An Interesting Advertisment

Yes this is Mike even though it is John's computer. I have been in Cincy all weekend doing research at the library. While looking at city directories (the earliest version of telephone books without the telephone numbers) I found a very interesting advertisment from 1858. John is going to help me attach this document so you can examine it for yourselves.

This advertisement is interesting on many levels. First they talk about "old Bourbon" (refer back to past postings on age and bourbon). Next the distillery is also a mill and at last notice the remarks on the whiskey being "Undrugged" and the "Distilled solely in copper, free from steam, and rectified by fire".

Examine this and give me some comments.
Mike Veach

=John=
http://w3.one.net/~jeffelle/whiskey

Mike,
The "undrugged" statement is interesting, and probably put in the copy to distinguish their product from the various opiate laden snake oil elixirs of the day.
The History Channel has recently been running an excellent miniseries called "Illegal drugs and how they got that way". It was amazing to see how many over-the-counter preparations contained opiates in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Cheers,

Jim Butler
Straightbourbon.com

Hi Mike

What's also interesting (to me at least) is the mention of pure malt whisky. Today's handful of American single malt whiskies obviously aren't something 'new'!

Cheers, Lex

Lex,
There are many "Malt Whiskies" to be found in the 19th century. American Malts are not anything new and I suspect that they will die for the same reasons their ancestors did - unable to compete with rye and bourbon.
Mike Veach

Jim,
John and I also saw an advertisement for "Coca Whiskey" that even used the same style of letters as Coca-Cola except this ad predated Coca-Cola (I think it was 1883 but it may have been 1879. John is the one who found it so he may remember.) This shows that they were putting cocaine in whiskey in the late 19th century.
Mike Veach

Mike,
Apparently when morphine use became socially and politically unacceptable, these same snake oil companies started to replace morphine with cocaine in their preparations; ostensibly to get people off the junk. Needless to say, that trick didnt work.


Cheers,

Jim Butler
Straightbourbon.com

It's interesting that they identify themselves as "distillers" and "rectifiers." In that period, one distinction between "distiller" and "rectifier" is that most whiskey distillers were still using pot stills, while rectifiers used column stills. It may be that they sold a combination of products they made and products they bought from others and sold as is or "improved." Their use of "as made in Bourbon County, Kentucky" may be their way of saying it's like Kentucky bourbon, but made in Cincinnati, or it may not be that coy. The mention of malt products makes me think they might also have been a malter. Having just returned from Holland, I also find it interesting that they describe Holland Gin as being made from malted wheat. I have never really heard that before, but don't profess to be expert on the subject. (Well, I kind of claimed to be in that bar in Amsterdam on Saturday night.)

I also note the name of John Ford. The 1896 Nelson Country Record Illustrated Historical Supplement mentions the long history of Fords in the Nelson County distilling business.

--Chuck Cowdery

Chuck,

Did you buy any bourbon while in Holland?

Omar

Hi Mike

How widespread where malt whiskies in 19th century America? Has a comprehensive publication on that ever appeared anywhere? If not, it would be very a very nice article for "Celtic Spirit" ....

By the way, I'm not so sure that today's American malt whiskies will go extinct as a result of competition with bourbon/rye. In the 19th century, competition was on a much more local scale than now. Whether American malt whiskies will survive in today's global market will to a large part depend, I think, on how they can compete with Scottish/Irish single malts.

Cheers, Lex

Nope. It isn't exactly the inebriant of choice there. I did make a quick check in one store to see what the prices were like and they were comparable to here. They had Jack, Jim, MM, 4R and the only surprise, Wathens. This was actually in The Hague. I thought about browsing the Duty Free but remembered the rule that DF is only worthwhile for getting things you can't get here. I just wasn't that interested. I bought cheese.

I didn't sample some Jeniver, which was interesting but it didn't make me a convert.

--Chuck Cowdery