My Memories of Kinsey Distilling

[dave ziegler]

Your collection certainly is fantastic. I'd sure like to see it in person some day. It's like having your very own museum right there in your home!

Unclebunk many years of looking on line and in the plant and on trips on vacaton to get the stuff and flee markets and yard sales. The first one of our bottles I ever found believe it or not was in Maine on a trip with my Mom when she was living, many years ago it was a Hallers County Fair BIB pint bottle and I bought it in skowhegan ME.

I have been looking at yard sales and flee markets for many a year, and I have many Trade show bottles from the plant, bottles that have full labeling and a tax strip but never had anything in them.

Also I aways try to save all kinds of different stuff to keep for History, like signs and switchs and anything that was important in operating a distillery.

Sometimes the vandels throw things around and I find them and quickly save them. Sometimes people call me and give me stuff but what ever I can I save it. As a young man after I left Kinsey I at one time worked in a car Museum and learned everything I could, and I now use those ideas at home and in my Office at work.

I just have a Passion to save the History of Publicker Industries / Continental Distilling and Kinsey. My friend who ran the companies world wide Marketing gave me the honor of being the official Historian of the company. I can not tell you how much that meant to me. He has been sick the last two years but I am hoping to see him this summer.
Thanks for your interest and Kind words Unclebunk
Dave Z
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It Seems All The Nicest People Drink Old Hickory
America's Most Magnificent Bourbon

[dave ziegler]

Seeing all those trees and weeds pictures I just put on the Fire tower Thread just made me think back to a tipical day on the Yard gang. The ground at the Plant is really good rich soil and that is why the ground left abandoned is so full of heavy growth.

at 7am we would ring in at the old DSP-Pa-12 Distiller and go down the stairs to the tunnel to Meet our Boss John Zuber. From there he would decide the summer Jobs for the day cleaning/Mowing/mulching. Or Hauling broken Glass and trash to the dump down by the river or special sweeping jobs. On a mowing day John would have us load our hand mowers on the old 1946 blue Ford Pickup and he would drop us at points to work from till all 3 or 4 of us ended up together with everything done in that section. Meanwhile John would take the Gang mowers pulled by an Old Ford 8n tractor and mow the large area's where we were mowing.

The place was over 199 acre's plus so we were busy those mowing days. Then there was the weekly Job of Hauling Metal rack uprights cut out on the weld spots, from the Warehouses on a farm wagon behind the Old 8n ford to the Steer pens down back where we put them all out of the weather incase they wanted to weld them back together and go back to the smaller barrels, which never happened as 8 years after I left they quit the spirits making industry to try and be like Proctor and Gambel after Si Neumans death. The idea failed and everything ended on Sept 1986 with the Man they sold the plant to, once again raising the lease price and them then giving up after many years of bad management after Si Neuman died 1976.

The plant was sold in 1982 to the person who has destroyed it supposidly to get capital to redo all the equipment in the 1966 Bottle House to be more like as I said earlier Protor and Gambel. They did anitfreeze and other household products from 1980 but retooled more when they sold the plant and leased back a couple of buildings, tanks and the Big bottle house.

The products were made in the Phila Plant. All the buildings at that time at kinsey including the old House and Barn down back had new or real good roofs everything was sprinkeled and there was power to everything when Publicker sold it.

So now the place just sits as a memory to 600 hard working People who worked there and loved their jobs and were like a family back in the day! And Si Neuman and His beautiful Distillery by the River
Dave Z
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It Seems All The Nicest People Drink Old Hickory
America's Most Magnificent Bourbon

[dave ziegler]

Early this week I took some pictures of My office with all my 33 Explosion Proof Pilot light/Switch combos all lit up.
It has taken over 5 years to complete them and they were wired mostly by My two Plant electrian friends. Here are 3 Pictures of my Office with Pilot lights glowing that used to glow at Kinsey! Also in Picture two is my Antique Fire Extingisher I saved from Old Jake Kinseys Warehouse H. Through the years I have tried to save everything I can from the Plant for the sake of History, and I will keep at it till the place or I am gone!

Dave Z
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It Seems All The Nicest People Drink Old Hickory

America's Most Magnificent Bourbon --------------------------WWIIweekend 6-1,2,3,2012 003.jpgWWIIweekend 6-1,2,3,2012 006 (Small).jpgWWIIweekend 6-1,2,3,2012 007 (Small).jpg

[dave ziegler]

On Hot days like today I well remember on days like this how cool the first floors of the old Warehouses were! When I walk around the plant nowadays I really enjoy stepping in them to cool off. Every Friday end of the day on the warehouse gangs you would find out who you were with for that coming Monday for mondays work. Jobs wise You would then either rack new filled barrels, break down barrels to dump or be moved to another warehouse to be dumped or Fill barrels at O building!

Days were busy and time passed fast so you enjoyed your work there. I was on several warehouse gangs with Jack Rayser, Shorty Keller, Bookie's ( William Haring's) gang and others. When dumping you had to time all the barrels lined up to be dumped at the trough so that they came up with the bung hole down in place on the trough. It was not an easy task but we learned how to do it.

Barrel rolling is not easy as it is repetive, and bending over the whole time is not easy in a 8 hr day. We just did the job and did not think anything about it. We enjoyed our moring break up at the break room in O building, the government building. We had a little coffee machine which produced a good cup of coffee from ARA vending and a bottled soda machine loaded with A Treat sodas the most popular soda being Ginger Ale it mixed so good with Whiskey!

Lunch was a half hour and you could get a ride out front 15 minutes before lunch and 15 minutes after to go back in the old 1953 Dodge flat truck. We also had a truck come in with sandwichs and drinks. We had real nice treated heavy wood picnic benches to sit at and they are still there.

Also a cig machine which sold alot of .35c Packs of Cigs. I had quit when I started there having smoked from when I was 11 till just before I hit 19 having gotten sick from them breathing wise.

Some days we just stayed in the warehouse and rolled dice during break and lunch. On Fridays we would go out to eat and I loved going on Fridays with Gus Niarahos who was a former major League ball player with the Yanks, Phillies and others.

He was a Company man with Kinsey in the winter months and managed a minor league baseball team in Va in the summer. At that time he manged the old New Port News minor league team. We would drive over to Spring City to the Bar on 724 that is an Irish bar to this day. We would have a couple of beers and a sandwich and then go back to work. Being with Gus if we were Late he would make sure we did not get in trouble and got the full days hours.

Sometimes we would go to the Old Frankie and Johnies bar in south Pottstown for home made stuffed Cabage or Pierogies on Fridays with Gus and of course a couple of beers.

It was a good and simple life back then and we would all be better off if things were so simple today as they were then.
Dave Z
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It Seems All The Nicest people Drink Old Hickory
America's Most Magnificent Bourbon

[BourbonJoe]

You're right Dave about life being much simpler back then. I'd love to return to those days. One thing though, I remember that ARA coffee as being terrible stuff.
Joe

[donviper]

Dave,

I didnt see you on the property today? Did I have my dates mixed up?

[dave ziegler]

The End Of The 1933 Post Prohibition Jacob G Kinsey Bottling House
( Happy House )

This Morning at 5:05 AM Lightening struck the Old Kinsey Bottling House which operated from before 1933 Fall through Sept 1979 operating for most of its years as the primary Liquor Bottling House for Continental Distilling at Kinsey. When the company bought the Plant at Auction in 1940 they had it fully sprinkled as they did with all the Old Buildings. The Old Bottling house was used to make all our Liquors till the Plant Closed. The Girls always called it Happy House because they could get a drink there fairly easy. At 5:05 AM this morning lightening knocked my power and about 650 other peoples power out and struck the building exploding it and sending flames 45 feet in the air acording to my Friends that watch the place. I have not had a chance to go there yet but once I do I can tell what all burned I expect the Old #10 Rye Barn DSP-PA-10 being so close my be gone too. And Possiblely the two old Warehouses out front E & D

What a sad end to that great old Bottle House, in the last 4 years the second floor had fell in due to fire there started by people who claimed they were going to fix the place up. They were burning a shed and caught the Old bottle house and barn and the Old Kinsey office on fire the bottle house survived for 6 yrs till heavy ice in winter brought down the roof of building destroying the second floor. The Barn also survived, the Office is a pile of Bricks.
Here is a picture of the first floor of the Old Bottle House taken in 2010.
Dave Z
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Kinsey The Unhurried Whiskey For Unhurried Moments

[ethangsmith]

I'm glad we were able to get in there when we did and save what we did!

[ethangsmith]

Dave, a man by the name of Ed Kern posted on my blog that Kinsey would be demolished "today." Here is what he said:

"This place was struck by lightning this morning and sustained heavy fire damage. Word on the street is that it will be demolished today."

Do you know him? I'll be interested to see what the status is of Kinsey....

[dave ziegler]

I spoke to my friends tonight and found out that lightening struck Old warehouses E & D by the river so the old bottle house still stands with a pile of rubble behind it. The sadest thing of all to get to the fire they brought in a excavator and knocked down the most historic building left the old DSP-PA-10 #10 rye barn. Boy am I glad I got my friends to cut out the old stair piece that says Kinsey #10 rye building. I am going to post a picture of it I posted before in the building before, I saved it, but in thankfulness that I saved it I want to show it in the barn back in July 2010. It sits saved in my garage. Here is a picture of the stair before my friends carefully cut it out with a fiber blade cutting saw a year or so ago, I have a picture somewhere but I will bring it out of garage this weekend and take a new shot ot it. I am going to go over this weekend to get pictures of the destroyed buildings. The #10 rye stair piece now is a real piece of Saved History. I remember thinking back in 2010 I have save it and it took a while till my friends figuered how to cut it out without causing the staircase to fall and Thankfully they got it and it will some day sit in a museum for History. I have also added a picture of the Pot still wooden upper framework I got back in 2010 showing what was above the staircase. And a picture of the back area of the staircase which burned today stating that this truck Bonded & loaded by 163 local CIO union Linfield Pa. I can't tell you how glad I am I got these pictures for History!

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It was warehouse E that I first drank Rye whiskey straight from a barrel that was going to be Rittenhouse Rye and the barrels that went into the Old Hickory 20 year Old special Bourbon came from Warehouses D & E.
Dave Z
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Kinsey The Unhurried Whiskey Forr Unhurried Moments
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