Pre-War label?

[silverfish]

Ok, this may be a silly question but I gotta ask - how can a
bottle have a label that states "Pre-War"? Did they know a
war was imminent and thought that putting "Pre-War" on the
label may be a good selling point?...

[OscarV]

December 7, 1941 and sooner would have been pre-war.
12-8-41 the USA declared war on Japan.

[silverfish]

December 7, 1941 and sooner would have been pre-war.
12-8-41 the USA declared war on Japan.

OK, but how did they know to (and why
did they) put "Pre-War" on the label?

[Gillman]

The war started just as 1941 was ending, so at first sight, it doesn't make sense to associated the terms pre-war and 1942. However, the answer probably is that distillation for war purposes only was brought in sometime during 1942 and this beverage alcohol was made not long before the prohibition too effect. In this sense it could be viewed broadly as pre-war spirit.

Gary

[soad]

"The U.S. government banned the manufacture of whiskey during World War II"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Daniel's

I'm guessing that the label was put there in the LATE 40's. If you think about it, all the whiskey in the barrels would be okay to sell during the war, but no new barrels were being filled. The supply would be "normal" for a several years but there would be a squeeze sometime after the war when the lack of aged barrels became apparent. I'm guessing the "pre-war" label was put on there to say "hey this is well aged whiskey" as opposed to the young stuff that flooded the market.

[OscarV]

So far I like the answer that soad provided.

[cowdery]

The most obvious answer to the question is contained in the label. It was distilled in 1942. It was bottled and labeled after that. No prescience required.

As for the 1942 date, since the war started in 1941, I would assume that what they really meant was "distilled before the imposition of wartime prohibition."

And that said, I'm not so sure that Wikipedia entry is exactly correct. I don't believe whiskey distillation was so much banned as it was impractical due to restrictions on raw materials and the demands for wartime production of neutral spirits. I know that some whiskey was produced during the war because the services required it "for medicinal purposes." The amount produced was simply way short of demand.

My further assumption is that this labeling was both an indication of age, as soad said, as well as a way of stating that no wartime restrictions were violated to make it.

[silverfish]

If it was an older whiskey, the war could have started, and ended, while the whiskey sat in a barrel. So when it was bottled, it would technically be "Pre-War".

Unless it was bottled very young, it would have been put in glass AFTER the war's end -- thus the bottlers would have known the start and end points of the conflict, relative to distilling date.

I'm guessing the "pre-war" label was put on there to say "hey this is well aged whiskey" as opposed to the young stuff that flooded the market.

THANK you guys! These make sense to me and do explain (for
me, at least) the "Pre-War" label. I was picturing such a bottle
on the shelves before the war. Curse my linear thinking.

That was really bugging me. ...whew...

[sku]

December 7, 1941 and sooner would have been pre-war.
12-8-41 the USA declared war on Japan.

Ah, but the label doesn't say which war.

[silverfish]

I understand the dates related to the war but perhaps
I'm not asking clearly enough. Did the bottlers say to
themselves 'War is pending - let's label these bottles
'Pre-War'"? How did they know to label it Pre-War?
Would it be a selling point?