Golden Grain Whiskey Goes Sporty

Foreword:  On July 6, 2012, this website featured Gustave Fleischmann of the famous yeast and liquor family, as a partner in a Buffalo, New York, distilling company.  It bore his partner’s name, until Gustave bought E. N. Cook out in 1913 and renamed the liquor house “The Buffalo Distilling Company.”  The single constant across names was their flagship whiskey, “Golden Grain.” Recently I came across several new (to me) pre-Prohibition Golden Grain artifacts, all but one with a sports connection, and decided they deserved resurrecting here. 

Whiskey and hunting were a common theme in pre-Prohibition liquor advertising, often depicted in saloon signs where the audience likely was all male. (See  post of July 12, 2023.)  Rather than a sign, Fleischmann and Cook issued a small booklet. Entitled “4 Golden Grain Sports (Warranted 18 KT) in 8 Smiles” it was the product of the F. Myers Company, a publishing outfit in New York City.

The linking of hunting and whiskey in the booklet clearly is meant to be humorous with each cartoon panel narrated by four lines of verse.  In the first picture the two hunters have met two fishermen, who advise them to bring along some Golden Grain whiskey just in case it rains and spoils the hunting.  As we will later discover, the one in the deerstalker hat is named Smith.

In the second panel, the hunters have taken the anglers’ advice.  They apparently are preparing to climb aboard a train with their shotguns — one assumes unloaded— for their hunting adventure.  In the background a baggage handler struggles with the case of Golden Grain that will be accompanying them. 

 

Note that the next panel does not mention the whiskey.  It might appear, however, that both hunters have consumed some.  In order to rhyme with “in it,” a hunter apparently has shot a “linnet.”  That is a small finch-like bird of no value as food.  Meanwhile “Old Smith,” is being felled by the kickback of his own gun, or alternatively, possibly shot in the backside by his companion.

The last panel shows the two nimrods in bed, being cared for by friends with doses of Golden Grain.  The injury to “Old Smith” has been explained.  The reason the second hunter similarly is bedridden is not.  Perhaps he would gladly lie two abed just for a drink of whiskey.

The nod of Golden Grain to sportsmen extended to golf.  Shown below is a bar tray depicting an elderly gent carrying a bag full of clubs.  He is gazing at it fondly and commenting “I see this everywhere."

The two Golden Grain medallions below issued in 1917 by Cook and Fleischmann memorialized baseball.  The backside contained the Buffalo Bison’s 1917 schedule in the then International League.  The front bore the slogan, “Help the Herd Grab the Third.”  I take that to mean a third league championship. The Bisons failed.  The team ended the 1917 season with a record of 67 wins and 84 losses, finishing sixth in the league.

The last Golden Grain artifact here may not quite fit the sports motif but ogling attrractive women has been a male pastime for millennia.  This trade card  memorializes that activity and in the process manages to give offense to African-Americans, the sight impaired, feminists, and for good measure the Prohibitionist crowd.  But that was another day and a different sensitivity.

Afterword:  The story of the Buffalo Distilling Company continues in the building shown right at 860 Seneca Street in “Snow City.”  A combination liquor store and drinking establishment, the revived Buffalo Distilling has on display what it claims to be the last two extant bottles of the original whiskey. The company also markets its own Golden Grain whiskey using a Cook and Fleischmann originated nude image on the label.  What was old is new again.