Melchers Canadian made gin called “Red Cross” hit the market. Flavored with juniper berries it was sometimes referred to as a “Holland” or “Geneva” gin. The “roll-out” was described in the June 18, 1901 edition of the “Montreal Star.”

Another Big Shipment of Melchers Canadian Geneva

On June 10th last, the Melchers Gin Distillery, of Berthierville, has once more supplied the liquor trade with several thousand cases and hundreds of casks of the now celebrated “Red Cross” Canadian Geneva.

The first shipment that was made last April was met with unprecedented enthusiasm by the trade. In fact, the wholesale dealer did not even have time to warehouse the Gin as it was all sold in advance to retailers who had great trouble to find enough “Red Cross” Geneva to supply the always increasing demand for that superior liquor.

Now, the same rush, the same boom, was repeated with last week’s shipment and it seems as it will keep up until the Berthierville’s Distillery’s capacity has been increased, which of course, must be done in the near future…

That summer advertisements specifically touting the company’s “Red Cross” Geneva began appearing in Canadian newspapers. One of the earliest appeared in the July 17, 1901 edition of the “Montreal Gazette.” The advertisement clearly identifies Boivin Wilson & Co. as their distributing agent.

The following year another series of newspaper advertisements featured their Berthierville Distillery, an image that soon began appearing on their label.

The hype described in the June 18, 1901 “Montreal Star” item certainly had a lot of truth to it as evidenced by the fact that in 1903 the company increased its capital ten fold, from $100,000 to $1,000,000. The announcement appeared in the July 25th edition of Toronto’s “Globe and Mail.”

Over the next ten years, the name “Red Cross” became intimately associated with their gin due in no small part to the $500,000 the company invested in promoting and maintaining the brand. In spite of that fact, in November, 1914 the company announced it was changing the gin’s name to “Gold Cross.”

The reasoning behind the change was directly related to the humanitarian role of the “Red Cross Society” during World War I. A November 2, 1914 announcement in the “St. John Standard” spelled it out like this:

The ambulance systems of the world met at Geneva, in Switzerland, in 1864 – exactly 50 years ago – and adopted a flag with a Red Cross on a White Ground as the neutral flag of all nations, a protection to the sick and wounded from harm and a protection also to all persons engaged in the work of caring for those sufferers.

In this present European conflict it has gained greater importance than ever since men knew war. It has become so important that we are compelled to realize that only nations themselves should be allowed to use the RED CROSS emblem.

At the insistence of the Imperial and Canadian Governments, who like all other nations, have concluded to keep the name “RED CROSS” for national use, we have decided to relinquish “RED CROSS” as the name of our GIN.

We feel, in giving up the name “RED CROSS” to the use of the British Government, and to all humanity, that we are only following a patriotic course. The great and noble work of the Red Cross Society shall not suffer if we can help it.

True to their word, January advertisements began using the “GOLD CROSS” name as evidenced by this January 26, 1915 “Toronto Star” advertisement.

It was around this time that, according to a story in the December 17, 1928 edition of the “Montreal Star,” ownership of the business began transitioning to the Fleischmann Company; a transition that would be complete by 1920.

About 1913 The Fleischmann Co., following certain agreements with reference to the production of yeast, purchased an interest in Melchers Distillery Ltd. and in 1920 they acquired Senator Wilson’s interest and assumed control…

Between 1920 and 1928, the Melchers Gin & Spirits Distillery Company operated as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Fleischmann Company, with the Berthierville distillery facilitating Fleischmann’s Canadian production of yeast. At the same time the distillery also continued to produce their “Gold Cross” gin, as evidenced by this 1926 newspaper advertisement that was published in both English and French speaking newspapers.

In 1928, the Fleischmann Company decided to focus entirely on yeast production in Canada and consequently sold their Canadian liquor business to a newly formed corporation called Melchers Distilleries Limited. The Fleischmann Company’s entry in the 1929 “Moody’s Manual of Investments” provided some details.

Site has been acquired at La Salle (near Montreal), Quebec, on which a modern yeast plant will be constructed in 1929. With the sale of Melchers Distillery Co., Ltd. stock in Dec., 1928 to Melchers Distilleries, Ltd. (effective as of Oct. 31, 1928), Fleischmann Co. (Ohio) ceased to carry on any business in gin and spirits in the Dominion of Canada, which business was formerly handled by this subsidiary. However, contract was entered into with the Melchers Distilleries Ltd. under which they will continue to manufacture yeast at the Berthierville plant, until completion of yeast plant for that purpose.

The newly incorporated Melchers Distilleries Ltd. was also listed that year in “Moody’s.”

MELCHERS DISTILLERIES, LTD.: Incorporated in Dec. 10, 1928, under the laws of the Province of Quebec to acquire the plants and properties (except certain machinery now used in the manufacture of molasses yeast) the stocks of matured and maturing spirits, good will and trademarks of the Melchers Distillery Co., Ltd., at Berthierville, Que.

The listing went on to describe the Berthierville facilities at the time..

The properties acquired comprise 82 acres of land at Berthierville, Que., and facilities for water shipments via the St. Lawrence River. The distilling plant has a production capacity of approximately 2,000,ooo gallons per annum…

The president of the new company was a long-time employee named Joseph Victor Marchand.

According to a December 17, 1928 story found in the “Montreal Star:”

Victor Marchand, M.L.A., president of the new company, has been associated with the Melchers organization since its inception, first as an accountant and later as secretary and general manager.

The story went on to say that as the 1920’s were coming to an end the company’s product line was expanding beyond just “Gold Cross” gin.

… The company has shown a steady expansion since its foundation, and, in addition to its Holland gin which has been by way of becoming the national drink of the French-Canadian people, has recently been producing also American Rye and Bourbon and industrial and grain alcohols. Mr. Marchand expects to commence in the near future the distilling of Dry and Old Tom gins, etc. At the present time the company its the only manufacturer in Canada of Holland Gin.

One of the first in Melchers expanded menu was called “London Club” dry gin whose appearance on the market was announced in a July 26, 1929 item published in Toronto’s “National Post.”

Melchers new London Club dry gin will be placed on the market within a few days. This is the latest product of Melchers Distilleries which was publicly financed in December of last year. This new product has been developed over the past few months and will be ready for market this week.

This advertisement for the newly minted brand appeared a month later in the August 22, 1929 edition of the “Montreal Star.”

By 1930, advertisements for an American rye called “Old Keg”also began appearing in the Canadian newspapers.

This in no way implies that their “Gold Cross” gin was in any way forgotten, as evidenced by this Christmas advertisement published in the “Montreal Star” on December 13, 1933.

As late as 1941, “Gold Cross” remained prominent in Melchers Distilleries’ advertisements with this December 29th “Montreal Star” ad touting it along with their “London Club” gin and another Melchers product, “Three Castles” whisky.

The following year World War II changed things when on November 1, 1942 the entire alcohol production of distilleries in Canada was diverted to war purposes. At that time the Berthierville plant engaged in a large war contract for the manufacture of commercial alcohol. The company was still engaged in that effort in 1945 when they ran this advertisement in the January 25th edition of the “Montreal Star.”

It reads:

Tonight, brave men still face death…on the battlefield.

It is unlikely that we in Canada will be called upon to match their sacrifice…but the least we can do is to continue, in every way possible, to keep the supplies and equipment rolling out. We, Melchers Distilleries Limited, manufacture a precious war material of a thousand uses…war alcohol. It is a vital ingredient of the explosives used in the grenades, shells, bombs, depth charges and mines that are thundering and battering the enemy to destruction…an important substance in de-icing fluid for our planes, in medicines for our sick and wounded, in war paints and lacquers, and in many other applications, some of which are still on the secret list.

It is needed in great quantities…and until victory is won, our plant and facilities will remain at the disposal of the Dominion Government in the manufacture of alcohol for war!

After the war Melchers began producing their “Gold Cross” gin again, as evidenced by this October, 1951 advertisement that appeared in several editions of the “Montreal Gazette.”

At the same time they were also advertising a wide array of other brands some of which were pre-war holdovers while others had been recently introduced. A little of both appear in this March 22, 1951 “Vancouver Sun” advertisement.

As far as I can tell, over the next two decades the company did quite well, issuing stock dividends in most years before peaking in late 1969. That year, according to Toronto’s “Globe and Mail:”

Melchers Distilleries Ltd. of Montreal had record sales of $9,351,500, excluding excise and sales taxes, in the 12 months to August 31. A year earlier sales totaled $6,138,900. Profit increased to $643,644, or 43 cents a share from $514,738 or 38 cents a share in 1968.

The story went on to say:

An additional $6-million investment in the company’s plant at Berthierville, Que., increased its distilling capacity by 90 percent to 7,500,000 gallons annually. Work is advanced on a new automatic filling operation capable of handling increased output at the Berthierville plant.

Around the same time, according to an April 29, 1970 “Globe and Mail” story:

Melchers merged with Manitoba Distillery Ltd. in an agreement ratified on Jan. 17, 1969, and the $2.5-million Manitoba Distillery plant, 25 miles north of Brandon, became a wholly owned subsidiary of Melchers. The expansion program estimated at $1.5-million included a bottling section, warehouse and offices.

It was these investments, coupled with changing market conditions, that contributed to a subsequent downturn in the company’s profitability. According to a story in Saskatchewan’s “Leader Post:”

…Melcher’s financial problems originated in the early 1970’s. Depending on liquor market forecasts which never materialized, the Montreal-based firm invested heavily to expand its Berthierville, Que. plant and purchased a distillery, near Minnedosa… It also put between five million and six million gallons of spirits into storage for aging.

Particularly harmful to Melchers was a shrinking and depressed market for Canadian whisky in the United States, which absorbs about 75 percent of Canada’s hard liquor production.

The Manitoba plant was ultimately shut down in late 1973 and three years later, the March 19, 1976 edition of the “Globe and Mail” reported that the company lost $2.8-million in their most recent fiscal year, the third consecutive year the company had reported a loss.

A year later, the March 14, 1977 edition of the “Toronto Star” announced that the company had filed for bankruptcy after a potential sale of the Manitoba plant fell through..

Melchers Distilleries Ltd., a 79 year-old Quebec firm that produces Ron Cabana rum and other brands of liquor, is bankrupt following the collapse of a deal to sell its Manitoba plant for $2.5 million.

Trading of Melchers’ common shares on the Toronto and Montreal exchanges has been halted since last Wednesday night, when the stock closed at $2.66, down from a peak of almost $30 in 1970…

Melchers has about 160 employees, 122 of whom work at the main distillery at Berthierville, Que. The company’s other plant, at Minedosa, Man., has been closed since the end of 1973 and was to have been sold to a group of Manitoba businessman in a deal announced in January.

Melchers disclosed early this month that the sale had fallen through. It said today it had been “negotiating a financial restructuring of the company” when it found it couldn’t pay its bills.

Later that year, the December 15, 1977 edition of the “Montreal Star” announced that a consortium called Melcan Distilleries Ltd. had been formed to acquire the Melchers company assets.

Melcan Distilleries Ltd., a company owned by five distilling companies has succeeded in acquiring the assets of bankrupt Melchers Distilleries…

Melcan was set up specifically to buy the assets of Melchers. Its shareholders are Calvert of Canada, Corby Distillers, John de Kuyper and Son and Meagher’s Distilleries, which own the voting shares. In addition, non-voting shares are owned by the American Distilling Company, of New York…

Melcan will hire most of the workers and executives formerly employed by Melchers and will sell the Melchers line of products, including gins, whiskies, imported wines and spirits…

Seven years later, on December 1, 1984, the “Montreal Gazette” announced that Seagram & Sons, who had apparently bought into the consortium at a later date, was acquiring Melcan Distilleries Ltd.

Seagram & Sons announced Friday that it has reached a “tentative agreement” to buy all the shares of Melcan that it doesn’t already own from its partners in a seven-year-old consortium…

The companies purchased Melchers Distilleries Ltd. out of bankruptcy and renamed it Melcan. Now they seem to have decided that it is too clumsy for a consortium of competitors to continue operating Melcan, said Harold Wolkin, an analyst with Nesbit Thomson Bongard Inc.

Seagrams immediately announced they were closing the Berthierville plant and less than a year later, a November 25, 1985 story in the “Montreal Gazette” made it clear that the plant that had continuously operated as a distillery for 8o+ years had become a pile of rubble.

The brick smokestack will topple soon and the cream-colored portico now welcomes you to the rubble of Melchers Distilleries Inc.

Five months after Berthierville’s main industry closed its doors, throwing 98 people out of work, a bulldozer has smashed down the walls of the century-old factory. Stills and motors are strewn about. A 30-man demolition crew has begun sorting copper, steel and aluminum for resale to scrap dealers…

Robert Lafleur and his crew moved in two weeks ago and began tearing down the main distillery. Most of the work will be completed by mid-December but Lafleur said the ground won’t be cleared and the wreckage removed until May.

Lafleur’s job also includes liquidating most of Melcher’s machinery and office equipment.

Seagram’s kept its bottling machines and scores of barrels used to hold the distilled liquor. But Lafleur is placing ads in newspapers from Ottawa to New York advertising old stills and grain processors

One of Lafleur’s advertisements can be found in the November 9, 1985 edition of the “Montreal Gazette.”

The subject bottle is a 16-ounce, machine-made, slightly curved flask with “Melchers Distilleries Limited” embossed on one side. Recognizing that “Melchers Distilleries Limited” was incorporated in December, 1928, it certainly dates no earlier than that.

The bottle generally exhibits a rough finish with the unembossed side exhibiting a rectangular area that’s smoothed out to accommodate a paper label.

The bottle matches exactly the “Old Keg” whisky flask pictured in this August 25, 1930 advertisement found in the “Montreal Star,” sans the label and “handy two-ounce “NIP-CUP” that are both long gone.

The bottle does NOT exhibit the embossed phase

Federal Law Forbids Sale or Reuse of this Bottle

required on all liquor bottles sold in the U. S.between 1935 and 1964. This suggests it likely found its way to the Long Island bays during the latter stages of National Prohibition.

J. A. Gilka, Berlin, Schultzen Str. No. 9

J. A. are the two middle initials of Carl Joseph Aloys Gilka who according to familysearch.com was born on May 15, 1812 in Beesdau, Dahme-Spreewald, Brandenburg, Germany. Along with several generations of his family, Gilka operated a distilling and liquor manufacturing business in Berlin for well over 100 years from the early 19th century up through the mid – 20th century. Today the business operates in Kettwig, Germany under the name JA Gilka KG.

His signature product, “Getreide Kümmel” or Grain Caraway was described as a sweet, colorless, liqueur flavored with caraway seeds, cumin and fennel. Popular in the United States and Canada around the turn of the century, the subject bottle matches exactly the Getreide Kümmel bottle pictured in this January 26, 1907 advertisement found in “The (Montreal) Gazette.”

The advertisement went on to provide the company’s turn of the century sales pitch.

Gilka Kümmel is one of the oldest brands on the market, and is for sale the world over.

Gilka has long been popular in Royal Circles and among the leading families in Europe. It is also a great favorite with all connoisseurs and bon vivants.

The exquisite flavor which particularly distinguishes the Gilka from all other Kümmels lies in the fact that the producers make this their one particular specialty, and have attained this perfection after long and careful study in the preparation.

If you have never used the Gilka before, we ask you to give it a trial, and we are confident you will agree with us that it is by far the best Kümmel you have ever tasted.

According to an excerpt found in the “Official Special Catalog for the Exhibition of Prussia and the North German States,” at the 1867 Paris Exhibition, the Gilka business started roughly 70 years before the above advertisement was published. Courtesy of “Google Translate,” the excerpt read, in part:

Gilka, Carl Joseph Aloys, factory owner (J. A. Gilka), Berlin… The business has existed since 1836 and manufactures spirits, liquors, essences, and vinegar. Using Savalle steamers using approximately 60 horsepower, 40 types of alcohol at 96 percent are produced daily, some of which is sold and some of which is further processed into the aforementioned products. The business’s annual turnover amounts to approximately one million thalers. A specialty of the business is the widely known Gilka Grain Caraway. Sales are made directly and indirectly throughout all parts of the world.

Later Gilka advertisements, like the one shown below, suggest they were producing their Kümmel at the very start of the business. Found in the October 27, 1927 edition of “Illustriert Zeitung,” the ad stated “Underändert Seit 1836.” or “Unchanged Since 1836.”

That being said, Gilka was certainly producing it by 1856 when the first mention of Gilka’s “Berliner Getreibe Kümmel” that I can find appeared in the February 1st edition of a German newspaper called “Magdeburgische Zeitung.”

The first paragraph of the ad reads, courtesy of “Google Translate:”

Berliner Grain – Caraway from J. A. Gilka, old Nordhausen grain brandy and the finest Dusseldorf Punch Syrup are recommended by Ulrich & Pflugmacher…

In January, 1877 J. A. Gilka submitted an application to trademark their Kümmel’s label in the United States.

A month later, on February 13, 1877, a certificate for the trademark was issued by the U.S. Patent Office. That being said, Gilka’s “Berliner Getreibe Kümmel” was making its way to the United States as much as 15 years earlier as evidenced by this advertisement found in the December 23, 1863 edition of a Baltimore, Maryland German language newspaper called “Taglicher Baltimore Wecker.”

The ad reads, courtesy of “Google Translate:”

Purely kept 1862 Rhine wines $1.75, $2.00 and $2..25 per gallon; its Northern wines $5-$7 per box of 12 bottles. Agency of the famous Berlin Grain Caraway from J. A. Gilka in Berlin.

G. L. Boss, 31 Pennsylvania Avenue

Subsequently, in October 1871, an item published in several editions of the “New York Herald” announced that Anthony Oechs of New York City had been appointed as J. A. Gilka’s sole agent in the United States..

The item lead off with a note from J. A. Gilka himself which read:

In consequence of the constantly increasing imitation of my well known BERLIN KUMMEL, by parties in Europe and shipped by them to the United States of America, I consider it my duty to caution the public against this imposition and to inform them that I have appointed Mr. ANTHONY OECHS, 73 New Street, New York, as sole agent in the United States for the sale of my BERLIN KUMMEL…J. A. Gilka, Purveyor to H.M. Emperor of Germany. Berlin, September 24, 1871

The ad then followed with a note from Oechs.

NOTICE. – I am now prepared to execute orders for Mr. J. A. Gilka’s celebrated BERLIN KUMMEL on most favorable terms…ANTHONY OECHS, New York, October 9, 1871.

How long Oechs served as J. A. Gilka’s agent in the U. S. is unclear. Primarily a wine importer who ran a lot of newspaper advertisements, after the initial 1871 announcement I can’t find any mention of J. A. Gilka or his Kümmel in any of Oechs’s ads, and by 1896 another importer, Wm. G. Moehring & Company had taken over as Gilka’s U. S. agent.

William Moehring was an established importer who up through the early 1890’s was serving as a principal with the firm of A. Stephani & Co. Shortly after Stephani’s death he changed the name of the business to Wm. G. Moehring & Company. An item announcing the change appeared in the January 2, 1894 edition of the “New York Times.”

As early as 1896, the New York City directory listing for Wm. G. Moehring & Company recognized them, among other things, as the importer of Gilka Kümmel.

Moehring continued to use this description in the New York City directories up through 1914 suggesting his company served as Gilka’s U. S. agent during this period, a supposition confirmed by this September 1, 1908 advertisement found in “The Wine and Spirit Bulletin.”

I suspect it was during this time that the Gilka Kümmel achieved its peak popularity in the U.S. In fact, by 1900, according to a March 22nd advertisement, found in New York’s “Evening World,” you could even pick up a bottle at Macy’s Department Store in New York City

In Canada, Gilka advertisements naming the firm of Fraser, Viger & Co. as sole agent began appearing around the same time. The first Canadian ad I can find, announcing the arrival of fifty cases, appeared in the May 4, 1893 edition of “The Montreal Gazette.”

Wm G. Moehring & Co. continued to import Gilka’s Kümmel until 1914 when, according to the testimony of the Moehring bookkeeper in an October 11, 1915 New York County Supreme Court case, “Tense P. Farquahar v. Norman Farquhar,” the U.S, supply was interrupted by the outbreak of World War I.

Q. Gilka Kümmel is the leading article of William G. Moehring & Company? A. Yes

Q. Gilka is made in Germany? A. Yes

Q. And imported by William G. Moehring & Company? A. Yes.

Q. Have William G. Moehring & Company had any of that to sell or have they imported anything of that since the beginning of the present European war? A. There have been very few shipments due to the war.

Have you had any since the first of January? A. We have had very few shipments due to the fact that the German Government has stopped the export of alcohol.

A similar situation was happening in Canada where this November 3, 1915 advertisement found in “The Montreal Star” suggests that the only Gilka Kümmel available at the time (61 cases) was imported in July, 1914, “just before the war broke out.”

After the war ended, with National Prohibition on the horizon, there’s no mention of Gilka’s Kümmel in the United States until the mid-1920’s when the J. A. Gilka company filed an application with the U.S. Patent Office for a non-alcoholic “Gilka Kümmel” label. The company claimed the label had been in use since “April, 1925.”

This advertisement for their non-alcoholic Gilka Kümmel appeared in the April 25, 1926 edition of the “Houston Post-Dispatch.”

Another, found in the November 11, 1932 edition of the “Chicago Tribune” described it as:

The world-famous after-dinner drink Gilka Kümmel, imported direct from Germany.

Then went on to say:

…the only thing lacking is the alcohol.

Shortly after the repeal of Prohibition Gilka’s Kummel was back on sale in the U.S. as evidenced by this November 1, 1934 advertisement in the “Washington D.C. Herald.”

Meanwhile, back in Germany the business remained in Berlin until the late 1940’s or early 1950’s. According to http://banneke.com/gilka

After the Second World War, the family whose property was located in East Germany, was expropriated, so the business was run from Hamburg. Since 1972, the company has been owned by the well-known company Underberg, which still produces caraway according to the original recipe. However, production takes place under the name JA Gilka KG in the Essen district of Kettwig.

The website goes on to display today’s packaging.

It’s still included in recently advertised liquor store price lists in the U.S.

The bottle I found was blown in a mold with an applied brandy finish. Six sided it contains about a quart or fifth. (It’s not fully intact so I can’t get an exact measure.) It likely dates to around the turn of the century, say 1890’s or early 1900’s but almost certainly no later than 1914 when the U.S. supply was cut-off due to World War I.

The Old Bushmills Distillery Co. Ltd. Est. 1784

The Old Bushmills Distillery, located in Antrim, Northern Ireland, was formally established in 1784, the date embossed on the subject bottle. This makes it one of the few businesses presented on this website that dates back as far as the 18th Century. That being said, today Bushmills claims that the distillery’s roots date back even further when you consider that King James I granted the village of Bushmills a license to distill whiskey in 1608. In recognition of this earlier date, the distillery recently celebrated its 400th year anniversary.

Regardless of which date you choose to recognize the distillery has been around for a long time and the key to its longevity, according to a profile of the business published in “The Industries of Ireland, Part 1, Belfast and Towns of the North, 1891,” is location, location, location.

Far up in the north of County Antrim, close to the Giant’s Causeway, and in the midst of some of the grandest of Irish scenery, stands the little village of Bushmills, a quaint and interesting hamlet in itself, and specifically noteworthy from the fact that here is situated the famous old Bushmills Distillery. The establishment is at once the oldest and one of the most celebrated of typical Irish distilleries and the merits of its product in high-class whiskey are known in every land under the sun. The secret of the success of this whiskey undoubtedly lies in the quality of the water of the river Bush, which flows through peat bogs for a long distance, and thus yields a liquid which is specially suited to the distillation of superior malt whisky. The valuable properties of this water seem to have been known for upwards of a century and a half, and many an “illicit still” must have done a “roaring trade” at Bushmills during the latter half of the last century. In 1784 a more legitimate order of things was instituted, for in that year the Bushmills Distillery was founded…

The feature went on to say it wasn’t just the water that did the trick, but the local barley as well:

Not only is the Bushmills Distillery characterized by the rare excellence of its water supply, but it is also distinguished for its distilling processes… At Bushmills, the old pot-stills are exclusively used and the spirit is extracted from the very best malted barley only. The neighborhood has a widespread fame in the matter of barley, and most of the grain used in the production of Bushmills whiskey is grown hereabouts.

This early 20th Century full page advertisement found in the July, 1924 edition of the “Ulster Bulletin” featured both an early 1900’s panoramic view of their Antrim facility as well as a close-up of their famous pot-stills.

Those pot stills have been intrinsically associated with the businesss throughout much of its history, so much so that over the years they came to represent the distillery’s product. As a result, they were ultimately incorporated into the whiskey’s trademark, a fact featured in this April 27, 1907 advertisement found in an illustrated British newspaper called “The Sphere.”

Most turn of the century Bushmills bottles, including our subject bottle, feature the pot-still trademark.

Although the distillery was officially established in 1784, it’s not exactly clear when their whiskey first became generally available to the public. It wasn’t mentioned in the local newspapers until the mid-1820’s when it was offered for sale by a local Belfast dealer named William Carson whose advertisement appeared in the May 28, 1828 edition of the “Belfast News-Letter.

The advertisement claimed Carson received shipments from Bushmills Distillery on a regular basis and that the whiskey was “much esteemed for Private Family use,” all but confirming that the whiskey was being distributed locally in Belfast by then (though likely much earlier).

Around this time the proprietor was a man named James McKibbin (sometimes McKibben) who authored this item, part advertisement and part help-wanted ad, that appeared in the September 13, 1831 edition of the Belfast-News-Letter.”

By the mid-1830’s McKibbin’s product had made its way from Belfast to England, as evidenced by the following May 29 1835 advertisement found in the “Liverpool Mercury General Advertiser.” The advertisement, run by a local Tea, Wine and Spirit Dealer, suggests that the whiskey’s appearance in England was a relatively recent occurrence, reading in part:

The Subscriber offers for Sale, in quantities not under two Gallons, a large Stock of the justly celebrated BUSHMILL’S OLD MALT WHISKEY.

The very great expense the Manufacturer has entered into in improvements, in order to secure a completely pure Spirit, has hitherto kept the Whiskey at a price which has prevented it from being more generally sold in England by the Trade, and accounts for the common remark of connoisseurs, that there is no getting such delightful Whiskey in England as they have met with in Ireland, to obviate which it is now offered at the smallest possible profit, and the Trade supplied at Distillery prices, adding Expenses…

At around the same time, and even prior to its migration to England, Bushmills was making its way across the Atlantic in limited quantities where, in 1832, this November 27th notice in the “Philadelphia Inquirer” announced five puncheons were arriving on a ship called the “Charles Wharton.”

Over the next decade McKibbin had certainly made improvements to the distillery such that in January, 1846 this “Belfast News-Letter” notice announced that 15,ooo gallons of “pure MALT Whiskey” from the Bushmills Distillery were on the market in Belfast.

James McKibben passed away suddenly on August, 5 1847 after which I can’t find any newspaper mention of the distillery until 1852 when this “Belfast News-Letter” advertisement associated it with Quill, McCarthy, & Co. The advertisement mentions that the Malt Whiskey:

so long known for its purity and mellow flavor (is)now admitted to be fully equal to that made by the late Mr. Mckibbin.

This suggests, at least to me, that the distillery may have been closed or poorly operated for a while after Mckibbin’s death.

In the early 1850’s, it appears that a man named Allan Mill managed the distillery for Quill. McCarthy & Co. He passed away in November, 1853, after which December advertisements found in the “Belfast News-Letter” named:

JOHN MILL, Successor to ALLAN MILL, Bushmills Old Distillery, Pure Malt Whiskey.

Early the following year a February 27, 1854 notice in the “Belfast News-Letter” announced that the distillery was up for rent.

The distillery re-opened later that year as evidenced by a notice that appeared in the September 15, 1854 edition of the “Belfast News-Letter.”

Two years later a March 15, 1856 advertisement for the distillery continued to name John Mill as the successor to Allan Mill, so its likely he formally leased the distillery in the Spring of 1854, re-opening it later that year.

It was certainly open in the Fall of 1856 when a party celebrating the cutting down of the harvest occurred at the distillery. It was described in the September 13th edition of the “Belfast News-Letter.”

On the evening of Friday the 5th, the laborers employed on the estate of John C. Anderson, Esq., of Bushmills were sumptuously entertained on the occasion of their finishing the cutting down of the harvest. The party, in number above 200 persons, assembled in a large store at “Bushmills Old Distillery,” and, after partaking in dinner and a plentiful supply of whiskey, they commenced dancing, which was kept up with great spirit till an early hour next morning…

There’s little mention of the distillery during the late 1850’s, so how active it was at that time is unclear. Then sometime in 1860 or 1861 Patrick Corrigan and James McColgan operated the distillery under the name “Corrigan & Co. An announcement to that effect, dated September 9, 1861, appeared in several September and October editions of the “Belfast News-Letter.”

Five years later, the February 1, 1865 “Belfast News-Letter” announced that Corrigan suffered an injury while working in the distillery, an injury he would never recover from.

Mr. Patrick Corrigan, the proprietor of Bushmills Distillery, was seriously injured a few days ago by being crushed by a portion of his machinery…

A book entitled “Whiskey Women,” by Fred Minnick, picks up the story at this point.

When owner Patrick Corrigan died in January, 1865, he confidently left Bushmills to his “loving” wife, Ellen Jane, who took the Irish whiskey to new heights.

Usually listed in business correspondence as E. J. Corrigan, widow of Patrick Corrigan, Ellen Jane wielded great power. She ran the distillery with James McColgan, but she handled most of the business affairs while James made the whiskey… When Ellen Jane took over, Bushmills was an extremely successful operation that produced about 80,000 gallons of whiskey a year…

The distillery remained in the hands of Ellen Jane Corrigan until 1880 when, according to a story written later, in the March 12, 1895 edition of the “Belfast News-Letter,” a limited liability company was established under the name of “The Bushmills Old Distillery Company, Limited.”

The business operated under that name for a little over ten years, from 1880 to 1891, during which time Bushmills whiskey won a number of international awards as evidenced by this advertisement that appeared in the “Belfast News-Letter” on December 16,1887.

Later an October 5, 1889 advertisement published in “St. Stephen’s Review” provided this glimpse of their 1886 Gold Medal winning display at the Paris Exhibition.

Much of this was accomplished at the same time the business was recovering from an 1885 fire that destroyed a significant portion of the distillery. The fire and its aftermath were described in the November 27, 1885 edition of the “Belfast News-Letter.”

FIRE AT BUSHMILLS DISTILLERY

A fire occurred here last night, by which the greater portion of the distillery, the property of the Bushmills Old Distillery Co. (Limited), was destroyed. The fire originated during the night in a room in which paint and oils of various kinds were kept. Before it could be extinguished it had caught a barrel of petroleum, after which it spread rapidly. None of the bonded stores were touched, the stills, coppers, the refrigerator, and the dynamo machine used for generating the electric light, are uninjured, but all the machinery in use in the building, which was put in only about a year ago, is destroyed. The liquor in the stills had to be allowed to runoff. The total amount of loss is not yet known, but, in all probability, it will be covered by insurance.

The distillery rebuilt after the fire and the business ultimately reorganized in 1891, slightly changing its name to the “Old Bushmills Distillery Company, Ltd.” The prospectus for the new company that appeared in the November 14, 1891 edition of the “Belfast News-Letter,” read in part:

The directors are Mr. C. C. Connor, Mayor of Belfast, and Mr. James S. Boyd, Waring Street, Belfast. The prospectus states that the company within the last few days purchased as a going concern the business property, goodwill and effects of the Bushmills Old Distillery Company, Limited, the proprietors of the well known distillery at Bushmills in the county of Antrim, and the sole manufacturers of the famous “Old Bushmills Whiskey,” and owners of the registered trade mark “Old Bushmills.”

Several years later the business, in financial trouble, was in liquidation when it was acquired by a newly formed company that maintained the “Old Bushmills Distillery Company. Ltd.,” name. The new company’s prospectus, published in the August 22, 1896 edition of the “Belfast News-Letter” included this list of company assets which at the time were valued at over £100,000.

The prospectus went on to include a general description of those assets which provided this turn of the century snapshot of the distillery and its facilities.

The distillery proper occupies a freehold site of about six acres, in addition to which there are about sixteen acres of accommodation land and a farm of nineteen acres held on lease. There is also an office and stores on Hill Street, Belfast; stores in Market Place, Bushmills; bonded stores in Short Street and Albert Square Belfast.

The distillery was destroyed by fire in the year 1885, and was subsequently re-built in the most substantial manner, and is furnished with plant of the best and most modern description. Since the date named a considerable amount has been spent annually in maintaining and improving the buildings, machinery, etc., with result that the concern is in thorough working order; moreover the distillery is so constructed that with a very small outlay its production capacity can be doubled.

Upon the property there is a good manager’s residence, also laborers’ cottages and ample stabling. The storage accommodation is very extensive , and is capable of warehousing about one million gallons of Whiskey…

The distiller is situated in the center of a large barley-growing district, and ample supplies are available from farmers in the immediate neighborhood…There is good local demand for grains at remunerative prices, and there is upon the distillery premises, a grain drying machine with all the necessary working gear…

The importance of an adequate and suitable water supply is obvious, and in this respect the distillery is particularly well situated, the Company having become sometime since, by purchase, the absolute owners of the entire water rights involved.

The prospectus went on to say:

Arrangements are being made for the sale of the whiskey throughout the United Kingdom, the Colonies and the United States on a much more extended scale than hitherto…

True to their word, not long after the acquisition Bushmills began to increase their presence in London as evidenced by this story that appeared in the March 28, 1898 edition of the “Belfast News-Letter.”

THE OLD BUSHMILLS DISTILLERY COMPANY, LTD. This company have opened new offices and stores in London, and a large quantity of whiskey was sent forward to be stocked there. Eleven vans were employed in carting this large consignment to the quay…

The next day this advertisement for their new London facilities appeared in the “Belfast News-Letter.”

By the turn of the century the company also began to increase their presence in the United States when they designated the well known firm of Alex D. Shaw as their agent there.

As far as I can tell, prior to associating with Shaw the marketing and sale of Bushmills in America was uncoordinated and fully reliant on the effort of individual local importers/wholesalers. Newspaper advertisements were scarce and when they did appear Bushmill’s was typically listed within a menu that included a host of imported items. This August 26, 1848 item found in several editions of a Louisiana newspaper called the “Concordia Intelligencer” was typical.

The distillery attempted to change this in the early 1880’s, when an Irishman named Oliver Anketell was named the sole agent in the United States for both Bushmills as well as another Northern Ireland distillery, Combers. A native of Ireland, who arrived in the United States in 1840, according to Anketell’s profile, included in the “Industries of New Jersey,” published in 1882, he was a local New York/New Jersey businessman.

Oliver Anketell, Grain, Flour, Hay, etc., No. 395 Market Street. – The house dates its origin back to 1853, when Mr. Anketell located in Newark and began in business. He now occupies a storehouse, 50 x 30 feet, with a large basement, and carries a complete stock of grain of all kinds, choice family flour of the various brands, feed, hay by the bale or ton, straw, etc….He also has considerable business interest in New York, having his office at No. 26 William Street. He is sole agent in the United States for the unequalled Old Bushmills Irish whiskey, his New York office being used for said business. He also acts for the famous Comber distillery in Belfast.

This announcement, one of the first I can find associating him with Bushmills, appeared in the December 25, 1882 edition of the “Beaufort Wine and Spirit Circular.”

Anketell’s New York business, sometimes called the Belfast Warehouse, was listed in the New York City directories at 15 Water Street (1881 – 1882) and later at the 26 South William Street address named in the above notice (1883 to 1892). By 1894, he’s no longer listed.

During this time Anketell apparently represented a variety of Irish products one of which, Edwards Soup, was advertised under his name in the May 3, 1890 edition of the “Brooklyn Daily Times.”

That being said I don’t see any Anketell advertisements specifically touting Bushmills and the whiskey’s presence in wholesale and retail liquor advertisements continued to be scarce during this time, all suggesting that the Bushmills product was not Anketell’s primary focus.

By the mid-1890’s with Anketell, apparently no longer in business, the Alex D. Shaw company entered the picture. This June 10, 1899 advertisement found in “Brooklyn Life” was one of the first I can find that specifically referenced Alex D. Shaw as the agent for Bushmill’s Pure Malt Whisky.

Wholesale wine and spirit merchants and importers, according to a brief history of the business found in the 1920 edition of “Harper’s Directory,” the business was:

established by Alex D. Shaw, who started in the Wine Trade in 1859 and founded his own firm in 1882. In 1899 he started a branch house in Chicago and in 1908 one in San Francisco…

As far as I can tell, over the next 15 plus years the distribution and resultant popularity of Bushmills whiskey grew considerably in the United States. Likely the result of Shaw’s branch houses in New York, the midwest and west coast by the end of the decade the whiskey was appearing in liquor advertisements found in newspapers throughout much of the country.

So, around the turn of the century, with increasing presence in the United States, London and other parts of the world, the company’s mood back home in Ireland was quite optimistic, as evidenced by this summary of their 5th annual stockholders meeting found in the November 29, 1900 edition of the “Liverpool Mercury.”

The fifth annual meeting of shareholders was held in Cannon-Street Hotel, London, yesterday. The Hon. Herbert J. Allsopp, who presided and moved the adoption of the report, said that during the past year the sales had been well maintained, and for this they were mainly indebted to those districts in which Old Bushmills whiskey was best known. There were undoubtedly signs that in other localities the whiskey was becoming more popular and more appreciated by those who appreciated a good liquor. Their export trade showed a most satisfactory development. The war in South Africa had stopped business there; in Western Australia they had been successful in securing the services as agent of a gentlemen who knew the trade well – he was a great admirer of the Old Bushmills whiskey – (laughter)- and most anxious to push it on his friends and on the market. In America the trade had also increased, and Bushmills was shaping towards being a leading whiskey in the States.

As far as I can tell this optimism continued through the mid-teens at which time things began to change. Summaries of company stockholder meetings held during this time tell the story. The first, found in the December 16, 1916 edition of “The Times,” indicated the company was still recommending stock dividends that year despite the impact of World War I on both sales and operations.

The Chairman, after stating that he was presiding in the absence of the chairman of the company, said that many of their employees had joined his Majesty’s Forces, and regretted that a number of them had made the supreme sacrifice, while others had been severely wounded. The war was having a serious effect on the business of the country, and their own company was not an exception. Nevertheless, the year on the whole had been a satisfactory one, and the results justified the directors in recommending an increased dividend on the Ordinary shares…

According to a summary of their 1917 stockholder meeting found in the December 13th edition of “The Times,” by that time the company was living through increased war-time restrictions one of which was the cessation of distillation.

The Chairman observed that we still had to put forth our best energies to crush the German dream of world-conquest and to settle for generations to come the fate of the civilized world. To do this we had had and will still have to submit to many drastic restrictions which, while preventing the extension of all businesses, including that of the company, must necessarily tell on its future prosperity…

That being said, in spite of all their war-time troubles, at the 1918 stockholder meeting the company announced the acquisition of another distillery. The December 12, 1918 “London Times” told the story.

The Chairman stated that, in view of the stoppage of distillation, the directors had to excercise the greatest care in order to husband the company’s resources, so that when times became normal again they would be in a position to continue and, if possible, extend their operations to meet the growing demand for their products. The board were pleased to report the purchase of the Comber Distilleries, situate at Comber Co. Down, a few miles from the head office of the company. The old established concern had a large trade, not only in Ireland, but with the brewers and wine and spirit merchants in England and Scotland. Their whiskey enjoyed a high reputation and the directors hoped not only to keep up that connexion but also very largely to extend the business when times permitted…

In 1919, finally free of war-time restrictions, the tone of the company’s 1919 stockholder meeting, summarized in the December 11, 1919 edition of “The Times,” was bitter sweet, announcing that at the same time they were recovering from war-time restrictions they were faced with the advent of prohibition in America.

Gentlemen, my colleague, Mr. Hoey, when speaking to you just after the Armistice I think foreshadowed a brighter future, but, although 12 months have since elapsed, it is only know that we are beginning to feel that the many restrictions – necessary, no doubt, for the carrying out of the war – are being removed. We are again allowed to manufacture our product, and more wonderful still in the last few days the Government, yielding to public outcry, have allowed to remove from bond the whiskey that is lying matured. In these circumstancs we meet today under a brighter aspect…

We have lost our United States trade, which was a big asset, and we can only hope that the good sense of the American people will see the folly of their elected representatives.

At the meeting company officials went, on one hand, to announce the business was on a “sound financial footing,” even announcing an 8% dividend as well as the transfer of £5,000 to a reserve fund, while on the other hand, they went on to enumerate a number of significant upcoming expenses.

The payment of the dividend and bonus will leave a substantial balance at the credit of profit and loss account, but out of this has to be paid the income-tax for the year 1919-20 in January next. It is also likely that a substantial payment will have to be made to the authorities for excess profits duty. A considerable sum will have to be paid for the restoration of the portion of the Comber Distillery which was destroyed by fire, and over and above the amount which was received from the insurance company…

Apparently, with the loss of the American market, they weren’t able to make things work and less than a year after that 1919 stockholder meeting proceedings to dissolve the company were initiated. Court records, “H. Edwards (H. M. Inspector of Taxes) vs. The Old Bushmills Company, Limited (in liquidation)” tell the story:

In February 1920, the company received an offer to purchase all their fully paid ordinary shares at a price of £3 per share, which offer was shortly afterwards raised to £3 10s per share. The offer was not accepted, and at an extraordinary general meeting of the company held on 9th July, 1920, it was resolved to wind up the company voluntarily, and Mr. Thomas R. Burns was duly appointed liquidator. The resolution was confirmed on 5th August, 1920.

A notice to that effect was published in the August 14, 1920 edition of”The Times.”

The court records went on to say:

In pursuance of this resolution the Comber Distillery was sold on 31st December, 1920, in its entirety with a portion of its stock. Owing to certain difficulties… the Old Bushmills Distillery was not put up for sale until March, 1921, when no offer of purchase was received. In the meantime, in order that he might be in a position to offer the distillery as a going concern, the liquidator continued distilling operations, though on a reduced scale up to March 1921. No whiskey was distilled after that date.

The liquidator continued to sell on behalf of the company the stocks of whiskey with all possible expedition, but owing to the difficulty of finding purchasers at any given time for more than a limited quantity of one brand of Irish whiskey, the sales extended over a period of more than two years.

That whiskey, in addition to landing locally, was apparently making its way to Canada where it was being advertised in the mid-1920’s, as evidenced by this August 12, 1925 ad found in Winnipeg’s “Free Press Evening Bulletin.”

At the same time, an April 8, 1925 story in London’s “Evening Standard,” made it clear that some of the Bushmills whiskey was making its way to the United States as well, albeit illegally.

The sale of bootleg liquor in New York has now reached the point of development where formal price lists are issued at regular intervals to customers. Places putting out these lists are known to so many people that it is almost unbelievable that the Prohibition enforcement agents do not know them, too.

I have before me as I write one of these lists. It contains one hundred and thirteen items of liquor… Prices, per case of dozen quarts are:

Note: the partial reproduction of the list shown above exhibits U.S. dollars on the left and the pound sterling on the right.

As far as I can tell, sometime after the liquidation wound up in March, 1923, the distillery was acquired by Samuel Wilson Boyd who, along with his sons, Wilson and Austen, would own and operate the distillery for the next 20 plus years. A story in the November 6, 1932 edition of the “Chicago Tribune” made it clear that by the early 1930’s the Boyd’s were positioning the distillery for the repeal of Prohibition in the United States.

GET READY FOR U. S. TO GO WET

Austen Boyd, chief of the century old Bushmills whiskey firm, returned today from America, where in anticipation of the United States going wet, he has made selling arrangements to cover America from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

“I have no doubt that prohibition will be wiped out or modified,” he said. “My firm has been manufacturing reserve whiskey for the last ten years in expectation of prohibition going by the board. A Roosevelt victory will speed the end of the bootlegger’s trade.”

Boyd’s selling arrangements in the United States certainly included the revival of the distillery’s previous arrangement with Alex D. Shaw who as early as 1935 ran a series of Bushmills advertisements under the heading “Four Greats.” One featuring “four great” leaders featured George Washington.

WASHINGTON – one of the world’s four great leaders

First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen.

OLD BUSHMILLS – one of the world’s four great whiskeys.

First in quality, first in taste, first in the choice of its countrymen.

Other greats making the cut included Napoleon (General), Gibraltar (Fort), Empire State (Building), Man O’War (Racehorse) and Normandie (Ocean Liner)

As you might expect World War II resulted in another shut down of the distillery however, as early as 1945, a January 8th story in the “Liverpool Daily Post” announced that production was once again starting up.

Distilling in Northern Ireland is now being allowed on a basis of 33-1/3 percent of the average pre-war output. Bushmills distillery started production a few weeks ago. Comber has now started, and Coleraine distillery is ready.

Shortly after re-opening, the distillery was acquired by Sir Isaac Wolfson who, according to a March 7, 1962 story in the “Daily Telegraph,” operated it as a subsidiary of General Guarantee Corporation, a £12 million industrial group that was wholly owned by Wolfson family interests.

A March 17, 1950 advertisement in New York’s “Daily News” makes it clear that while ownership may have changed, the packaging of their whiskey had changed very little, if at all.

Wolfson owned and operated the distillery until 1964 when a July 17th London “Daily Herald” story announced Wolfson had sold the distillery business to Harrington United Breweries.

Sir Isaac Wolfson has sold his distillery for £1,550,000. It is called Old Bushmills and those that like Irish say that the whiskey is as smooth as silk.

It wasn’t strictly Sir Isaac’s. It belonged to his hire purchase finance company, General Guarantee Corporation. That, in turn, is owned by Drages and Sir Isaac is the master mind of both.

The buyers are Harrington United Breweries, who own nearly 3,000 pubs, bottling stores and off-licenses. For the Old Bushmills distillery they are paying £750,000 in cash and one million in Charrington shares…

Eight years later, an October 19, 1972 story in the “Burton Mail” announced that the business had been sold again.

Joseph Seagram and Sons, Inc., have completed acquisition of one Irish distilling company and the purchase of 15 per cent interest in another.

Seagrams, the U.S. subsidiary of Canada’s Distillers Corp, Seagrams Ltd., said they bought the Old Bushmills Distillery Co., Ltd. and had bought 1,603,284 new ordinary shares of Irish Distillers Groups Ltd.

They described Bushmills as the maker of the largest selling Irish whiskey in export markets and said Irish Distillers were the largest distillers group in Ireland.

The company said that, as part of the transactions, Seagrams agreed to sell Irish Distillers a 25 per cent interest in Old Bushmills.

As far as I can tell, when the dust settled, Seagrmas owned 75% of the business and Irish Distillers Groups, Ltd., the remaining 25 percent. Over the next several years it appears that Irish Distillers Ltd. continued to acquire a larger percentage of the business until a January 5, 1978 story in “The Guardian” announced that they had become the sole owner.

SEAGRAM, the big Canadian drinks giant, is selling its interest in one of the best known brands of Irish whiskey in a £1,200,000 shares deal. The group’s 20 per cent stake in Old Bushmills Distillery Company is being taken up by the existing 80 per cent shareholder Irish Distillers

Penrod and Ricard acquired Irish Distillers in 1988, later selling it to Diageo for £200 million. Ultimately, Diageo effectively traded the Bushmills business to Casa Cuervo in exchange for the Don Julio tequila brand. The deal was summarized in the November 3, 2014 edition of “The Standard.”

Spirits giant Diageo agreed with Mexico’s Casa Cuervo to gain control of tequila brand Don Julio in return for Irish whiskey Bushmills.

Diageo will take control of the remaining 50% of Don Julio that it does not already own and receive a $408 million payment from Mexico’s Beckmann family when the deal completes next year. Bushmills will be sold to the Beckmann’s Jose Cuervo Overseas.

Today, Proximo Spirits owns both Jose Cuervo and Bushmills.

The bottle I found was blown in a mold, roughly 2-3/4 inches square in cross section and contains a fifth of a gallon.

The base is embossed “N & Co (STH) Ltd.,” which I suspect represents the glass factory of Nutall & Co., located in St. Helens, Lancashire, England. According to a paper compiled by Bill Lockhart, Beau Schriever, Bill Lindsey and Carol Serr, found on the Society of Historical Archeology’s Bottle Website, Nutall & Co. was in business from approximately 1871 to 1913. Furthermore, they suspect the company became a limited corporation in 1900. More on Nutall & Co. can be found on the SHA website at the following link. http://sha.org/bottle/pdffiles/Nutall.pdf

This suggests the bottle was manufactured between 1900 when Nutall & Co. incorporated and their 1913 end date. Consequently it was likely imported to the U. S. by the Alex D. Shaw Company during this time. It certainly resembles the bottles pictured in turn of the century Shaw advertisements.

Today’s version is not all that much different.

Strauss, Pritz & Co., Distillers, Cincinnati, Ohio “Lewis 66”

Lewis “66”was a brand of whiskey whose name is derived from a mid-19th century distillery owner named Alpheus Lewis who conducted his business in Clark County, Kentucky under the name A. Lewis & Son. That being said, much of the whiskey produced under the Lewis “66” name was not actually produced by Alpheus Lewis & Son. A history of Clark County, Kentucky entitled the “Clark County Chronicles,” conducted by the Clark County Historical Society and published in the August 2, 1923 edition of the “Winchester Sun,” sets the stage for the Lewis “66” story.

At one time Alpheus Lewis had a large mill and distillery on his place, the latter being conducted under the name of A. Lewis & Son (William Lewis) and the brand of A. Lewis & Son became very noted for its purity and excellence. It is said that on the dissolution of the firm, after the death of Alpheus Lewis (in 1865), only about forty barrels of the brand remained in the warehouse and of this twenty barrels were purchased by a rectifier, who converted it into over fifty thousand barrels by putting a spoonful of the A. Lewis & Son brand into each barrel of cheaper whiskey and selling it all over the country as A. Lewis & Son’s Clark County 1866 and large gilt signs bearing this name were displayed in the hotel bars all over the country.

Many years afterwards a Hebrew firm in Cincinnati built a distillery on the Licking River and made and advertised a brand which they called A Lewis & Son’s Clark County 1866 Rye and sold thousands of barrels under this label, though the goods had never been in Clark County and A. Lewis & Son never made a gallon of rye whiskey in their lives.

As you’ll see, it’s certain that Strauss, Pritz & Company was the Cincinnati firm referenced in the above story. It’s also possible that the company was the rectifier who earlier had diluted the 20- barrel lot into 50,000 barrels.

A wholesale whiskey dealer and distiller, Strauss, Pritz & Co. was established by brothers Solomon and Benjamin Pritz along with their brother-in-law, Isaac Strauss. (Note: at times Strauss used the first initial of “J” in lieu of “I,” a common occurrence with German names at the time).

In 1873 – 74 Cincinnati directories associated both Strauss and Benjamin Pritz with another whiskey dealer, Senior, Strauss & Co., located at 103 Sycamore Street. At the same time Solomon W. Pritz was listed with the occupation “clerk,” at the southwest corner of 3rd and Race Streets, the address of dry goods firm Louis Stix & Co.

Shortly afterwards, the three got together and formed Strauss, Pritz & Company. The announcement appeared in the January 9, 1875 edition of the Cincinnati Enquirer.

The above announcement read:

Mr. J. Strauss, late of the firm of Senior, Strauss & Co., has this day associated himself with Mr. S. W. Pritz, late with Louis Stix & Co., and Mr. B. Pritz, late with Senior, Strauss & Co., under the firm name of Strauss, Pritz & Co., and will carry on the Distillery and Wholesale Liquor Business at No. 58 West Second Street, between Vine and Walnut.

The announcement was dated January 7, 1874 however it appeared almost exactly one year later in the January 9, 1875 edition of the Enquirer. As a result, it’s not exactly clear whether the business actually started in 1874 or 1875. Suffice to say the business was certainly up and running in April of 1875 when the manifest of a ship called the “Andy Baum,” on a run from Memphis to Cincinnati, included “two barrels, whisky” destined for Strauss & Pritz. ( 2nd last line). The manifest was published in the April 13, 1875 edition of the “Cincinnati Enquirer.”

A year later, a notice published in several September, 1876 editions of the “Cincinnati Enquirer” made it clear that their inventory of whiskey brands was growing well beyond those two barrels delivered from Tennessee on the “Andy Baum.”

The company’s increasing inventory in those early years is evidenced by this February 7, 1878 feature describing the business published in the “Cincinnati Enquirer.”

Strauss, Pritz & Co., No. 58 West Second Street, distillers and wholesale dealers in Bourbon and Rye whiskies, a firm composed of I. Strauss, S. W. Pritz and B. Pritz have been in the business for several years, and handle whiskies by the hundreds of thousands of gallons annually, the books in the Collector’s office showing a gradually increasing business with each year. Their warehouse is five stories in height arranged especially for their business, and is all the time kept filled with “straight goods” directly from the distilleries. They make fine old whiskies a specialty, a specialty in which they are unusually successful. Among the goods may be found the well known and justly celebrated brands of “McBrayer,” “Bond & Willard,” “Vanausdall,” Mellwood & Taylor,” and many others of less repute, perhaps, but of qualities superior to most of the brands known on the market. And it is well to say that all of their goods are reliable. In this warehouse may be found whiskies, in quantity, from all ages, running from one year old to through all the years up to ten, and even some older, perfect nectars. They do an extensive business throughout the East, West and South, a business built up by the quality of their goods, the manner in which they conduct their business, and the further fact that each partner has charge of a department to which he is specially fitted by experience and education. They are careful, energetic, pushing gentlemen, and bid fair to take a leading position at a very early day. Being cash purchasers they get close bargains, and are able to sell their goods “low down” and control the best that comes to the market. They continually carry large stocks in bond. A short notice cannot do proper justice to this firm, as on which increases the notoriety of Cincinnati goods and its importance as a market.

The increase in both brands and volume apparently increased the demand for more physical space as well, forcing the company to move twice in the early 1880’s, first to 114 West Second Street in 1880 and again, circa 1882, to 32 & 34 Main Street. By then, the company also maintained a warehouse in nearby Lawrenceburg, Kentucky as evidenced by this November 8, 1882 business card advertisement published in the “Olney (Illinois) Times.”

It was also in the early 1880’s that I can first connect the “Lewis” name with Strauss, Pritz & Co. As early as 1881, the company purchased a lot of Lewis & Sons 1866 sour mash from a dealer named James Boyle. The purchase was noted in the March 4, 1881 edition of the “Cincinnati Enquirer”

Large Sale of Fifteen – Year-Old Whisky

With this I wish to inform my friends that I have sold my entire lot of Lewis & Sons’ Clark County, Kentucky, Sour Mash, distilled in January 1866, to Strauss, Pritz & Co., 114 West Second Street, this city. Parties who desire to obtain some of these goods are referred to them. John Boyle.

We have heard of several extensive purchases of old whiskies that this firm has made, and understand they hold one of the largest stocks of fine straight whiskies in this market.

The above “Cincinnati Enquirer” story certainly identified the lot as an 1866 Lewis product but what’s not clear, at least to me, is whether the story was referencing the 20-barrel lot mentioned in the Historical Society story, making Strauss, Pritz & Co. the rectifier who later diluted it into 50,000 barrels, or a lot that had already been diluted by others. Either way, by 1881 the company was almost certainly selling a diluted version of the original 1866 Lewis sour mash product. Around the same time, but certainly by 1883, the company was also calling themselves the “sole proprietor” of “A. Lewis & Son’s 1866 goods,”as evidenced by this May 25, 1883 item found in “Bonfort’s Wine and Spirit Bulletin.”

Messrs Strauss, Pritz & Co. have been making the handling of old whiskies a leading feature in their business, and buyers looking for old goods will do well to apply to them for quotations. They are the sole proprietors of A. Lewis & Son’s 1866 goods.

As early as 1884 they were marketing a whiskey under the A. Lewis & Sons 1866 name as evidenced by this February 15, 1884 advertisement published in the “Little Falls (Minn.) Transcript.”

A year later advertisements in several editions of the South Bend (Indiana) Tribune” announced you could buy it in South Bend by the case or bottle.

Not long afterwards an advertisement run by a local retailer, was one of the first to shorten the whiskey’s name to simply the “Famous Lewis 66.” The ad appeared in the November 26, 1887 edition of the “Valdosta (Ga.) Times.”

Up to this point it’s still not clear to me whether they’re selling the diluted version of the original sour mash product or had begun manufacturing their own rye under the Lewis name. That being said, their rye was certainly on the market in 1891 when it was included in this menu of whiskies offered by the Savannah Grocery Company’s Liquor Department. The menu, partially reproduced below, was published in the September 4th edition of the “Savannah Morning News.”

So, suffice to say, sometime between 1883 and 1891 Strauss, Pritz & Co. began making the rye referenced in the Historical Society’s story.

On a side note: As early as 1885, both Isaac Strauss and Solomon Pritz were serving as directors of Kentucky’s Commonwealth Distillery, so while they didn’t build a distillery as stated in the Historical Society’s story, they certainly had the resources to produce whiskey, a supposition reinforced by this business card advertisement published in the February 26, 1892 edition of the “Bourbon News.”

In 1898 Strauss, Pritz & Co. moved from their long time Cincinnati location on Main Street to another Cincinnati location at 909 and 911 Sycamore Street. The announcement appeared in the “Cincinnati Enquirer” on March 15, 1898.

The negotiations that were mentioned in the Enquirer, by which the large wholesale whisky house of Strauss, Pritz & Co. was to secure a more commodious uptown location have been completed, and the removal will take place before the 1st of May. The six-story building at Nos. 909 and 911 Sycamore Street, recently erected by Lauretta B. Gibson, is the place in question, it being leased for a term of years. The building is 96 by 46 feet, and will be one of the most complete distilling and wholesale whisky establishments in the city, when occupied. The concern is at present at Nos. 52 and 54 Main Street.

Shortly after the move this Lewis 66 advertisement appeared in the December 28, 1899 edition of Columbus Georgia’s “Ledger-Enquirer.” It caught my eye for its poetic form as well as the historical context.

Much the company’s newspaper advertising in the early 1900’s focused on the southern states, primarily Georgia, Alabama and Florida where in 1912 they ran a series of advertisements under the heading “AWAY ABOVE EVERYTHING” in which they tied their whiskey to some of the most famous people and feats of the era. One found in the August 25, 1912 edition of the “Atlanta Constitution” featured baseball’s Honus (Hans) Wagner – The Flying Dutchman. It read, in part:

When the National League official averages for 1911 were issued, Hans Wagner ranked “King of Swat,” with a batting credit of .334 – for the eighth time the hitting premier of his league. Nobody ever approached the hitting record of the Pittsburgh Pirate – big, whole-souled and modest.

There has been no let-down in the long quality record of Lewis 66 Rye, which for nearly fifty years has ranked as America’s premier whiskey.

Another, found in the Constitution’s January 12, 1912 edition, focused on New York City’s Woolworth Building, then under construction.

Fifty-Five stories and a big tower rise 750 feet above the sidewalk. Main building, twenty-nine stories high is to be equipped with thirty-four elevators. The foundations rest on solid rock 110 to 130 feet below the sidewalk level. The task of building will be completed late in 1912.

Towering away above the many brands of ordinary whiskey, ranks Lewis 66 Rye. Its tremendous sales are founded on the rock of quality. It is the accepted “Standard Whiskey of the South” – best for any and all purposes.

If we use their newspaper advertising as a guide the popularity of Lewis 66 Rye likely peaked between 1906 and 1914 after which it appears looming prohibition began to take its toll. Beginning in 1915 Strauss, Pritz & Co. newspaper advertisements dropped off sharply and over the next three years the company reduced its capital stock three times. The first was announced in the June 10, 1915 edition of the “Cincinnati Enquirer.”

The Strauss, Pritz Company has reduced its capital stock from $750,000 to $633,000. Papers to that effect were filed with the Secretary of State at Columbus yesterday.

Later, additional reductions were announced; $633,000 to $408,000 in January, 1918 and $408,000 to $51,600 in June of 1918. By this time the company had apparently moved from their long-time 909-911 Sycamore Street location to what appears to be simply an office suite at 703 (later 102) Union Trust Building.

Ultimately in June, 1919 the company scheduled a stockholders meeting for the purpose of dissolving the corporation. That announcement appeared in the June 28, 1919 edition of the Enquirer.

I don’t see the company listed in the 1919 – 1920 Cincinnati directory.

While production of Lewis 66 ceased during the prohibition years, the whiskey did make the newspapers from time to time. This story of one surviving bottle of Lewis 66 appeared in Greensboro, North Carolina’s “News and Record” on October 23, 1925.

BOTTLE OF LEWIS 66 SACRIFICED IN SEWER

Poured Out With 25 Gallons of Evidence – Sixty More Gallons Locked Up

The contents of a genuine bottle of “Lewis 66” went down the lavatory pipe at the police station yesterday, poured out with about 25 gallons of liquor that had been seized.

It was real Lewis 66, several persons testified. They were permitted to smell the empty bottle and they said they knew. Some would have been made a present of the pint, with its bonded certification, but liquor is neither given away nor sold at the station, so down into the sewer it went.

It brought back old memories to some of the bystanders. It had been a long time since they had seen anything like it.

This particular bottle was found in the possession of A. F. Jones, of Proximity, who was tried yesterday on a charge of possession but the charge against him was not pressed upon payment of the costs…

Prohibition proved to be the end of Strauss, Pritz & Co., however, it was certainly not the end of the Lewis 66 brand. Immediately after its repeal barrels of Lewis 66 made by Strauss, Pritz & Co. in 1916 and 1917 resurfaced, were bottled and apparently sold to wholesalers. The notice of sale appeared in the “Cincinnati Enquirer” on November 18, 1933.

Not long after, a whiskey was being produced and sold under the Lewis 66 name by The Great Western Distilling Company. The company’s incorporation notice appeared in the May 15, 1934 edition of the “Cincinnati Enquirer.”

Three years later they were selling a three-year old bourbon and rye blend as Lewis 66, as evidenced by this July 28, 1937 advertisement that appeared in the “Selma (Alabama) Times-Journal.”

Newspaper advertisements suggest the Western Reserve Co. sold Lewis 66 for at least ten years, with one of the last ads I can find appearing in the March 7, 1947 edition of “The Macon (Ga.) Telegraph.”

That being said, the brand name went on to survive for another 20 plus years as “Lewis 66 Reserve.” In the early to mid 1950’s advertisements associated the brand with the Rocky Ford Distilling Co. of Frankfurt, Kentucky.

Later, in the late 1950’s to early 1960’s, advertisements associated JTS Brown’s Son, Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, with the brand. Lewis 66 Reserve continued to appear in advertised liquor store price lists as late as 1973.

The six-story building at 909 and 911 Sycamore Street that housed Strauss, Pritz & Co. from 1898 to 1917 apparently remains to this day. It currently houses a mental health clinic. The following photos of today’s version are courtesy of “Google Maps.”

The bottle I found is a half-pint, mouth blown flask with screw threads and a ground finish. Clear glass, it exhibits a purple tint suggesting that the glass was decolorized by the presence of manganese dioxide. According to the Society of Historic Archeology’s bottle web site manganese dioxide was used for this purpose prior to World War I, likely dating the bottle to 1915 or earlier, a time when Lewis 66 Rye was heavily advertised.

The cap is long gone but must have been almost identical to the one pictured below that I found on a similar whiskey flask from the same era.

Elfers & Otterstedt, 529 – 9th Ave., New York

Elfers & Otterstedt was a local saloon business run by two German immigrants, Dederich (sometimes Diederich) Elfers and Henry Otterstedt.

Otterstedt was born in 1866 and arrived in the United States sometime between 1880 (1910 census) and 1883 (1900 census). As early as 1883 he was in the liquor business with his brother, Frederick, under the name Otterstedt Brothers at 67 Hudson Street. They’re listed that way in the New York City directories as late as 1889.

Sometime around 1890 Henry Otterstedt moved to Brooklyn where throughout much of the 1890’s and early 1900’s he was listed in the Brooklyn directories with the occupation “grocer.” Addresses he used during this time include 6th Ave. c. 12th St. (circa 1894 to 1897), 108 5th Ave. (circa 1899 to 1901) and 867 Fulton St. (circa 1902 to 1903.)

By mid-decade Otterstedt was back in Manhattan and in business with Dederich Elfers. Census records in 1910 list Elfers’ arrival in the United States as 1891, but I can’t find any information on him prior to 1907 when the New York City Copartnership and Corporation Directory named both Elfers and Otterstedt as partners in the firm of D. H. Elfers & Co., located at 929 Ninth Avenue.

Later that year the business incorporated under the name of “Elfers & Otterstedt.” Their incorporation notice was published in the September 6, 1907 edition of the “New York Times.”

The next year, the 1908 Copartnership and Corporation Directory listing named Otterstedt, president; Elfers, treasurer and August Roffmann, secretary. According to the June 14, 1971 obituary of Elfers’ wife, Pauline, published in the “Mount Vernon (N.Y.) Argus,” the secretary and third named director, August Roffmann, was Elfers’ father-in-law.

The company continued to be listed in the New York City directories up through 1918, always at the 529 Ninth Avenue address. Census records in 1910 also have Elfers and Otterstedt living at that address with the occupations of “bartender – saloon'” and “storekeeper – saloon,” respectively. This all leads me to believe that both lived in apartments above the street level saloon, a supposition that’s supported by the building that’s located there today. A four story walk-up with a commercial store at ground level, according to streeteasy.com, it was built in 1900 so it’s the same building that housed the saloon.

The business was almost certainly a victim of national prohibition. In 1920 the NYC Directory indicates Elfers still lived at that location but with “no occupation.” At the same time, Elfers & Otterstedt was no longer listed. Census records in 1930 through 1950 list Elfers as a real estate agent living further north in upper Manhattan. According to his August 24th obituary in the “Mount Vernon Argus,” Elfers passed away on August 22, 1959.

Otterstedt moved back to Brooklyn where census records listed his occupation as “agent.” in 1920 and “retired” in 1930.

The bottle I found is a mouth blown liquor flask containing roughly a half-pint. It certainly dates to the years the saloon was in operation, 1907 to sometime in the late teens. Mouth blown it likely skews toward the earlier side of this period.

One hundred plus years ago the flask likely passed through the front door of what is now a smoke shop before making its way to the Long Island bays.

Ch. Bleyert, 223 – 8th Ave., New York

Born in 1855, census records from 1920 identify Charles Bleyert as a German immigrant who arrived in the United States in 1880. As far as I can tell Bleyert spent the next 40 years in New York City’s Borough of Manhattan working at various times as a sales agent and shopkeeper.

Bleyert was initially listed in the 1883 New York City directory as a clerk living on Manhattan’s 2nd Street. Then over the next four years he listed his occupation as an “agent,” located at two different addresses; 135 East 59th St. (circa 1883 to 1885) and 235 East 33rd St. (circa 1886 to 1888.)

Sometime, circa 1888, Bleyert moved to 223 Eighth Avenue (between 21st and 22nd Streets) where he remained for the next 16 years primarily listing his occupation in the directories as “liquors,” though he sometimes used the occupation of “grocer” instead. At the same time he also continued to serve as a local selling agent for at least one patent medicine, a product called “DePlagnol’s Austrian Liniment.” This newspaper advertisement for the liniment naming Bleyert as a local agent appeared in the September 25, 1890 edition of the “Brooklyn Daily Times.”

All this leads me to believe Bleyert’s business served as a general store that sold a variety of items that included liquor, various patent medicines and groceries among other things.

Sometime in 1904 Bleyert moved further north where, over the next three years, he was listed as a grocer in upper Manhattan with an address of 58 West 116th Street.

By 1908 he had apparently given up the store and was working as a broker/salesman in the liquor business while living at 318 West 116th Street. Census records still listed him at that address with the occupation “salesman – wholesale wine” in 1920.

There’s no mention of Bleyert in either the 1922 or 1925 New York City directories so it’s likely he fell victim to national prohibition. By then he would have been in his late 60’s so it’s possible he either retired and moved on or passed away.

The bottle I found is a mouth blown liquor flask that contained a “Full Measure 1/2 Pint.” It exhibits the 223 Eighth Avenue address dating it between 1888 and 1904, the 16 year period that Bleyert used that address.

Munro, Dalwhinnie, Scotland, Square Bottle Whisky

Munro’s Square Bottle Whisky was blended and bottled at Scotland’s Dalwhinnie Distillery beginning sometime in the early 1920’s. It certainly made its way across the Atlantic during National Prohibition and also may have been available legally for a short time after its repeal.

Its story however begins just before the turn of the century with the establishment of the Strathspey Distillery Company. The announcement of the company’s incorporation appeared in the January 27, 1897 edition of the “Aberdeen Weekly Journal and General Advertiser.”

JOINT STOCK COMPANIES IN SCOTLAND.- Seven new joint stock companies were registered in Scotland this week… The new companies include – The Strathspey Distillery Company , Limited, for the purpose of carrying out the business of distillers, maltsters and wine and spirits merchants with a capital of £12,000 in £5 shares.

Another story in the same newspaper described the site selected for the company’s new distillery like this:

Further testimony to the continued briskness in the Highland whisky trade is found in the fact that another distillery is to be erected in the Badenach district of Upper Speyside, the first in that quarter having been opened only two or three weeks ago at Kinggussie. The one now contracted for is to be situated close to the Dalwhinnie Station, one of the highest points on the Highland Railway, and only a short distance from the summit-level. It will be the highest in Scotland, in point of elevation, and also the furthest inland, being almost equidistant from sea to sea. The water from which the whisky will be made rises at an elevation of about 3,000 feet above sea level, and after tumbling down various defiles will enter the mash tubs at a height of about 2,000 feet above sea level. The burn is called Allt-na-Slochd. There is no arable land within miles of it, nor a single inhabited house from its source to the junction with the river Truim, some miles above its confluence with the Spey. With ample stretches of peat moss all-round the works, and the railway siding close at hand, the site could hardly be excelled. The buildings are to be of a substantial character to stand the rigors of this high altitude.

In connection with the distillery are offices, and manager and workmen’s houses of a neat and attractive character. It is to be called the Strathspey Distillery, and the cost will amount to about £10,000.

In financial trouble from the start, less than two years later the October 26, 1898 “Aberdeen Weekly Journal and General Advertiser” announced the distillery had been sold.

Mr. A. P. Blyth, Craighall, Bonnington, managing director of Messrs John Somerville & Co., Limited, distillers, Leith, has purchased for his son the Strathspey Distillery, Dalwhinnie, Inverness-shire. The name of the firm will be A. P. Blyth & Son…

Renamed “Dalwhinnie, the distillery’s financial woes apparently continued and in 1901 this March 21st “Liverpool Mercury” story announced that the business was in receivership.

The Great Scottish Distillery Failure – A meeting of the creditors of A. P. Blyth & Son, distillers, Dalwhinnie Distillery, Inverness-shire, was held at Edinburgh, yesterday, when it was stated that the liabilities amounted to about £80,000. The assets so far had not been definitely ascertained, but were understood to be large. The firm is stated to have been affected by the recent depression in the Scottish whisky trade, and the banks are creditors for large amounts. Mr. C. J. Munro, C. A., Edinburgh, was appointed trustee.

Later that year, the distillery was offered for sale as evidenced by this notice published in the June 15, 1901 edition of the “Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser.”

INVERNESS-SHIRE – HIGHLAND DISTILLERY FOR SALE

There will be sold by PUBLIC ROUP, at Dowell’s Rooms, No. 18 George Street, Edinborough, on Wednesday, 26th June, 1901, at half past two o’clock, afternoon:

DALWHINNIE DISTILLERY, situated in Glentruim, and near Dalwhinnie, in the County of Inverness, and WHOLE PLANT thereof, and also a right (practically exclusive) to take peats from the adjoining Peat Moss, extending to 150 acres or thereby…

The Distillery has at present a working capacity of fully 120,000 gallons per annum, and has been so constructed that at a comparatively small cost this production could be nearly doubled…

The Ground consists of 10 acres held under perpetual fen, the small Fen-duty being £100. The extent of the ground is ample for the present or prospective requirements of the Distillery. UPSET PRICE £9,000

Apparently there were no takers and the distillery was “re-exposed for sale” several times with the price continually dropping until on May 21, 1904 the upset price listed in the “Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser” was £2,000. Four months later, the September 30, 1904 edition of the “Perthshire Advertiser.” announced that the distillery ultimately sold for “some £1,500.”

The sale was referenced in this September 30, 1904 edition of “The (London) Guardian.”

A correspondent says a sensation has been caused in the Scott whisky trade by the announcement that the Dalwhinnie Distillery has been purchased by the Cook & Bernheimer Company of New York, one of the largest and most enterprising of the American Distilling companies… The object of the Cook and Bernheimer Company is apparently to secure the large and increasing trade in Scotch whisky which is being done in America.

Cook & Bernheimer operated the Dalwhinnie Distillery under the name of their U.K. subsidiary, James Munro & Son. Less than three months after the purchase, a Munro blend named “Long & Short” had reached the United States as evidenced by this December 15, 1904 advertisement in the “New York Sun.” The ad named Cook & Bernheimer as the brand’s sole agent in the U. S.

Around the same time Cook & Bernheimer was also marketing a domestic rye called “Mount Vernon.” It was put up in a square bottle with a bulging neck that appears to match exactly our subject bottle.

That being said, the square bottle was a unique means of distinguishing “Mount Vernon” Rye from other brands of rye so as far as I can tell Cook & Bernheimer did not market “Long & Short” in the same shaped bottle. This is further supported by a a 1907 advertisement in “Osborn’s Annual Guide to Agencies, Hand Book of Useful Information and Club List” that specifically shows “Long & Short” in a cylindrical bottle.

In the late teens, on the eve of National Prohibition, the Dalwhinnie Distillery was sold to Macdonald, Greenlees & Williams of Leith, who maintained the James Murno & Son name.

It was apparently under MacDonald Greenlees & Williams that Cook & Bernheimer’s square bottle was resurrected, this time for a blend of the Munro scotch and, in 1921, patents for “Munro’s Square Bottle Scotch Whisky” we’re applied for in both New Zealand (August 1921)

and Canada (September 1921)

Legally available in other parts of the world, a December 20,1926 “New York Daily News” story, published under the headline “RUM DELUGE 100,000 CASES A WEEK FLOWS INTO CITY TO BRIGHTEN YULE, made it clear that the Scotch was also making its way into the United States, albeit illegally. A photo accompanying the story showed an array of smuggled brands that included a “Munro’s Square Bottle Scotch Whisky.” It’s right up front in the middle.

The caption under the photo read:

“White Horse,” “Hennessy,” “Munro’s” – O boy! Don’t even the names make you thirsty? Here’s a prime exhibit of the kind of stuff that is being landed in New York, despite the efforts of our enforcement machinery to keep it out.

In case you’re interested the story also included this table listing the cost of a bootlegged bottle of “Munro’s Square Scotch” at $8.00.

At the end of Prohibition a newly formed U. S. corporation called the Epicure Wine $ Spirits Company named themselves as Munro & Sons’ distributor in the United States. This December 30, 1933 Epicure advertisement in the Buffalo News touted “Square Bottle” along with another Munro blend, “King of Kings.” The ad reads in part:

Orders will be accepted from the trade for shipment of the above to States where and when the sale of liquor is legal, subject to import quotas.

Shortly afterwards the brands disappear from U S newspaper advertisements, certainly the result of a fire that, according to scotlandwhisky.com, closed the distillery for several years. The fire was reported in the February 3, 1934 edition of the “Perthshire Advertiser.”

Perth Fire Brigade made a thrilling dash across the Grampians on Thursday morning to an outbreak at Dalwhinnie Distillery, which is situated five miles north of the Perthshire-Inverness boundary.

Apparently the fire originated in the boiler room and spread so quickly that soon the whisky in the still-room was ablaze. A full granary separated the fire from the bond room, and there was a danger that the flames might reach the £1,500,000 worth of whisky casks.

Inverness Fire Guard refused to answer the call on account of the distance and at seven o’clock a request for aid was made to Perth. Firemaster W. J. Paterson summoned his men, and one and three quarters hours later they were at the scene of the fire 58 miles from Perth. They soon had the flames in subjection, but the total damage to buildings and whisky amounts to about £12,000. The boiler-house, mill-room, malt deposit, still-house, malt mill and wash-house were all destroyed and about 3,000 gallons of whisky were lost.

Whether any “Square Bottle Scotch” made it legally to the United States prior to the fire is not clear, but if it did it certainly wasn’t in large quantities.

According to scotlandwhisky.com the distillery reopened in 1938 after a four year closure, then, shortly afterwards was closed again as a result of war time restrictions.

Now part of Diageo, the distillery is still active to this day. More on the history of the Dalwhinnie Distillery can be found at: http://scotlandwhisky.com/distilleries/dalwhinnie

The bottle I found is square with a bulbous neck, a shape that dates back to the Cook & Bernheimer days. Machine made its embossing includes the embossed Munro blend called “Square Bottle Whisky,” dating it between 1921 and 1934. It likely arrived in the U. S. illegally during prohibition.

Hartwig Kantorowicz, Posen, Germany

Established by Hartwig Kantorowicz, his liquor factory of the same name was located in Posen, Germany. Throughout much of the 1800’s and early 1900’s it was operated by three different generations of the Kantorowicz family. Once the largest and most important liquor factory in Germany, one history of the company summarized their turn of the century operation like this:

Around 1900, the Hartwig Kantorowicz liqueur factory was known world-wide and about as famous as Mercedes Benz or Coca Cola are today. In addition to liqueurs, fruit juices and jams were now also produced and sold on a large scale. It had its own line of cognac and whiskey with at least 50 different products, and German and international wines were also sold in large quantities. The company probably had around 1,000 different products in their portfolio.

The above quote was found on the web site of a liquor company called Alrich. They produce liquors from historical original recipes and their website includes the history of former liquor factories, one of which is Hartwig Kantorowiz. As a preface to the following post, quotes not specifically cited otherwise were found on the English translation of the Alrich website. https://www.alrich.eu

Born in 1806, Hartwig was the son of Joachim Bernard Kantorowicz who was the owner of a brewery and distillery in Posen that dated back to 1782. At a young age, Hartwig went into business for himself.

In a small house at Alter Market No. 10, the then 17 year old Hartwig Kantorowitcz modestly opened a retail distillation shop and initially offered a small selection of popular drinks at the time.

Advertisements published years later generally recognized 1823 as the year Hartwig founded the business.

Over the next quarter century the growth of the business ultimately led him to construct a new distillery in Posen at Wronkerstrasse No. 6

When a few years later, his business had experienced very good growth despite a variety of competition (there were 30 other distillery shops in Poznan around 1825) he moved it to the house at Wronkerstrasse No. 4 north of the town hall. A few years later the business expanded again and in 1843 it was relocated to Wronkerstrasse No. 6…A two-story building was erected in the yard of the property, where, among other things, a large new copper distillation plant could be put into operation…Around 1850 the total value of the company was estimated at around 75,000 thalers (the annual wage of a worker was around 200 thalers).

The following depicts the street front of the building at Wronkerstrasse No. 6 with their sign clearly visible above the entrance.

A biography of Hartwig Kantorowicz’s grandson entitled “Ernst Kantorowicz, A Life” written by Robert E. Lerner and published in 2017, described two of Hartwig’s mid 1800’s concoctions.

A document of 1862 referred to two of Hartwig Kantorowicz’s products: Kummelliqueur” and “Goldwassercreme.” The first, otherwise known as “Allasch,” was made primarily from caraway seeds, the second from an essence based on a mixture of herbs such as anise, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and peppermint (and always plenty of sugar).

It was also sometime in the 1860’s that Hartwig added the famous “Litthauer Bitters” to his menu.

In 1864, Hartwig hired the assistant Josef Loewenthal, who was trained as a journeyman distiller. He developed, probably on behalf of his employer , the very famous herbal bitter Litthauer Meganbitter, which he later marketed himself in Berlin and Cleveland.

After Hartwig’s death in 1871, management of the business passed on to three of his sons, Max (1843-1904), Edmund (1846-1904), and Joseph (1848-1919).

Under the management of the sons, the Hartwig Kantorowicz liqueur factory was constantly expanded. In the years 1871 and 1882 further buildings were erected, in which there was daily hustle and bustle. Building parts of different ages and sizes stood on the property, which in addition to the production areas, also housed an office wing, huge storage cellars, a carpentry shop and export rooms.

In 1895 the company added a retail shop and tasting room in Posen at Berliner Strasse 5, a view of which is presented below.

As early as 1874 the company had opened a Berlin branch and soon after was operating factories, warehouses and tasting rooms there as well.

By the 1880’s Hartwig Kantorowicz was exporting their liquors all over the world.

The company even delivered in the middle of the African bush. Letters from chiefs with liquor orders arrived, who also asked for other items to be sent, such as mouthwash, chocolate, clothespins, but also firearms – these were all sent at the same time. The goods were then paid for with mahogany blocks, palm kernels or palm oil. Since the Kantorowicz company had no use for it, a branch was opened at the port in Hamburg in order to “exchange” these things there for money.

Its clear that Hartwig Kantorowicz products were also making their way to America well before the turn of the century. According to the Lerner biography:

Sometime in the 1880’s he (Max) traveled to the United States to arrange for the regular exporting to Posen of fruit juices, which made for a more varied range of liqueurs. On the same trip he arranged for the regular purchase of California wines, which were extremely cheap, in order to introduce the sale of wines as a sideline to the Kantorowicz business. So far as is known, Max was the first to introduce California wines to Europe.

It would make sense that at the same time he was arranging for the importing of California’s fruit juice and wine to Posen, he was also arranging for the export of Hartwig Kantorowicz liquors to the United States. A supposition that’s bolstered by the fact that the earliest U.S. newspaper advertisements for Hartwig Kantorowicz that I can find appeared in several 1883 editions of California’s “San Francisco Chronicle.” The following was published in the May 24, 1883 edition.

Throughout the 1890’s, the company apparently increased their focus on the United States. This is supported by their advertisement that appeared in an 1897 German publication entitled the “Directory of German Export Co.’s.” that bragged:

Specialties known in nearly all transatlantic countries.

The ad went on to include a menu of their specialty products that was printed in both German (on the left) and English (on the right).

In the United States, up through 1898 they apparently did business with local sales agents who typically marketed Hartwig Kantorowicz liquors under the generic term, “Cordials.” as evidenced by the following advertisement found in several 1896 editions of the “Buffalo (N.Y.) Commercial.”

Another advertisement, this one in the August 15, 1893 edition of the “Pharmaceutical Era” attached names to some of their cordials; Absinth, Blackberry, Creme de Minthe, Coca Liqueur Curacao, Kuemmel, Maraschino, Etc.

Advertisements for Litthauer Bitters continued to appear as well, with one January 24, 1894 ad in Washington D.C.’s “Evening Star” touting”

These world famous stomach bitters are unequalled for curing indigestion, flatulency, hysteria, colics, agues, colds, “La Grippe,” abdominal disorders, etc.

Around the turn of the century Hartwig Kantorowicz established a presence in New York City where the company was listed in the directories as liquor importers with an address of 32 Water Street. Likely a wholesale branch, the endeavor was short lived with the company only listed from roughly 1900 to 1903. No longer listed in the 1903/1904 directory, they apparently returned to the use of U.S. agents.

When Max and Edmund both passed away in 1904, Joseph Kantorowitcz, along with Max’s son Franz, became co-managers of the firm. Several years later continued growth demanded the construction of a new, modern factory.

Over the years, production continued to increase, so that the premises at Wronkerstrasse 6 gradually became too small.

The architect Martin Sonnabend was commissioned to build a new factory complex. The family bought a large piece of land on Sudstrasse opposite the slaughterhouse and cattle yard. After several years of construction, the company was able to move its headquarters to the more than 1,000 square meter production and administration building in 1908. The entire facility had a full basement and was built in reinforced concrete. It comprised four five-story factory buildings, several production and storage halls, all of which were connected to each other.

A pictorial representation of the complex, which also included housing for the workers is shown below.

Two years later when Joseph retired in 1910, the business was incorporated under the name “Hartwig Kantorowicz Actien-Gesellschaft.” Franz was named as director and a man named Hans Schuchard as managing director.

During World War I the business survived when providing supplies to the army compensated for the loss of foreign trade. After the war Franz, now living in Berlin, sold the business.

On the evening of November 5, 1920 he came from Berlin and sold the company for a total price of 20 million Reichsmarks, including 5 million Reichsmarks for the real estate alone, to the Unternehmerbank Posen. The contract…also included the handing over of the liqueur recipes, that had been closely guarded until then.

After the sale to the Unternehmerbank the company in Posen continued to exist under the name Hartwig Kantorowicz Folger AG from December 9, 1920.

They continued to produce liqueurs, other spirits, fruit juices and jams in Posen throughout much of the 1930’s. In fact, it appears that after Prohibition some of their product continued to make it’s way to the United States. An advertisement for their Vodka and Mountain Ash Brandy can be found in several 1936 editions of a Polish newspaper published in Omaha, Nebraska called “Gwiazda Zackodu.”

Ultimately in 1939 the Posen business was placed under German administration and during World War II their output went exclusively to the army.

After the war it operated as a stock company under the name “Obstdestillierie und Wodkafabrik Hartwig Kantorowicz SA” until September 18, 1951 at which time:

the entire alcohol production and thus also the Kantorowicz company was nationalized and placed under the central administration of the fruit and vegetable industry.

Meanwhile in Germany Franz Kantorowicz and Hans Schuchard continued to operate the former company’s German facilities.

After the sale of the parent company in Posen, the Hartwig Kantorowicz liqueur factory in Berlin remained a stock corporation and was temporarily located at Greifswalder Strasse 224 in 1919. The tasting rooms and the office continued to operate at their old locations.

Originally quite successful, in the early 1920’s they established a new German office and factory and:

In 1921 Kantorowicz had inventories worth 5.3 million Reichsmarks and a net profit of 3.2 million Reichsmarks.

That all changed with an economic crisis that began in 1925 and ultimately ended the Kantorowicz family’s long time association with the business.

It is highly probable that the sales and profits of Hartwig Kantorowicz AG had fallen so much between 1925 and 1927 that the company ran into difficulties and could only be saved by merging with the famous Berlin liqueur factory CAF Kahlbaum, which was also ailing. As part of the merger, the Kantorowicz family sold all their shares in the company…

The bottle I found is mouth blown, olive green in color and contains somewhere between a quart and a fifth. In addition to the company information embossed on the base, a unique trademark is embossed on the bottle’s shoulder. A trademark application included in U.S. patent records (No, 17889) described it as:

The representation of two triangles arranged to form a six-pointed star and a fish produced upon said star.

The U.S. trade mark application was filed on March 3, 1890 but the record indicates it had been in use since October 9, 1880, further suggesting that Hartwig Kantorowicz products began any significant appearance in the United States sometime in the early 1880’s.

The company used a wide variety of bottle styles.

From about 1880, the company also housed its own design department for bottles and labels and a packing station in which about 20 people worked. Large quantities of bottle labels were stored in a special room – there were always new designs so that, like in the fashion industry, the customer could always be addressed in a new way.

New bottle shapes were also constantly being invented, which were manufactured by various glassworks in the province of Posen, Silesia, Bohemia and the Kingdom of Saxony. There were always new bottle designs, such as round, square, triangular, bulbous, tower-like, pyramidal,shapes, but also small spiked helmets.

In the early 1900’s, the company employed at least 60 different bottle shapes all categorized by number. Our subject bottle closely, if not exactly, matches their Facon (Shape) Nr. 12.

Again thanks to Google Translate, the shape was referred to as the “Dutch Liqueurs Kind,” and was used for cherry brandy, curaçao, stoughton, half and half and anisette.

The bottle was produced in 860ml., 430ml., 120ml., and 60ml sizes. Our bottle is certainly 860ml.

Long John Scotch Whisky, Registered No. 702081

Produced in Scotland, the life span of the “Long John” brand of scotch whisky extends from the late 1820’s right up through today. Originally produced as a single malt, sometime around 1910 it transitioned to a blend.

As shown in the above photograph the subject bottle does not exhibit either a company name or product name. However it’s raised shield and rectangle exactly match a labeled Long John Scotch bottle recently offered for sale on the internet.

In addition the back of both bottles are embossed with the English patent registration number 702081.

As far as I can tell, the patent relates to the design of the bottle and, in fact, another example, also found on the internet, exhibits some rather ornate decoration.

According to the United Kingdom’s National Archives website, the patent number dates the design between 1922 (No. 694297) and 1926 (No. 719813). Interpolation between the two results in a 702081 patent date sometime in 1923.

That being said, the “Long John” name itself dates back almost 100 years earlier to the town of Fort William in the Scottish Highlands. Located at the base of Scotland’s highest mountain, Ben Nevis, the town was described like this in a publication entitled “Glasgow and its Environs,” published in 1891.

Fort William takes its name from the fort erected during the reign of William III, by General Monk, in order to overawe Cameron of Lochiel and his supporters. Within easy distance Ben Nevis towers above all its brother Bens, and attracts numerous ambitious visitors. It commands the waterway to Inverness and sits among the sublimest scenery.

This late 1800’s photograph of Fort William with Ben Nevis clearly visible in the background accompanied the description.

It was about one mile outside Fort William, at the Ben Nevis Distillery, where, what would become the “Long John” brand was first produced. Accounts written in the late 1800’s credit the scotch brand’s namesake, John MacDonald, as the distillery’s founder. This version found in “Glasgow and it’s Environs,” is typical.

The origin of the Ben Nevis Distillery was due to Mr. John MacDonald, who in 1825, founded the first enterprise of the kind in the Lochabar district.

To be fair, some later internet accounts, namely elitewineandwhisky.com, credit a man named Angus McDonnell with its founding, and go on to suggest that John MacDonald didn’t get involved with the distillery until sometime around 1830. There’s no dispute however, that by the early 183o’s John MacDonald was the proprietor.

An imposing figure, MacDonald stood 6′-4″ tall in his stocking feet earning him his “Long John” nickname. He also possessed a “bigger than life” reputation that is bolstered by an actual story that appeared in the October 4, 1838 edition of Edinburgh Scotland’s “Caledonian Mercury.” While a little lengthy, its certainly worth a read!

PERILOUS SITUATION OF THE DUCHESS OF BUCCLEUCH. – The young and beautiful Duchess of Buccleuch made a narrow escape last week, on the mountain of Ben Nevis. The Duke has been deer stalking in Badenoch; and the Duchess, on Monday last, undertook to ascend Ben Nevis, on foot, from Corpech Inn, at the western end of the Caledonian Canal. She was accompanied on the expedition by a young gentleman, a near relation of the Duke; and they took with them a guide, who proved subsequently imperfectly acquainted with the road. When on the summit of the mountain, the day, which had previously been fine, became hazy, and night was, at the same time, drawing on. The little party were soon enveloped in a dark mist, and the guide became perfectly bewildered. The Duchess, with a degree of moral courage, scarcely to have been anticipated in a young lady of delicate nurture and constitution, exerted herself to keep up the spirits of her companions, and to nerve them to preserve exertion. Her efforts would have been unavailing amid the wilderness of precipices and morasses – for who can say what would have been the effect of exposure to the inclement night air on so delicate a frame – but for the sagacious exertions of Mr. John M’Donald, proprietor of the Ben Nevis Distillery. The long delay of the Duchess had excited alarm, and the inhabitants of Fort William were mustering to the rescue, when Mr. M’Donald mounted his horse, and taking with him a large bell, cantered out into the night. The sound of the bell caught the ear of the wanderers, and the Duchess and her noble relative were, by this ingenious device, rescued from their dangerous situation. Mr. M’D’s plaid being converted into a temporary pack saddle, the noble lady was conveyed, in an almost exhausted state, to Fort William where “tired nature’s best restorer” effaced all traces of her toil…

“Long John”MacDonald served as proprietor of the distillery up through 1856 during which time, according to a story in the 1888 edition of “Wyman’s Commercial Directory,” he never produced more than 200 gallons per week. Though not a large operation, by the early 1840’s MacDonald’s whiskey was available in England as well as Scotland. The earliest English advertisement I can find appeared in the April 24, 1841 edition of “The Newcastle Journal.”

J. M’INTYRE,

WINE AND SPIRIT MERCHANT,

HIGH BRIDGE NEWCASTLE,

BEGS most respectfully to inform the Nobility, Gentry, and Inhabitants of Newcastle, Northumberland, Durham, and the adjoining Counties, that he has on Hand a large Stock of the justly famed BEN NEVIS WHISKEY, which is well known to be the best made in the Highlands. The Quality of the Water that this fine Whiskey is made with – the skillful Management of Mr. M’Donald, the Distiller, is too well known to require any further Remarks. Families will be convinced by a single Trial, that Ben Nevis Dew is truly a Medicine.

J.M’ACINTYRE flatters himself that he is the only Agent in England that has this fine Article for Sale: Families wishing a large quantity, if preferred, can be supplied direct from the Distillery, by making early Application.

These early newspaper advertisements typically referred to MacDonald’s scotch as “Ben Nevis Whiskey,” a name that according to “Wyman’s Commercial Directory,” he alone could rightfully claim.

…there is no other whisky manufactory within a radius of 50 miles to contest Mr. MacDonald’s sole right to the use of the name Ben Nevis.

By the late 1840’s some advertisements began to attach the name “Long John” to his Ben Nevis product. One of the earliest I could find was this April 28, 1848 item that called it “Long John’s celebrated Ben Nevis Whiskey.” It appeared in the “The Newcastle Weekly Courant.”

By the 1850’s, more and more advertisements were also referring to it as the “Dew Off Ben Nevis,” as evidenced by this ad that appeared in the December, 1850 editions of several English newspapers.

The above advertisement promoted the “Dew Off Ben Nevis” as a favorite of the Royal Family, in this case Prince Albert. Whether this was actually true or not I can’t say, but, true or not, MacDonald wasn’t shy about stressing the point. In fact, according to a story published in the April 29, 1848 edition of the “Hampshire Telegraph and Naval Chronicle,” MacDonald, in what was probably a brilliant marketing stunt, presented a cask of his scotch to Queen Victoria, intending it as a 21st birthday gift for her son William, the Prince of Wales. At the time, the future King of England was only seven years old.

We understand that Mr. Macdonald, of the Ben Nevis distillery, has presented a cask of whisky to her Majesty, and an order has been sent from the Treasury to permit the spirits to be removed, free of duty, and deposited in the cellars of Buckingham Palace. We have heard that the great “John” has requested that the cask shall not be opened until his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales attains his majority, which will give it a rest of 14 years!

In 1856 John MacDonald passed away leaving the distillery in the hands of his son, Donald Peter MacDonald. Long John’s death was reported in the October 27th edition of the “Glasgow Herald.”

Death of “Long John.” – Mr. John MacDonald of the Ben Nevis Distillery, familiarly known by the name of “Long John,” died on Sunday last. Mr. MacDonald was an active, hospitable man, well known over all the north, and to tourists and sportsmen frequenting Lochaber. He was above sixty years of age.

While “Long John” may have been active, hospitable and well known, one thing he apparently wasn’t was a good business man. According to an item published in the July 1, 1856 “Courier and Argus,” four months before his death John MacDonald had been declared bankrupt.

So when Donald, typically referred to as “D.P.,” assumed control of the distillery the operation was small and certainly not in a healthy state. By all accounts, it was “D.P” who turned things around and grew the business. According to a book called “The Whisky Distillers of the United Kingdom,” by Alfred Barnard:

At the death of his father in the year 1856, the present proprietor succeeded to the business, which at the time was the only distillery in the district. Ben Nevis was turning out about 200 gallons per week. In 1864 the trade had so much increased that the distillery was enlarged from time to time, until its capacity reached 3,000 gallons per week.

The growth continued and by 1877 MacDonald was constructing a second distillery nearby called “The Nevis.” The announcement was published under the heading “Fort William” in the February 19, 1877 edition of the “Glasgow Herald.”

A new distillery is to be immediately erected near Fort William by Mr. D. P, MacDonald of the Ben Nevis Distillery. The new distillery, which is to be built just below the Belford Hospital, will be situated on the river Nevis.

Both distilleries, circa 1890, were described in “Glasgow and its Environs.”

The older establishment, “Ben Nevis,” stands at the mountain foot some two miles from Fort William, and covers a space of about four acres. The premises are of substantial construction, and contain every facility for distilling on a large scale. The granary and malt barn are each 120 feet long, and the other departments are in proportion. The tun-room contains six wash backs of 7,000 gallons each, and nearby is a mash tun of 2,000 gallons, an under back of 1,500 gallons, and a cooler of the same capacity. The stills, of which there are five, are of old “pot” type, the two largest being used for the distillation of the “wash” and the others for the “feints.” Their total capacity is almost 4,000 gallons…

This photograph of the Ben Nevis Distillery accompanied the description.

The story went on to describe the recently constructed “Nevis” distillery like this.

“The Nevis,” which is situated about a mile nearer Fort William, is a collosal establishment… The buildings cover an area of eight acres, and consist of an aggregation of large separate blocks, connected by gang ways, and built of concrete made by Mr. MacDonald’s own workmen…The malt barns and grain lofts have no equals that we know of. Seventy thousand feet of malting floors, steeps with a capacity of four hundred quarters, a tun-room with nine wash backs holding a trifling hundred thousand gallons or so, and bonded stores with a total of four miles of guantrees – such are the proportion of this splendid distillery.

A photograph of “the Nevis” was also provided.

According to a story in the December 21, 1880 edition of “The Brewer’s Guardian” with both distilleries now up and running and their export business increasing, MacDonald had recently incorporated a steamer into their operations.

A steamer has recently been launched for the sole purpose of importing coals and grains etc., and exporting the manufactured material to suitable markets. The home trade of Mr. MacDonald is very large, and his foreign and colonial connections are becoming increasingly valuable.

Less than a decade later that single steamer had grown into an entire fleet. According to the 1888 “Wyman’s Commercial Encyclopedia:”

One of the first objects one notes as the steamer glides towards the landing stage at Fort William, is the new pier built by Donald P. M’Donald, proprietor of the Ben Nevis distilleries, for the accommodation of his own fleet of steamers – a couple of which were moored there as we passed. Constructed entirely by his own workmen, and of concrete by his own making, this spacious quay, surrounded by houses also of concrete, occupied by his employees, is the latest of the extensive building operations necessitated by the growth of Mr. M’Donald’s business…

According to “Wyman’s,” by the late 1880’s the two distilleries were putting out between 8,000 and 10,000 gallons per week and their warehouses were more than well stocked.

The immense bonded warehouses held, at the time of our visit, upwards of 15,000 casks, or more than a million and a half of gallons, and every gallon of the present season’s distilling was sold before they commenced to work.

It was also under D. P. MacDonald, that a subtle change in the whiskey’s name occurred. “Long John” newspaper advertisements published between the early 1860’s and early 1880’s indicate that somewhere along the line a letter “f,” was lost, morphing the phrase “Dew Off Ben Nevis,”…

…to “Dew Of Ben Nevis.” The subtle change was reflected in a series of 1884 advertisements found in the The “Airdrie Coatbridge Advertiser,” and was pretty much the norm by then.

As far as I can tell D. P. MacDonald passed away in the early 1890’s at which time management of the distillery passed to a third generation of MacDonald’s. As early as 1893, advertisements in the “Birmingham Post” were naming the proprietor as D. P. MacDonald & Sons.

The Ben Nevis Distillery survived a major fire in 1895 and both distilleries continued under the management of D. P.’s son, John MacDonald, who, in 1911, dropped the “a” in the family name and incorporated the business as D. P. McDonald & Sons. Ltd. Around the same time McDonald sold the “Long John” brand name to W. H. Chaplin & Co., Ltd.

Established in 1867, W. H. Chaplin & Co. were wine and spirit merchants located in London at 48 Mark Lane. According to their listing in the 1920 edition of “Harper’s Manual, The Standard Work of Reference for the Wine & Spirit Trade,” D. P. McDonald & Sons was one of a long list of companies whose brands were owned by the Chaplin company (bottom of the list).

D. P. McDonald & Sons, Ltd.’s listing in the same publication continued to associate them with the “Long John” brand as well.

This indicates that the whisky was still being produced for Chaplin by D. B. McDonald & Sons, Ltd. at the Ben Nevis Distilleries in Fort William. A fact confirmed by the labeled bottle pictured in this advertisement also published in the 1920 “Harper’s Manual.”

“““

Now advertising two brands, “Black Label and Red Label,” they were apparently producing a blend at this point.

It was also the Chaplin company that began using the bottle design featured at the beginning of this post. The first advertised image of the bottle that I can find was run by a local Scottish grocer and wine merchant named J & A Miller. It’s depicted on the left side of this ad published in the December 11, 1926 edition of the “Strathearn Herald.”

Ten years later the same bottle design was still appearing in Miller’s annual holiday advertisement.

In 1936 Seager, Evans & Co. acquired the “Long John” brand in an acquisition process that was essentially complete by October, as evidenced by a speech given by Seager, Evans chairman, Sir Allan Horne, at the company’s annual general meeting. The speech was published in part in the October 22nd edition of a Gloucester, England newspaper called “Citizen.”

That brings me to your company’s acquisition of Messrs. W. H. Chaplin and Co., Limited, who have always held a pre-eminent position in the wine and spirit trade. We believe, as our Chaplin colleagues believe, that this coordination of interests will enable the respective companies to be in a particularly favored position to obtain the highest quality of wines etc., at exceptionally favorable terms.

As far as I can tell, at this point, the “Long John” blends were being produced by a subsidiary of Seager & Evans called “Long John Distilleries.” At the time Seager and Evans owned distilleries in Strathclyde and Glenugie so it’s likely that they made up all or at least a part of Long John Distilleries.

Shortly after the acquisition, the bottle design was changed again as evidenced by Miller’s 1937 holiday advertisement that depicted a “Long John” bottle that exhibited a more elongated shape (left side).

In 1957, Schenley Industries acquired Seager Evans. The acquisition was referenced in the May 30th edition of London’s “Daily Telegraph.”

Schenley Industries, a large American distilling concern, which recently acquired the British Seager Evans group and several Scottish whiskey distilleries aims to “go out after leadership of the world’s liquor market.” said the chairman, Mr. Lewis Rosenstiel, today.

Scotch whisky sales in the United States were growing constantly. Within three years they might increase by as much as 150 percent. He added:

Schenley was embarking on a large expansion program. This included a new whisky distillery in Strathclyde…

The company’s new activities include the production and distribution of Seager Evans Long John Scotch Whisky and the marketing of Scottish Majesty Whisky in the United States.

Schenley continued to operate both Seager, Evans & Co. and Long John Distilleries as subsidiaries and according to a 1960 “Long John” advertisement the scotch was still being produced at Glenugie.

Shortly afterwards Schenley opened a new Scottish distillery at Tormore-on-Speyside. The October 8, 1960 edition of New York’s “Daily News” announced the opening.

Tormore-on-Speyside, Scotland – The first whisky distillery ever built here with U.S. capital was opened today. It can produce 40,000 gallons of whisky a year, and belongs to Long John Distillers, Ltd., a subsidiary of Schenley Industries, Inc., of New York. The enterprise includes 40 acres of modern housing for distillery workers.

Over the next 40 plus years the brand changed hands several more times, including a stint with Whitbread in the 1980’s. Today the “Long John” brand is owned by Pernod Ricard and primarily marketed in France. Their website indicates that the distillery at Tormore continues to “form the heart of the blend.”

One of the best selling whiskies in France, Long John is a classic blended scotch with sweet and smoky notes. Crafted from a selection of 30 Scottish Highland and Island malt and grain whiskies, spirits from the Tormore distillery form the heart of the blend and lend it its distinctive toasted almond sweetness. Long John has been part of the Pernod group since 2005.

It’s not exactly clear, at least to me, how popular “Long John” was in the United States, however, based on an unscientific review of their U. S. newspaper references I suspect that the brand never made a big splash on this side of the Atlantic.

Under the MacDonald family, despite a fleet of steamers it doesn’t appear that much of their whisky made its way to America. This is supported by the fact that newspaper references to their scotch in these early years were few and far between. Of the few references I did find, and the earliest, dates back to 1874 in a newspaper called “The Madisonian,” published in Virginia City, Montana. Touted as a tonic, it read:

Another, in 1880, advised that a shipment of “Long John” had just arrived in Ogden, Utah.

The absence of any mention in large metropolitan areas, suggests that the MacDonald’s lacked an American agent/distributor. This likely resulted in a cumbersome process that required the distillery to deal directly with individual retailers located in the U.S..

Under W. H Chaplin “Long John” pre-prohibition newspaper advertisements continued to be almost non-existent, with the only newspaper ad I can find appearing in 1913. It ran on a limited basis in New Jersey, Arkansas and Salt Lake City newspapers.

As prohibition was coming to an end W. H. Chaplin turned their U. S. efforts up a notch, appointing Austin Nichols & Co., Inc. as their American distributor. According to the December 28, 1933 edition of the Buffalo (N. Y.) News:

The company (Austin Nichols) recently announced its appointment as general distributor of Long John Scotch whisky…

Connections with the transportation, hotel and restaurant trades should provide favorable outlets for liquors and it is not improbable that a worthwhile earning power will be developed from this source

Throughout much of the 1930’s the brand’s exposure was limited to the northeast states of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut where it was primarily included in the price lists of liquor store advertisements. Several, including this June 29, 1934, advertisement in the New York Daily News, pictured the subject bottle.

A little over a year after W. H. Chaplin was acquired by the Seager, Evans group the bottle design made its last public appearance in a January 28, 1938 advertisement published in the Yonkers, New York “Herald Statesman.” .

During the 1940’s, U.S. newspaper advertisements, including listings in liquor store ads, were almost non-existent, likely the result of World War II.

Later, primarily in the late 1950’s and 1960’s, there was some resurgence under Schenley’s ownership. Along with their inclusion in liquor store advertisements, there were some promotions as well. One, in June, 1965, was a father’s day contest advertised in the “Chicago Tribune.” First prize was a trip to Scotland.

Another, in the March 28, 1963 edition of the Fort Lauderdale News, suggested you visit “Colonial Liquors and Lounge” where you could meet “The Long John Scotch Girls” (upper right in the ad).

All things considered, the company itself may have unknowingly summed up the success of their American marketing efforts in one of their last U.S. advertisements. Found in several 1971 Texas newspapers the ad read in part:

Nine reasons you should spend more for a scotch you’ve probably never heard of.

The bottle I found is machine made and almost certainly dates between the 1923 patent date and 1938 when it’s design disappeared from pictured advertisements. The bottle does not include the phrase “Federal Law Forbids the Sale or Re-Use Of This Bottle,” required on all liquor bottles sold in the U.S. between 1935 and 1964. This suggests that the bottle illegally arrived in the United States during prohibition, or within the first year or so after its repeal, likely further limiting the end date to 1934.

On a final note: In 1885 a drink called the “The Ben Nevis Punch” was included in a London publication entitled “New Guide for the Hotel, Bar, Restaurant, Butler, and Chef.” In case you’re interested, here’s the recipe:

“BB” (Bluthenthal & Bickart) Extra Superior Whiskey (Four Aces Whiskey)

The initials “B-B” embossed on the subject bottle represent the last name of proprietors Aaron Bluthenthal and Monroe L. Bickart. Their business, Bluthenthal and Bickart, was established in Atlanta, Georgia sometime in the 1880’s. First listed in the 1887 edition of the Atlanta city directory with an address of 46 Marietta Street, the entry was included under the heading “Changes, Corrections and New Names Received Too Late for Regular Insertion.” This leads me to believe that 1887 was likely their first year of operation. In further support of this assumption, the earliest newspaper advertisements that I can find began appearing the following year in several October, November and December, 1888 editions of the Atlanta Constitution. Calling themselves “wholesale liquors and direct importers,” this initial advertisement included a second Atlanta address, possibly a retail location, on South Forsyth Street.

Another early Constitution advertisement, this one in their November 12, 1889 edition, pointed out that you could pick up your Cuban cigars there as well.

What put B & B on the map however was certainly their liquor business. This full page advertisement that appeared in the Georgia Pharmaceutical Association’s 1892 Annual Meeting Report, mentioned that they were associated with three distilleries at the time; two in Kentucky and one in Georgia.

The advertisement went on to mention whiskey brands Canadian Club, Old Oscar Pepper and Four Aces, all of which were advertised in the Atlanta Constitution during the 1890’s. Typical advertisements for “Canadian Club,” and “Old Oscar Pepper,” are shown below.

The company’s “Four Aces” brand made its appearance sometime in the early 1890’s. While it didn’t mention “Four Aces” by name, this initial advertisement that appeared in several March, 1891 editions of the Atlanta Constitution, left little doubt as to what image they wanted you to associate with their “Extra Superior Whiskey.”.

Within a year or so they were referring to it as “Four Aces” whiskey in their Atlanta Constitution advertisements.

four aces beats everything – our “four aces” whisky likewise beats everything:

More than just liquor dealers, the growth of B & B’s business through the early 1890’s is evidenced by two items that appeared in the Atlanta Constitution in the late spring of 1892. The first, published on May 19th discussed their import business.

One of the largest packages of sherry wine that was ever brought to the south, was landed through the Atlanta custom house yesterday. It is a “double butt” of extra pale, dry Manzanilla, coming direct from Cadiz, Spain to the Messrs. Bluthenthal & Bickart of this city. The capacity of the cask is over three hundred gallons, and its weight is about three thousand seven hundred pounds. It took a large double wagon to haul it from the car. The package is so enormous that it is quite an object of interest to everybody, nothing like it having been seen heretofore.

The Messrs. B & B are very enterprising merchants, and in their thrift and energy, have achieved a brilliant success in the wine and spirit trade. The importing business is one of the most important branches of their line, and they have a great many foreign connections, and buy all their European wines, gins, brandies, etc., direct from the first hands. Messrs.B & B have done a great deal to enhance the receipts of the Atlanta custom house, and to place this port in a good comparative position with the other southern ports of entry.

The second item, published a month later on June 15th, announced that they were in the beer business as well. It also suggests they likely had some influence on the Constitution’s copy writer.

Messrs. Bluthenthal & Bickart familiarly known as “B & B.,” have just received the agency of Schlitz’s famous Milwaukee beer, and are making arrangements to supply the people with it throughout this part of the country.

These gentlemen are pushing, energetic and active, and since coming to Atlanta have made a splendid business record. Now that they have absolute control of this brand of beer, it is reasonable to suppose, and is confidently predicted, that the sale of the Schlitz goods will be greatly increased.

That same month Bluthenthal & Bickart’s name was prominent in this June 19, 1892 Schlitz advertisement in the Atlanta Constitution.

Sometime in the early 1890’s they also established an Ohio branch located at 220 E. Front Street in Cincinnati.

By the turn of the century B & B was the largest dealer of its kind in Georgia, with its business extending throughout the south and as far north as Washington D. C. Notwithstanding, by 1907 the business was being threatened by Georgia’s upcoming prohibition legislation. The situation at the time was succinctly summed up in this quote by Bluthenthal’s son, Felix, that appeared in an August 3, 1907 Baltimore Sun story.

The law is so drastic and sweeping that there is no possible escape for the liquor dealer but to leave the State. While there had been local opposition in several counties of the State for some time, no one dreamed a few months ago that there was any strong sentiment throughout the State for prohibition. However, during the past few months such a temperance wave has swept over the State that it could not be counteracted.

At the time, Felix Bluthenthal was in Baltimore scouting out a new location for the business. Within two weeks, an August 20, 1907 story in the Atlanta Constitution announced that the firm had selected a site and was fully committed to Baltimore.

Driven from its home by the prohibition legislation in the State of Georgia, the large wholesale liquor house of Bluthenthal & Bickart, of Atlanta, Ga., has decided to move to Baltimore, and has made a long term lease with the trustees of the Johns Hopkins Hospital for the large building in course of construction at the corner of Exchange Place and South Street…

It will be occupied in its entirety by the liquor firm, which will make the building the largest whisky warehouse in the city…All of the heads of the departments are to be moved to Baltimore, with their families, making about forty people in all. The company will need 100 local employees, most of whom will be women and girls.

The importance of the acquisition to Baltimore cannot be overestimated. Last year the products of the firm exceeded $1,000,000 and indications this year are that this figure will be surpassed. Baltimore is now to be the distributing point for this immense production and the effect will be felt in all branches of trade.

In January they were in the process of moving when a January 11, 1908 story in the Baltimore Sun provided this description of their new home.

Messrs. Bluthenthal & Bickart, the wholesale whisky dealers, who were compelled to leave Atlanta Ga., because of the passage of the prohibition law, are occupying their new quarters at the southeast corner of Lombard and South Streets.

While some finishing touches are to be made to the handsome structure which has just been built, Mr. Monroe L. Bickart, of the firm says the firm is now ready to take care of all orders…

The building is six stories, of fire-proof material, and contains 50,000 square feet. The main offices of the firm are on the first floor. They will be fitted in handsome quartered oak. The bottling department is on the second floor. It is supplied with every modern device needed for the business. The third and fourth floors contain 32 large tanks in which whiskies are put through the blending processes. The tanks vary in size from 1,000 to 2,000 gallons each. All mixing is done with filtered air. The air is pumped through water and is free from impurities before it reaches the blending tanks.

The storage room and the room for aging whiskies will be on the top floor. The basement has been planned so that it can easily be transformed into a wine vault. The finest wines carried in stock by the firm will be placed in this vault…The firm will employ in all departments about 150 persons.

Around the same time, their Cincinnati branch disappeared from the Ohio directories so it appears that the company opted to consolidate both operations in Baltimore. That year the Baltimore directory listed Aaron Bluthenthal as president and his son Felix as vice-president. Monroe Bickart was named secretary and treasurer.

This photograph of their Baltimore home, circa 1910, is courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society.

Almost immediately after they were settled, B & B newspaper advertisements for their “Mark Rogers” brand began appearing in the Baltimore Sun. The ads referred to the address of their new building as simply “the great big house,” Baltimore.

Over the next several years, an unscientific review of their newspaper advertisements suggests that their market had expanded up the east coast, reaching as far north as the New England states of Massachusetts and Connecticut.

In 1910 the company made what the Washington Post described as:

One of the biggest whisky deals ever made in America.

The July 30, 1910 edition of the Baltimore Sun described the deal like this.

The conditional sale of about 15,000 barrels of whisky by Messrs. Charles A. Webb, Sullivan Pitts and S. Johnson Poe, receivers of the Roxbury Company, to Bluthenthal & Bickart, the well known liquor dealers for about $345,000 is said to be the largest sale of its kind yet made in this city. The whisky is to be paid for in cash upon the ratification of the sale by the United States Court.

The purchasers are to have the right to use the name of the Roxbury Distilling Company and the brand Roxbury in bottling the whisky in bond.

Shortly afterwards, newspaper advertisements for Roxbury Rye can be found along the entire east coast and throughout much of the midwest. Remaining optimistic with regard to prohibition, as late as May 31, 1914 the company was advertising for a salesman in the Boston Globe.

Nevertheless, by the late teens the ads had dried up and Bluthenthal & Bickart was no longer listed in the Baltimore directories, a victim of national prohibition.

While prohibition put an end to Bluthenthal & Bickart, the “Four Aces” brand managed to survive when Canada’s British Columbia Distillery Company acquired rights to the name sometime in the late 1920’s.

Not surprisingly, by the early 1930’s the brand was making its way back into the United States, albeit illegally, as evidenced by this dramatic episode described in an April 11, 1931 Chicago Tribune story.

Boston Mass.. April 10. – Five men on a scuttled speed boat were captured under machine gun fire in Nantucket Sound, it was revealed today when coast guard patrol boat S-13 brought captives and liquor to the Woods Hole coast guard house.

The capture followed a mile chase during which two rounds, 78 shots, were sent by the pursuing guardsmen, disabling the fleeing craft. The scuttling followed.

The five were on the speed boat Hit Her, a twin screw craft that was a sister ship of her captor, the former rum runner Tramp.

More than 800 cases of Four Aces whisky and a quantity of other liquor valued at $25,000 were aboard the craft, coastguardsmen reported.

As prohibition came to an end the British Columbia Distillery Company registered the “Four Aces” name with the U. S. Patent office and they began distribution legally in the United States.

According to court documents (California Wine & Liquor Corporation vs. William Zakon & Sons, Inc., Supreme Jusicial Court of Massachusetts) U. S. distribution was originally split between two companies. Much of the country was handled by the Standard Wine and Liquor Company who was described in one 1940 news item as “one of the largest liquor distributers in the middle west.” The exception was the New England States, whose rights were held by the California Wine & Liquor Corporation. In spite of their name, they were located at 43 – 47 Lansdowne Street in Boston as evidenced by this November 23, 1934 advertisement in the Boston Globe.

Bottles produced during this time appear for sale quite regularly on the internet.

Two years later, still located on Lansdowne Street, this May 5, 1937 advertisement suggested that the California Wine & Liquor Corporation had reorganized under the name of the “Four Aces Liquor Corporation.”

Soon after, a September 14, 1937 story in the Boston Globe announced the Four Aces Liquor Corporation had just introduced a blended whisky under the “Four Aces” name to go along with the bonded whiskey.

INTRODUCE FOUR ACES BLENDED WHISKY HERE

George Kravit, treasurer of the Four Aces Liquor Corporation, said yesterday that in addition to Four Aces bonded whisky, it has placed on the market Four Aces blended whisky, a blend of straight whisky. The blend is aged in the wood and is all whisky. It is on sale at leading package stores, clubs, taverns and restaurants…The Four Aces Liquor Corporation is at 43 Lansdowne St., Boston.

Bottles associated with their blended whisky have also recently appeared for sale on the internet.

After this I completely lose track. Sometime in the late 1930’s the Four Aces Liquor Corporation disappeared from the Boston directories and was replaced at the Lansdowne address with another liquor business called United Liquors, Ltd. While it’s possible that United Liquors took over distribution of the “Four Aces” brands in New England, I’ve been unable to make a definite connection.

Similarly, I’ve been unable to definitively connect the Standard Wine and Liquor Company with the “Four Aces” brands in other parts of the country. That being said, the “Four Aces” name continued to appear in liquor store sponsored newspaper advertisements up through the early 1970’s. In fact, this 1972 advertisement in Troy, New York’s Times Record indicated that at some point the brand name was expanded to include Vodka and Gin as well as Whiskey.

The bottle I found is mouth blown with a tooled brandy (or mineral?) finish. The embossed insignia just below the shoulder matches exactly the insignia displayed in the March 1891 Atlanta Constitution advertisement.

A labeled example of the bottle is displayed on a tin advertising sign recently offered for sale on the internet.

On a final note: Unlike others presented on this site, this bottle was not found in the Long Island bays. Instead, it belonged to John, the brother of one of my wife’s life long friends. An avid collector, John passed away several years ago. This post is dedicated to his memory…God Bless.