My Memories of Kinsey Distilling

[dave ziegler]

Last night was a Very Good Night for me as I got a unexpected phone call from my friend in Ca. that was back in the day a very important person at Continental Distilling.
He informed me unless something not expected happens he will be coming to pa in July to stay at his home somewhere near where I work now. We are going to be talking about Contiental from his perspective and he has hundreds of Photos of the Publicker owned Plants so I am very excited. I also want to show him the stuff I have donated to the local Historic society and the Barrel I donated in Mr Neumans memory.

If This can happen this is going to be a great summer I have not met him personally but have talked to him many times on the phone and He knows more then I ever even dreamed of about Continental Distilling and Publicker and that information will come to this site.

I also hope to sometime soon go back in the 1966 Bottle house for final photo's. And again if you live within 50 miles of Limerick please come to the open house at the Historic society home on Old ridge pike. There is a large parking lot 1/2 a block from them that the Chiropracter has told them can be used and I think there will be some refreshments. It starts at 1:00 PM and goes till 4:00 PM. I would love to talk Kinsey with any of you that can come as far as I know Fricky will be stopping by and I hope to see some SB People that day. I will have some of my collection there to show and it will be a fun time.

The other week I saw to my Horror that Vandels had removed a man hole cover and crawled down to cut power line wires. I wish that someone would have had the forethought back in 1986 to have bought the Old Buildings and made a living Distillery History Park. The Buildings were in great shape and you could have easily made them into the Condo's at Kinsey Distillery. Warehouses could have had condo names such as The Si Neuman Warehouse R Condo, The Bottle house could have been made into a large Meeting and events place and could have been called the Harry Publicker Building.

Why is it that someone like me with no money has these Idea's and people that could have done this did nothing. Now we have a place falling in ruin owed by a slum Lord left to be destroyed.

To me it is very cruel for this to have happen to Kinsey. The Whole place could have been called Jacob G Kinsey Square!

Well enough of dreaming what can't be I will continue to talk of the great days at Kinsey when I worked there and today would have been a day that the old 1951 Ford Pickup would have been running all day droping us off at different points in the plant to mow grass. Also it would be spring sweeping time and I would have been sweeping the floors of the Old DSP-Pa. 12 still, How I loved doing that building!

I would sweep and look at the old equipment the mash tanks, cyprus fermenters and Honeywell chart disc machine with disc's still in them for the next distilling day which never came in 1951!

I wish I would have thought back then to have an old camera and got some shots but it would have been hard. I spend every day looking for anything new I can find on Kinsey/Publicker/Continental Distilling. Plus I search my mind every day for things I remember, so I am still on a mission To keep the memory of Publicker alive into the future when I am gone!
Dave Z ------------The saying below I have used today was one from an old Kinsey Ad I Found
================================================== ====
The Best Old Fashioneds
Are, You'll Find
The Mellow, made With
kinsey Kind

[dave ziegler]

A trip into Kinsey on Sunday was as always fun and very sad also. I took about 36 pictures but the disc I have them on will not load so I will have to post them tomorrow.

I saw something the vandels had done that just amazed me how nutty they are. Walking in the far back tankage corner of the 1966 Bottling House and climbing the platforn to my total amazement someone had placed a step ladder 50 feet up on top of a tank to try and screw loose some aluminum Pipes I took a picture of the ladder sitting there and I will post it soon.

One slip and they could have fallen and laid there and easily died in the total darkness of the area. Who in their right mind would do that by Flashlight!

As always I looked for some cool stuff and found some neat explosion proof Lights in one of the warehouses. I took a few pictures of a room in the 1966 bottle house I have never been in and you can only get in there by way of one locked door. This room molded Plastic Antifreeze bottles and there is one small window size hole in the wall from the bottle house bottling area. I stuck my camera threw the hole and got several shots of this large blocked off room.

There are still antifreeze jugs waiting to travel out to the bottling area that never made it! I will post all this once I get them downloaded.

As always the vandels are doing all they can to destroy Kinsey, The air was rather good walking even though it was raining and I just looked around to see how things were holding up.

It was cool and fairly dry in the bottle house Sunday but after last night I'm sure there is water everywhere.

I found some old papers of Walt Harringtons laying in the tank area and fondly remembered him. I got some shots of valves with pull chains in warehouse C and another shot of the barrels sitting in there.

Once summer comes ever the vandels have a hard time getting around Kinsey.

I saw where what must have been a whole gang of Vandels had lifed an outside cast Iron cover weighing around 500 LB and crawed down a brick tunnel to cut wire cables from warehouse I to M. Never worring about it falling in on them.

My heart grew sad seeing that and I resigned myself to the fact there is nothing I can do to save Kinsey from these people.

In my mind I could hear old Eagle beek saying the nose knows, Dickie Pfieper getting mad at what someone had done to the old 1941 Ford flat trucks, hear Gus Nirohus saying come on Zig lets to get a beer on Friday at lunch.

Hear Old John calling me to help him as He needed Whiskey quick, hear the barrels rolling in the warehouses. The Old Ford trucks moaning under a load up the hill to O warehouse. And Bonda with a truck waiting to be shown where to deliver while he had a few quick pours of Bourbon from his flask! He would then put his old 1952 Pylmouth in first gear pull out and shift to second while waving out the window to follow him.

These memories are in my mind to stay and if I could take a trip back in time I would go there for a little while.

Those were exciting Times and Continental Distilling was THE WORLDS LARGEST MAKER OF DRINKING AND MEDICAL SPIRITS back then. How times have changed not for the good but just how things are today.
Dave Z
================================================
It Seems All The Nicest People Drink Old Hickory
America's Most Magnificent Bourbon

[dave ziegler]

Here is the Picture of what I was talking about yesterday, the Vandels and how foolish they are here is a shot of a step ladder on top of one of the tanks some 20 plus feet in the air one slip and they would fall and die. plus 3 other pictures
1. Step ladder sitting on top of 2000 plus gallon tank they removed pipes to steel them.
2. & 3. Chain pulls for valves for tank lines in warehouse C.
4. Tank in warehouse C
Think about this fact they were doing this in total darkness by Flash light in a 199 acre plant in a 2 foot ball field long building no power no where to get help one slip and they could have laid there and died what a foolish thing to do, and what a sad thing knowing people are doing these things to the once proud state of Art 1966 Continental Distilling Bottling House!
Dave Z
-------------------------------------------------------------------
It Seems All The Nicest people Drink Old Hickory
America's Most Magnificent Bourbon

[dave ziegler]

There isn't a day I am not hoping to find some more Old Hickory Bourbon my supply is getting down and my love of it is always there. There is just something about the old style Whiskeys that I love.
Here are some more pictures from Sunday two weeks ago in the plant

1. I got this barrel for One of my Boss's He is going to restore it like the ones fricky and I have and put it in his Kitchen Mar 22,1971 date on head. This is the last one I will ever get most likely. I am thankful i was able to save 4 of them for History total counting the one given to the Historic Society
2. Another shot of the Tank Platform just at the begining of the Bottling Lines.
3. The Begining of what was Line A-1-F the early computer operated Bottling line that could do 40,000 bottles a day just by itself. It was the most modern Bottling Line in the world on Sept 1966 when it opened!
4. Line C the third line of 11 lines.
5. The only surviving 120 gal Barrel left at Kinsey a vandel has put his name proudly on it to my great dislike and knocked the head in also to my great dislike.
6. The top of the 120 gal barrel. we also had 320 gal barrels and boy did they take alot of work to stack.

Some of the hardest work I did in the warehouse was helping to put these up in stacks 3 tiers high. Before filling them we put a set of floaters in each barrel. Floaters were invented by Continental distilling and were pieces of White oak cut to a certain thickness and length and width and charred heavy and put in all big barrels to get more char wood flavor in the whiskey.

It was thought this idea would give 4 year old whiskey more of the flavor of 10 year old. To this day there are times this idea is brought back. So many industry things used in modern times came from Continental Distilling's committment to inovation!


The last year I worked there we even put one foalter in each 48 gal barrel when filling some times on a numbered lot so they could compare them to another numbered lot without in floaters in the same aging period being filled.
Dave Z
================================================== ==
It seems All The Nicest People Drink Old Hickory
America's Most magnificent Bourbon

[dave ziegler]

Today I have some more awesome Publicker / Continental Distillery pictures from my friend Butch who worked for Continental that the Bigler Street Plant! Here are the pictures including a rare picture of the #4 boiler room taken before the Walt Whitman bridge was built.
1. AA-Acetic Acid Plant taken from Delaware Ave from Phila Industrial Arcives because the Crane later fell on the Brand New 1951 Ford in the picture.
2. This picture is of The Swanson & Snyder Plant where Butch worked for a time and it was at that time listed as the biggest one in the whole Publicker Complex. Still House on The Left DSP-Pa. 1 Main office on the right side of the picture where car is.
3. Picture of the #4 Boiler House Picture taken before the Walt Whitman bridge was ever built.
4. Ad for Publicker comercial Alcohol 1921

5. Ad for our products from the Union book that Butch has I have a friend who has one of these and I hope to get some reproductions made of this for History.

Sorry about the 8th Picture being sideways but the format it was in would not let me do anything with it, but it is an amazing blueprint created by Butch of the original Artist picture of the Distilling Plants having worked there He added all the Info to make it so amazing. Tells you just how things were setup very cool thing.
6.Small Picture of the Bigler Plant with information from Butch
7. The largest Plant in there the Snyder Ave part with info from Butch
8. large PDf of the place with all the details of the whole thing.


I hope everyone enjoys these rare photo's and I hope to get more but I am getting worried about space as my amount of space is getting close to done, but will continue to use pictures to paint the story of Kinsey and Publicker/ Contiental Distilling and what a joy it was to work for the company and the amazing things Mr Neuman did to make this company number 454 on the Fortune 500, 5,000 employee powerhouse it was.
Butch worked for Publicker for 10 years and loved working for them also!

PS if you did not see the rare pictures on my Bottle House thread I posted yesterday please take a look they are from Butch also.
---------------------------------------------------
It Seems All The Nicest People Drink Old Hickory
America's Most Magnificent Bourbon
Dave Z

[dave ziegler]

On Saturday I was the guest of the Limerick Historic Society and people attending got to see The 48 gal Whiskey Barrel I donated in memory of Si Neuman, Fricky did the repairs on it and I am posting a picture taken then plus some others from that day.

Including one of Me and Al Landis whose Father was the master Distiller for Kinsey Distilling and His name was Hoarce Landis and it was Hoarce that Mr Neuman paid to come out of retirement to help with the starting of the Stills at Inver House in Scotland when they opened.

It was a cool windy day and for such a small event I had alot of people coming out to ask stuff about Continental Distilling and Kinsey.
Pictures are
1. The Barrel
2. Top of Barrel with donation Placard
3. My setup with some explosion proof light setups
4. More of my setup
5. My Old Hickory Advertising Panel and tax strips I gave to the society
6. Another shot of my table
7. Me with my stuff
8. Me with Al landis on my Left, Al Is Jacob G Kinsey's great nephew and is 91 yrs 8 months old!

Just a note in getting some of my Paper work from the plant together for the show I found some documents talking about the experimental use of White Oak Floaters to be used in barrels in 1962. The company had asked the Government at that time and the Government said no to the request. I will scan some of those papers and post them soon.


Dave Z
---------------------------------------------------------------
Kinsey The Unhurried Whisky For Unhurried Moments

[dave ziegler]

Tonight I want to post some of my Rare Paper work from Continental Distilling / Kinsey including some stuff from the Government Treasury Dept.
These are just a few of Hundreds of pieces of Paper work I have saved from the plant in the last 5 years.

These are from 1962 through 1971 and cover things like experimental rechared Barrels to slabs being put in ( Floaters made of new chared White Oak ) and the company asking permission to do these experiments and the very tests and how they would do them. I am Lucky enough to have hundreds of differant pieces of paper work for these types of things and will post as many as I can I will let you read what they say and make coments on them. This paper work was in big roll bins in warehouse I, and I saved them to preserve History during the last 5 years.
Dave Z
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It Seems All The Niicest People Drink Old hickory
America's Most Magnificent Bourbon

[dave ziegler]

One of the very most important things Continental was always trying to do was Make a high standard Product but keep cost at the best possible price.

The first paper I posted on the thread before this one is one of the ways I think they hoped to do it. This was more then two years before Inver House opened and they hoped this using of used barrels in 1962 with Slabs or as we always called them floaters freshly charred would make it possible to reuse barrels. As we all know Continental pettitioned the Government later to ship used Barrels to Scotland to Inver House when it opened in 1965 to be reused there for Scotch and the Government gave approval for them and others that jumped on the band wagon to do it.
But in this paper the Government states that they can't put Whiskey from Bourbon mash in the barrles with floaters.

When I worked for Publicker Industries they were always one step ahead of everyone one else. I found some old Inventory papers listing Ever Clear on them, they were trying everything they could to be inovative.

The hardest part of the bussiness was and is the government, everything you do you have to always ask them first for permission.

And in 1968 second paper We were still doing experiments with Floaters using Corn Whiskey. I remember the floaters well back in 1968 and when Makers mark brought them back as toasted wood to put in whiskey barrels for better flavor the first thing I thought was how many things we paved the way for that are still used or being used again from our many years of research.

I remember being very proud when I would look at the water tower out front and it stated Continental Distilling Corp / Division Of Publicker Industries Linfield Pa

When I was in the yard gang one of our duties was sweeping around all the Dump troughs to keep the dust down so it would not get in the product when dumped. One of the Key things you always kept in your mind was the timing of the barrels going on the trough as if one barrel did not come up perfectly bung down then all of them would be wrong.

That is why My Boss Jack Raysor on the dump gang I worked on got so mad at the EX Army guy in our crew for moving the barrels so straight in line that they all fell at the wrong place to dump. And Jack let him have it and then gave him the nickname Line e'm Up Louie. He did not last there long and I remember Jack blowing a gasket at him. We then all callled him that nickname it stuck.

The years I worked there were very exciting to be there with all the inovations and the amazing 1966 Bottle house, people from all over the world came there to tour it. Publicker was everything a Fortune 500 Company should be back then with Si Neuman running it!
Dave Z
==================================================
It Seems All The Nicest People Drink Old Hickory
America's Most Magnificent Bourbon

[dave ziegler]

I am now going to post the other 3 Pictures at Publicker in Phila that my Friend Butch sent me. These are one of a kind rare pictures I hope everyone enjoys them and also look at the 2 pictures I posted on the Bottle House thread This morning of the Old Snyder Ave Bottle House.

1. This is a picture of Dsp-Pa. 1 The Snyder Ave Still Building taken after It was completed in 1934. They had a giant still on the far end of the plant for Industrial distilling also.

2. Publicker celebrating the 10 millionith bottle of $1.00 whiskey in 1934 The womans name is Pearl Glickman

3. Taste Test in 1939 at the Snyder Ave Distillery

It is my hope for History to get more pictures like this to go with the Kinsey stuff to show how all of us that worked for Publicker had a common goal and that was to make the very Best tasting Spirits of all types at prices the common man could aford.

Mr Neuman was a very Humble and good man who believed in always doing the best you could and buying things you needed to run your plant locally and that every Person was a key part to our Products and the company.
His loss was the end of Kinsey/Continental and Publicker Industries, from the time His Father inlaw Harry Publicker got him running Continental and later all of Publicker till he died the company was a great sucess and number 445 on the Fortune 500 list. When He died the company died.

I found this Old Kinsey Saying On one of my Kinsey / Continental Distilling drink making brosures and it has become a favorite I have used it lately but wanted to High light it today
( The Best Old Fashioneds
Are You'll Find
The Mellow Made With Kinsey Kind )
After Publicker bought Kinsey the Kinsey Blended Whiskey name was found on the Building the Ball drops in times square on New Years eve for a while in the 1940's a tribute to Jake Kinsey and Kinsey Blended Whiskey which was a very big seller in new York City back in the day!

(Just a note again to take a look at the two rare pictures posted on the Bottle House thread this morning also one of the old Bigler Bottle line in 1933 with dixie Belle gin on the line and another of the building in 1934) also I will be posting 5 more rare Plant pictures from Publicker later this week I just recieved from Butch including a picture of the Fermantation tanks and Quality control among them
Dave Z

[Jono]

Very interesting information Dave! I did not realize how much the BATF had to sign off on almost everything. At least then, the responses were "relatively" quick....6 weeks or so.