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Bottle shape was fairly standard for much of the 20th century, but not so before Prohibition. I thought I would look at these pre-Prohibition whiskey bottles and discuss the history of these bottles.

Whiskey has been put in bottles since whiskey started being sold to consumers. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, people would purchase flasks to take their whiskey home for consumption. These would be empty flasks because whiskey was sold from the barrel by the local spirits merchant. You had to provide your own container to purchase your whiskey and they were expensive in comparison to the cost of the whiskey. Many of these early flasks were figural flasks, often shaped like animals (the pig flask was popular), or everyday items such as a log cabin or a vegetable-like an ear of corn. The fancy bottles were decanters made from crystal glassware. Distillers would use earthenware jugs and many consumers would purchase jugs for their own use. Some spirit merchants would bottle whiskey and sell them to the consumers, but this was an expensive purchase for the consumer as the bottle would cost several times more than the whiskey they were purchasing. Bottles had to be hand blown for most of the 19th century.

As the century progressed, distillers would have bar decanters with their brand name painted on the decanter with enamel. Some of these decanters were elaborate with multi-colored illustrations painted in enamel. Mammoth Cave Bourbon and Yellowstone Bourbon both had illustrations in color on their decanters. Mammoth Cave had a depiction of the cave entrance and Yellowstone had the Yellowstone Falls. However, most were simply white enamel with the brand name on the decanter.

In the late 1880s, a process was developed that allowed for the mass production of bottles and glassware became an affordable option for distillers. The larger, more profitable distillers started selling their whiskey in the bottle. In order to attract consumers to their brand, they would often emboss the bottle with their brand name. These earliest bottles were all sealed with a cork, but in the 1890s, the bottle manufactures developed designs with a screw cap, the latest technology. Bottles could be made with different colors of glass. Amber bottles were popular because they would hide the color of young whiskey, but other colors of glass were also used. Color was used to distinguish the brand from other brands on the shelf. Bottle sizes were usually 1/10 pint, ½ pint, pint and quart, but there were also 4/5 quart, ½ gallon and gallon whiskey bottles, but these latter sizes were not as common. Bottle shapes ranged from square bottles, to flask shaped bottles, to the rounded bottles we recognize today.

With the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, the government standardized the size of whiskey bottles. The Great Depression made money tight and most whiskey was bottled in rounded bottles, but a few distillers spent the extra money for a non-standard bottle. The Oscar Getz Museum of Whiskey History has some very nice pint bottles with art deco designs. The United Distillers Archive had some bottle molds from Old Mr. Boston that included a right handed whiskey bottle with finger and thumb prints embossed in the bottle. These were exceptions to the rule as most distillers went for the less expensive, standard bottle molds. It is not until the end of the 20th century that we see distillers investing the money in creating unique bottle designs.

Photos Courtesy of Rosemary Miller