BOOZE MATTERS - Digital Antiques Journal With Temperance Jug December 1, 2019

12/4/2019 BOOZE MATTERS | Digital Antiques Journal
BOOZE MATTERS
Nov 29, 2019 | 0 comments
A Temperance (perhaps) Jug (2-minute read)
https://antiquesjournal.com/index.php/2019/11/29/booze-matters/ 1/17
So-called “Temperance Jugs” form an interesting genre of pottery. Take a look at this one. The
stoneware jug is incised allover, creating a tree bark appearance; it is also decorated with a monkey,
a lizard, a snake and a turtle. The side of the jug is incised, “B. / 1885,” and the base is signed, “Bray /
1885.” Temperance Jugs are sometimes called “snake jugs” because almost all of them have a snake
crawling up toward the neck or twined about the neck and body. Join this with lizards, monkeys and
other critters, and you have most of the hallucinations that over-imbibing might produce.
Ironically, according to dealer and collector Mike Isom, the most common use of these jugs was to
hold and pour whiskey! “I guess you could say the snakes are metaphorically whiskey, devouring
everything that’s hopeful or everything that’s nice,” Isom said. Many, but not the one featured here,
were made by the Kirkpatrick brothers at the Anna Pottery in Indiana. In private life, Wallace and
Cornwall, the Kirkpatrick brothers, were members of local temperance societies, but many of their
best customers were taverns. “They made thousands of whiskey jugs,” Isom said, both Pig Jugs and
Temperance Jugs.
Isom is not so sure the brothers were as anti-drink as perceived. “As you look at some of these
items — the satirical, over-the-top nature of some of them, the whimsy and the craziness of some of
the items they made, another school of thought comes into play,” he said. “Were (the Kirkpatricks)
making fun of the uptight, staunch temperance movement? And we don’t know.”
The Temperance Jug featured here was made by Simeon Lewis Bray (1849-1914) in Evansville,
Indiana, He and his brother, William lived in Anna for many years, likely apprenticing or working at
the Kirkpatrick Pottery. Afterwards, they relocated more than 100 miles west to Evansville in the
mid-1870s where they set up a pottery, probably to cater to the to the thriving trade along the
Ohio River.
This example, which was sold by Case Antiques in 2017, may be one of the better-known
temperance jugs from the Bray pottery. Many of the Bray jugs were similar to those produced in
Anna, but this one has a unique assembly of hallucinatory animals.
Are you going to drink whiskey or water from yours? Images courtesy Case Antiques, Auctions and
Appraisals, Knoxville TN, caseantiques.com
Sources:
“19th Century Stoneware Temperance Jug from the Bray Pottery in Evansville, Indiana,” Justin
Thomas. 11/14/19.
www.earlyamericanceramics.com/2019/11/19th-century-stoneware-temperance-jug.html
“Temperance and Whiskey Jugs” Brian Stewart, The Southern, 6/7/12. www.thesouthern.com
Ship Wrecked: Booze Saved (2.5-minute read)
A bottle still in the diver’s hands. Courtesy Ocean-X Team
In 1917 a German submarine sank the S.S. Kyros, a ship bound for Russia. Deep in its cargo were 50
cases of cognac, branded “De Haartman & Co.,” and 15 cases of liqueur, branded “Bénédictine.” This
was the most exciting nd by Ocean-X Team, the salvage company, when it explored the ship earlier
this year.
There is the tantalizing possibility that the 100-year-old liquor could still be drinkable. In which
case it could fetch big bucks at auction. Such discoveries are not without precedent, said Amanda
Schuster, author of New York Cocktails and editor in chief of “The Alcohol Professor,” a website
devoted to alcohol. “These things happen, but it doesn’t happen often,” she said. “Only every once in
a while.”
A bottle of the Cognac. Courtesy Ocean-X Team
In 2010, divers discovered 170-year-old champagne in a shipwreck in the Baltic Sea. It was
drinkable, but only by the scientists whose report analyzed everything you could think of — except
its taste. Scientists, not connoisseurs.
That same year, three crates of whisky and two crates of brandy were found in Antarctica, left
beneath the oorboards of a hut by the polar explorer Ernest Shackleton in 1909. Nobody
reportedly drank that whisky.
But in 2011, a master blender for Whyte & Mackay, a Scottish whisky company, did create a replica
of the drink after a “sensory and chemical analysis.” (We assume that a “sensory analysis” is
science-speak for “drinking.”) But at least, the replica was available for drinkers outside the
laboratory.
Bénédictine bottles. Courtesy Ocean-X Team
Was this Cognac and Bénédictine from the Kyros still drinkable? Possibly, according to experts.
There is hope: spirits “tend to keep far better than most wines over very long periods,” said David
Wondrich, senior drinks columnist at The Daily Beast. “I’ve tasted numerous not just drinkable, but
delicious bottles from the 1910s and before.” But who is going to conduct the “sensory analysis”
and drink the booze from the Kyros? Any volunteers?
Source: Mihir Zaveri, New York Times, 11/14/19
Postscript
Bénédictine? Really?
Today, many believe that Bénédictine has been by Benedictine monks since the sixteenth
century, still using the original recipe. Good story, good marketing.
In 1863 a Frenchman, Alexandre Le Grand developed a recipe for an herbal liqueur from old
medicinal recipes that he had acquired from a religious foundation. To market it, he
embellished the story, claiming that the liqueur had been developed by monks at the
Benedictine Abbey of Fécamp in Normandy, and produced by them until the abbey’s
devastation during the French Revolution. To add credence to the story and to help market
his “Bénédictine,” Alexandre put “D.O.M.” on the label, for “Deo Optimo Maximo” (“To God,
most good, most great”) which is still used at the beginning of documents by the Benedictine
Order to dedicate their work.
Bénédictine today. © Chriusha (Хрюша) / CC-BY-SA-3.0,

commons.wikimedia.org
Bénédictine, poster, 1908, by Leonetto Cappiello, commons.wikimedia.org
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12/4/2019 BOOZE MATTERS | Digital Antiques Journal

A Temperance (perhaps) Jug (2-minute read)

Ship Wrecked: Booze Saved (2.5-minute read)

A bottle still in the diver’s hands. Courtesy Ocean-X Team

A bottle of the Cognac. Courtesy Ocean-X Team

Bénédictine bottles. Courtesy Ocean-X Team

Source: Mihir Zaveri, New York Times, 11/14/19

Bénédictine today. © Chriusha (Хрюша) / CC-BY-SA-3.0,

Bénédictine, poster, 1908, by Leonetto Cappiello, commons.wikimedia.org

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