Foreword: Presented here are brief stories of three liquor dealers who invented or claimed alcohol-rich “medicines” that were advertised as remedies or cures for a wide range of maladies. None of these potion purveyors were scientists or doctors or even druggists. In a time when American medicine was still in its infancy, the cause of diseases like diabetes, tuberculosis, and malaria was still unknown. Thus anyone could claim a curative — and those whiskey men did.
Simon Hirsch, shown here in caricature sporting a large handlebar mustache, got his start in a rowdy Colorado town called Leadville that had boomed with the greatest silver strike in U.S. history. He left town as the bubble burst and found riches and prominence in Kansas City, Missouri, working at the whiskey trade.
During the early 1900s and up to World War One, the Hirsch firm continued to thrive. Worried that the growing national fervor for National Prohibition would spell an end to his business, Hirsch shut down his liquor house and created a patent medicine firm whose principal product was a nostrum he called “Lyko.”
The company originally was incorporated under Missouri laws with a capitalization of $10,000. Hirsch advertised Lyko widely, even using full page ads to tout it as “The Great General Tonic” and offering a free bottle upon request. Newspapers from the Pacific Coast to the South and Midwest carried Hirsch’s ads. The tonic was an immediate success. By December 1919, Simon was reincorporating his company as the Lyko Medicine Company under Delaware laws, capitalized at a cool $1 million.
Simon installed his son Clarence as president of Lyko Medicine while he himself was listed as vice president. Their ads claimed that Lyko “relieves brain fag and physical exhaustion; builds up the nerves; strengthens the muscles; corrects digestive disorders and rehabilitates generally the weak, irritable and worn out.” Because of the 1906 Food and Drug Act, the ingredients were required to be listed. The principal one was something Simon knew a lot about: Lyko was 23% alcohol.
At 46 proof, this so-called medicine was stronger than beer, wine or even some liquor -- at the time nationally prohibited. A member of the medical staff at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, wrote the American Medical Association (AMA), worried that some soldiers were drinking copious amounts of Lyko. He inquired: “Can it be used in larger quantities than the dose shown on the bottle, and thus become a beverage?” After an investigation the AMA responded by dismissing the medicinal effects of Lyko and referring the matter to the IRS, a government agency policing Prohibition. Despite this , Lyko was marketed through the 1920s. Simon Hirsch died in 1929, even richer than he had been before Prohibition.
During the 19th and early 20th centuries, Ohio, the state that gave America Thomas Edison and the Wright Brothers, spawned thousands of inventors. Among them was Earl Lee. Growing up in Sidney Ohio, Earl was able to get just a taste of public schooling. Recognized early as a smart youngster, Lee was only 19 years old when he started a liquor business in Wapakoneta, Ohio. Three years later, without closing this outlet, he returned to Sidney. There at age 22 he joined with an older brother, Valentine, to establish the Earl Lee Company.
That business not only sold whiskey, it made and merchandised a line of patent medicines. Despite having no medical education of any kind, Earl Lee invented and produced a series of nostrums under the intriguing brand name “Lee-Cur-U.” Highly alcoholic, they proved very popular. A contemporary account asserted about the Lee-Cur-U remedies: “They have a wide sale and are considered specifics for many diseases.”
When the Tax Act of 1898 was passed to help finance the Spanish American War, the revenue burden fell, in part, on proprietary medicines. Until 1902, each bottle of a remedy had to bear a stamp attesting that a tax had been paid to the Federal government. Lee was very careful to keep on the right side of the law and all his potions bore the necessary U.S. Government tax stamps. My research unfortunately has not turned up any pictures of Lee-Cur-U bottles or labels.
The presence of the Miami-Erie Canal meant that Lee could send his products from Sydney to a wider market via canal boat. They transported his liquor and proprietary medicines north to Toledo and the Great Lakes area, and south to Cincinnati, the Ohio River and eventually to markets down the Mississippi River. Every indication is that he took full advantage of this good transport system to expand his customer base for both whiskey and cures. In 1913 Lee shut down his liquor house, perhaps as the result of the “local option” prohibition that was sweeping Ohio. The fate of his alcohol-heavy medicines is not recorded.
When saloonkeeper and whiskey dealer James Gorman looked out from his Lynchburg, Virginia, home to the Southern states and localities that had banned the production and sale of alcohol, he saw a vast thirsty audience and an open road to supply it. But so had many others. This son of Irish immigrants, however, had inherited a gift of “blarney,” a particularly beneficial quality in the liquor trade.
Beyond his competition Gorman had the ability to shape the written word to amuse, dazzle and convince readers that his whiskeys not only were the best their money could buy but also had therapeutic qualities. For example, a Gorman ad in his 18 page catalogue read: “The World Cannot Beat It….Gorman’s Pure Rye is a brand made from the very best Maryland and Pennsylvania Ryes distilled, always mellow and nice. The doctors’ best tonic; good for the sick and doesn’t hurt the well.”
On another page of his brochure the liquor dealer suggested that his “Gorman’s Private Stock was “old, mild and mellow” and enhanced male potency, claiming that it “makes old men young again.” Note that unlike the other two whiskey men profiled here, Gorman did not think it necessary to create a high-alcohol potion with a distinctive name to represent his remedy. His trade whiskeys could do the job.
That was evident in perhaps his most egregious assault on credulity. In an ad for “Gorman’s Piney River Corn” whiskey Gorman trumpeted it as “The Greatest Kidney Cure on Earth.” Another ad claimed his “Piedmont Corn Whiskey” had “cured more Consumptives than all Doctors.” With the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906 the wrath of the Federal Government soon descended on “cure” claims such as Gorman’s. In the end, his “blarney” proved to be no match for federal sanctions.
Note: Longer posts on each of these “whiskey men” may be found elsewhere on this website: Simon Hirsch, December 10, 2011; Earl Lee, April 10, 2012; and James Gorman, May 8, 2020.
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