John McCloskie and His Patented Whiskey Jug

It may be a stretch to call John McCloskie a “whiskey man” in the parlance of this blog.  But as the father of one of America’s most unusual and imaginative liquor containers,  McCloskie deserves at least brief mention in pre-Prohibition whiskey history.

The end of the 19th Century ushered in whole new lines of everyday products.  The trend was away from displaying generic goods in barrels, large jars, bins and sacks in country store fashion and headlong into preparing individual consumer units in tins, cartons, and jugs and bottles made of ceramic and glass.   Nowhere was this truer than in the whiskey trade.

In prior days the customer often brought a container to the tavern, got his booze and went home.  Increasingly whiskey now was being sold in smaller packages, many of them made of stoneware or porcelain.  This trend posed a problem for potters.    Accustomed to making jugs in two to five gallon size, they now had to cater to a market for smaller containers.  Required in greater numbers and because each item was of less value, more efficient production was required.  The traditional way of firing a kiln, shown above, sharply limited the number of jugs that could be produced at any one time.

This problem bothered John McCloskie, a man with an inventive mind, born in Massillon, Ohio, in 1833.  His career path led him to become a potter (“turner’) at the Champion Stoneware Company in Massillon.  Working with two colleagues McCloskie devised a way in which a kiln could be filled only with jugs and successfully fired.  Essentially he invented a new kind of kiln “furniture” in the form of fire-resistant clay tiles.  They could be built like Legos to form individual cells into which four or more jugs would fit.   The key to the tiles was their interlocking capabilities and a hole in the center to allow the fire and heat to enter and circulate.

Enthusiastic about his invention, and desiring to profit by its use by other potters, McCloskie on March 27,1891, filed for a patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.  In his application he stated:  “The convenience and economy of this plan of constructing kilns for burning jugs will be fully appreciated by those familiar with the difficulties heretofore encountered in the production of jugs.”   McCloskie’s patent, No. 457,465, was issued by the federal government on August 11, 1891. 

The Patent Office illustration of jugs in McCloskie’s kiln was somewhat off the mark.  The jugs shown in his kiln with his furniture look nothing like the containers that ultimately were manufactured under his patent.  It is unclear whether the artist made a mistake or the inventor later decided that his kiln could best be used if the jugs made in it were not the traditional round or ovoid shapes, but had flattened sides.   

A product of the early machine age, McCloskie’s stoneware containers were not thrown on a potter’s wheel as was traditional.  Rather, each half was formed in a mold and then the two halves joined, capped by a handle, neck and spout.  The process permitted an embossed design on one or both sides of the vessel and, as desired, a label space for the whiskey.   McCloskie took credit for the shape as part of his invention and required that each jug include the date of his August 11, 1891 patent, as shown below. 

Unlike other inventors, McCloskie was able to put his idea into actual production.  Although Massillon had a pottery or two, it appears that he moved to nearby Akron, a major center of ceramics manufacturing.   Although the jugs produced do not have any pottery mark indicating the source, my supposition is that he was able to get an Akron company to make and market his containers.

McCloskie’s jugs found a ready market down the Ohio River in Butler, Kentucky, a cross-roads village about 25 miles from Cincinnati.  It was there that the “Old Dexter” brand of bourbon was produced.  Marketed by Edmund Dexter as early as 1860, the brand was purchased by Owen J. Carpenter about 1890.   Carpenter ordered a number of the unusual jugs.  One side had a flower motif in the center, surrounded by a legend that reads, “Old Dexter Distilling Company…Butler Kentucky”  The other said “The Old Dexter Jug Whiskey” and the trademark date. 

The four grooves in each side have suggested to some that when drained of its contents, the jug was meant to be turned on its side and used as an ashtray.  On the other hand, the indentations may be an accommodation to McCloskie’s kiln furniture since they would have helped allow the salt-glazing during firing.  Sometimes a special design was put into the jug as in the "harvest" design shown here.  My surmise is that on the reverse side a paper label identified the liquor house that issued it. 

A few other distillers and whiskey wholesalers also found the jugs were an eye-attracting marketing package because McCloskie’s stoneware allowed them to print their message in several ways, either in indelible raised letters or in a printed formats.  Among distillers making use of them, shown here, were John McCulloch from Owensboro, Kentucky,  Hilmar Ehrmann of Lousville, and Patrick J. Harris of St. Louis.

McCloskie died in 1922 at the age of 89 and was buried in Akron’s Lakewood Cemetery; his gravestone is shown below.  In 1920 Prohibition closed all the Nation’s distilleries and completely ended the market for his jugs.   

Although McCloskie must have been proud of the use that had been made of his invention, he also must have recognized that his kiln idea and flat-sided jugs had not been generally adopted.  Moreover, salt-glazed stoneware had its own problems.  The haphazard distribution of salt in the kiln too frequently resulted in unevenness in glazing.  Ultimately John McCloskie’s format for jugs faded into antiquity, leaving behind only a modest but interesting set of whiskey containers for future generations to contemplate.   

Note:  Prior posts on this blog have featured three whiskey men who used McCloskie’s jug:  John McCulloch, April 2014; Edmund Dexter and Owen Carpenter, November 2015;  and Hilmar  Ehrmann, April 2016.

Hilmar Ehrmann Hit the Blue Grass — Running

                             

In profiling the careers of pre-Prohibition “whiskey men,”  I frequently have featured individuals who have immigrated to the U.S. from countries like Germany, Ireland, France, Switzerland and Italy.  In every instance those men spent years in the employ of others while learning the liquor business before striking out on their own.  Hilmar Ehrmann, shown left in maturity, utterly broke that mold.  Within several months of arriving on American shores Ehrmann began a liquor business in Louisville, plunging unafraid into the center of the Kentucky "Blue Grass" whiskey trade.

Ehrmann was born in Austria in April 1862, the son of K. and Eva (Baron) Ehrmann. He is recorded as arriving in this country in 1887 at the age of about 25.  Although little is known about his early life in Europe, it can be deduced that he had some experience in the craft of distilling, possibly “kornschnapps,” Germanic spirits that are distilled in processes somewhat similar to American whiskey.  Ehrmann also had more than the usual amount of wealth than the average immigrant.  No apprenticeship for him.  He quickly started a “rectifying” operation in Louisville, that is taking whiskeys distilled elsewhere, mixing them to achieve taste and smoothness, and merchandising them under his own labels.  Ehrmann initially called his operation “Deutsche Destillation,” in translation, “German Distillery.”

Hilmar appears to have been a handsome gentleman, although at five feet, five inches, not tall.  A passport application described him with blonde hair, brown eyes, a high forehead, round chin, and medium mouth.  His only disfiguration was a scar on his right thumb.  In 1891, at the age of 29, he married Blanche Kahn, also an immigrant from Austria, who at 18 was eleven years younger than he.   Although the couple may have known each other in their homeland, their wedding was in Louisville.  The couple would go on to have three children:  Eva, born in 1892, Herbert, 1893; and Hannah, 1895.

Whatever the products of his “German distillery” might have been, Ehrmann early on declared himself a whiskey wholesaler, setting up his operation initially at 156 East Jefferson Street.  He seems quickly to have outgrown that location, moving to East Market Street, the avenue that would be home for the life of his enterprise.  Operating as “Hilmar Ehrmann & Co.,” he continued to declare his company “distillers” on the ceramic jugs he provided to his customers, but soon added “importers and wholesalers.”  These containers come in several sizes and label styles.  He also provided whiskey in gallon glass jugs to saloons and restaurants.

Like many of his Louisville competitors, Ehrmann also saw the advantage of featuring his own proprietary brands.   Among them were “Barony,”  “Beechmont,”   

“Cream of Nelson,” and “Germania.”  Apparently unable at his “Deutsche Destillation” facility to produce quality Kentucky bourbon, Ehrmann turned to the Old Tom Moore Distillery in Daviess County to produce and bottle his private brands.  Of them, he chose to seek trademark protection for only Barony and Cream of Nelson.

As his business grew, Ehrmann became painfully aware of the difficulty of finding a reliable source both for bottling his name brands and providing raw product for his rectifying operations.   As various monopoly schemes were being played out by so-called “Whiskey Trusts,” wholesaler/rectifiers like Ehrmann could find themselves either “high and dry” or paying exorbitant prices for raw whiskey.  Whatever the cause, the German immigrant turned his eyes toward a distillery located about a mile west of Bardstown, Kentucky, on the Bardstown and Boston Pike.  The plant had been constructed about 1876 by Felix G. Walker who had run it as a fairly small operation for almost two decades.

With Walker’s retirement new ownership greatly expanded the plant.  The distillery, of frame construction with a metal roof,  subsequently had a mashing capacity of approximately 250 bushels daily.  Bonded warehouse capacity was increased from two ironclad structures to six.  The Nelson County facility was designated RD#410 in Kentucky’s Fifth Revenue District.  According to authority Chester Zoeller, about 1900 Ehrmann began to invest in Walker’s plant and by 1905 became the sole owner.  

He also adopted Walker’s flagship brand, “Queen of Nelson” as his own but changed the name of the facility to the Hilmar Ehrmann Distillery, as shown on the letterhead above.

Now reaching out to retail as well as wholesale markets,  Ehrmann began to package his whiskey in smaller quantities and use attention-getting shapes, like those shown here to attract customers.  

He was also providing giveaway items, such as the shot glasses shown above to saloons, restaurants and bartenders featuring his retail brands.   Although his customer base was American,  Ehrmann had strong European ties indicating robust earlier experience on the Continent.  As an importer of liquors he dealt frequently with producers in his native Austria, as well as Germany, France and other countries.  

With the rise of prohibitionary forces in America, Ehrmann began to move away from the liquor trade.  About 1915, he sold a partial interest in the distillery to other investors and began to engage in other occupations.   A 1919 letter to him, addressed to the Photo Repro Company in New York City from the managers of the distillery,  enclosed a clipping from the Louisville Courier Journal about impending National Prohibition.  Their letter implores Hilmar to set out for Europe immediately in order to sell the company’s holdings of whiskey and fruit brandy in England, Italy and Holland.  “The exportation of our stock seems to be our only hope…,” the letter concluded.  Shortly thereafter, Ehrmann embarked for Europe.  Asked on his passport application for the reason behind his trip, Hilmar stated cryptically:  “Disposal of wine and whiskey.”

No account exists of what success his trip achieved, but that same year Hilmar Ehrmann & Co. shut down after two decades in business.  Ehrmann made two more trips to Europe with his wife, one in 1922 on the Steamship Berengeria to visit relatives and a second in 1924 aboard the Carmonia.   Ehrmann would live another 12 years, dying in 1936 at the age of 74.  The cause given was cancer of the liver.  With his wife and children grieving by his gravesite,  he was buried in The Temple Cemetery in Louisville.  As shown here, his monument read:  “He did justice, loved mercy, and walked humbly with God.”

Those noble sentiments about his personality and spiritual life should not obscure, however, that Hilmar Ehrmann did not begin his career in Kentucky whiskey walking humbly, but rather burst onto the Louisville liquor scene with a speed that few, if any, others have equaled.  Moreover, he left a legacy.  When the Queen of Nelson brand was revived after Prohibition, the new owners in their ads pledged to uphold adherence to his standards: “For nearly fifty years, the name of Hilmar Ehrmann has meant fine liqueurs, whiskies and gins of high quality…a combination of Old World experience plus many years association with the distilling industry of Kentucky.”