The Peebles’ Choice: Liquor and Groceries in Cincinnati

The Peebles family fashioned a Cincinnati business that not only advertised itself as the “largest distributor of pure food products in the Ohio Valley”  but boasted of being “largest handlers of pure, ripe, old, mellow whiskies in the United States.”  True claims or not, the Joseph R. Peebles Sons Company epitomized how liquor sales meant profits and success for a pre-Prohibition “fancy” grocery.

The Peebles claimed 1840 as the origins of their grocery.  Actually the store had been founded, as one author put it:  “Way back in the early days of Cincinnati, when forest trees and open country abounded.”  A trio of enterprising youths opened a grocery store downtown selling tea, coffee and sugar.  Within a year they sold out to William Sharp Peebles, who had migrated to southern Ohio from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.  In 1840 William hired a younger brother to help him — Joseph Rusk Peebles who had been laboring for little money in a Cincinnati furniture factory.

Shown here, Joseph R. proved to have a genius for the mercantile trade.  After twelve years working with his brother, he purchased an entire interest in the firm.   Joseph R. had an eye for “fancy” groceries, buying pricey English and French goods, fine foreign wines, and stocking an array of whiskey and other liquor.  One of his mottos was:  “The remembrance of quality lingers long after price has been forgotten.”  

Joseph R. also originated the idea of delivering orders free of charge to customer homes with a horse and wagon, a first such service in Cincinnati.  The business flourished under the management of this Peebles.  The company marked its founding at 1840 when he went to work there.

In 1864, at only age 46, the health of Joseph R. began to falter and two sons, Joseph S. and Edwin C. Peebles, increasingly assumed management responsibilities.  When their father died two years later, the brothers carried on for three years while the estate was being adjudicated and then purchased the goodwill and stock, renaming the business the Joseph R. Peebles Sons Company.  In 1872, Joseph S. bought out his brother and became the sole proprietor.

As the business continued to grow under direction of Joseph S. a need was felt for more space and the company moved to the ground floor of the prestigious Pike’s Opera House building on Fourth Street, shown here.  The store was seen by the local press as “one of the handsomest establishments of its kind in the United States.”  The space created by this move allowed Peebles to market his own brands of whiskey, likely bought from Kentucky distillers by the barrel and decanted into bottles and sold at wholesale and retail.  House brands included “Peebles Sweet Hickory” and “Peebles Old Cabinet.”  The liquor department is illustrated below.

The company also claimed to be authorized bottlers for “Mellwood" and “Normandy” whiskeys.  These were two premium brands from the Louisville-based Mellwood Distilling Company, owned by George Swearingen. [See my post on this organization posted October 8, 2015.]  The illustration of Peebles’ wholesale operation below prominently features Mellwood Bourbon.  The organization also was distributing Hiram Walker & Sons well-regarded “Canadian Club.” 

  

The company was selling a line of fine wines, many imported from Europe as well as native vintages. It trademarked its own brands of beer, ale, and cheese.  Imported and domestic cigars were refreshed weekly.  A special stogie, “Bouquet de Joseph R. Peebles Sons” was made for the store by a noted Key West manufacturer.  Additionally, according to an observer:  “Bissingers fine French confections and all the finer staples of the grocery trade are handled.”   Those included champagne, Russian caviar and pate de fois gras.

In Joseph S. also established branches of the main establishment on Cutter Street and in 1883 on the northeast corner of East McMillian Street and Gilbert Avenue in the Walnut Hills section of Cincinnati.  The location was a gateway to western Cincinnati neighborhoods and a crossroads for trolley routes.  Shown here, the site soon widely became known as “Peeble’s Corners.”  Word was that Joseph S. bribed streetcar motormen with cigars and groceries to call out that name at his stop.

When the rents spiked at Pike’s Opera House, Joseph S. decided to move to Cincinnati’s Government Square.  He bought a lot on the south side, tore down a former grocery store and an adjacent building to constructed a six story building shown above at right. It included a basement wine cellar twenty feet deep.  This facility gave Peebles even more room to store liquor barrels and cases to supply a growing wholesale and mail order trade. The purchase of a full case of Peebles Old Cabinet whiskey would bring the buyer a dozen medal cork screws. For customers like saloons and restaurants the company provided advertising shot glasses.

Under the leadership of Joseph S., the business continued to grow.  It was the first mercantile house in Cincinnati to have a Bell telephone and among the first to introduce typewriters and other machines into the front office.  Joseph himself moved among the elite of the city, even befriending Grover Cleveland on the former President’s visits to Lake Erie on fishing trips.   As Joseph S. aged, however, his health declined and he died at the age of 71 in March 1916.  He was buried in Spring Grove Cemetery, Cincinnati, in a plot not far from his father.  Their headstones are shown below.

The business carried on under the Peebles name until 1931 when the economic pressures of the National Depression are said to have forced the closing of the Government Square headquarters and two branches, including Peebles’ Corners.  Said one observer:  “The ‘fancy groceries’ that Peebles was noted for became luxuries that few could afford….”  

Just as important, I would contend, was the advent of National Prohibition that cut off all of Peebles’ highly profitable trade in alcohol.  Whiskey and wine had been the company’s life blood; termination after 91 years in business may have been inevitable after their sale was banned in 1921. 

Notes:  The information for this post was gathered from a number of sources, of which two were primary:  1) The publication “The Industries of Cincinnati:  Manufacturing, Establishments and Business Houses,”  The Metropolitan Publishing Co., 1886.  No author(s) given.  2) An informative website called Cincinnati Views authored by Don Prout from which I have used illustrations of the Peebles stores, inside and out.