Whiskey Men and "The National Pastime"

Foreword:  Spring inevitably brings the quintessential American sport to the fore — baseball.   Several whiskey men have made it an important part of their marketing or their lives.   As the baseball season “heats up” both weather-wise and figuratively, it seems appropriate to bring three of these gentlemen to the fore.

After the Civil War Solomon Klinordlinger, a German immigrant, for years operated a profitable but modest wholesale liquor business in Pittsburgh. Then he named a whiskey brand after the emerging local Pirates baseball team and hit a merchandising home run.  A man with a baseball bat in his hand, shown here, paved the way to Klinordlinger’s fame and fortune. 

Klinordlinger had faced stiff competition in the liquor trade. In the latter years of the 1880s,  no fewer than 41 wholesale wine and liquor dealers were operating in the Pittsburgh area.   Each of them was vying to sell to 70 retail dealers, and more important, 1,400 saloons.  They were seeking a healthy slice of the estimated $6,100,000 in annual Pittsburgh liquor sales --  in today’s dollar, more than $91 million. 

Meanwhile a home town baseball team named the “Alleghenies” had joined the newly formed National League.  After pulling out of their earlier league the squad had been denounced by the competition as “piratical.”  Making sport of the accusation and obviously noting the alliteration with Pittsburgh, the team officially changed its name to the “Pirates.”  Simulaneously the baseballers were showing great baseball prowess and gaining huge Pittsburgh fan support.  Winning season followed winning season.  The Pirates were the National League champions in 1901 and 1902 and played in the first World Series in 1903, losing to the Boston Americans. In 1909 the team won the World Series against the Detroit Tigers. 

Klinordlinger was not just cheering the Pirates from the grandstand. With the wisdom of his namesake, Solomon foresaw the potential for selling whiskey through baseball in the Steel City.  Capitalizing on the team’s immense popularity he named a whiskey brand after them, calling it “Pirate Club Pure Rye Whiskey.”  The picture on the label showed a strapping man with a large mustache and a baseball bat in hand with “Pittsburg” prominent on his chest.  Sol merchandised the brand in three sizes of bottle.  He also issued shot glasses with an etched picture of the player. 

Although he was shut down by the coming of National Prohibition, Klinordlinger continued to be remembered in Pittsburgh because, as one observer put it:  He “...brewed some of the finest spirits in Western Pennsylvania from the 1880s through the early 1900s...Perhaps tastiest to all Steel City sports folks...Pirate Club.”   In Pittsburgh Klinordlinger clearly had hit a home run. 

Moritz Seligmann was a successful whiskey wholesaler whose tall silk hat and passion for Milwaukee’s baseball team, the Brewers, made him a local celebrity.  “Hi-Hi,” as the colorful Seligmann was known, became a virtual household name in Milwaukee.

In a story on the Republican House, Milwaukee’s fanciest hotel during the late 1800s, the Milwaukee Sentinel reported:  “Seated every afternoon at the bar, where merchants, bankers, actors, cigar manufacturers, brewers and men about town discussed politics, baseball and other topics of the day, was Hi-Hi Seligmann, immaculate and resplendent in a high silk hat and black suit and a red carnation in his buttonhole.  As sure as 4 o’clock rolled around, ‘Hi-Hi’ walked in.  He was a great baseball fan and did a lot of talking between drinks.”  

I assume that Moritz also wore a top hat to the Milwaukee Brewers baseball stadium at Borchert Field where he was a familiar figure and frequently the subject of attention by local sports writers.  On June 26, 1896, The Sentinel, reporting on a bad loss by the local team, recorded that:  “Even Hi-Hi Seligman left the scorers stand and took a seat in a rear section of the grandstand where he grieved alone….”  How Seligmann came to be nicknamed “Hi-Hi” is not clear.  From hints in press accounts, it likely stemmed from his familiar loud cheering for the home team. 

Seligmann’s liquor house featured several proprietary brands, including “Eremite Sour Mash Rye,”  "Prince William Rye,” “Challenge Kentucky Bourbon,” and  “Gold Star Sour Mash.”  He never named one after his favorite baseball club, but did issue a saloon sign for Eremite Rye that feature four men at a bar including one wearing a top hat.  My instinct tells me that man is Hi-Hi himself, indulging in his favorite pastime, talking baseball with one foot on the brass rail.

An inheritor of a thriving Chicago liquor house founded by his Irish immigrant father,  Thomas Dennehy proved to have a flair for advertising puffery.  He first tried to identify his “Old Underoof Rye” with Native American themes including an Indian chief called “Old Un-Der-Oof, but that gambit fell short of expectations.  He then switched to an aristocratic look featuring colonial grandees, but that advertising failed to be satisfactory.  Dennehy hit his stride several years later when he conceived of a series of ads in Chicago newspapers keyed to what was happening with the Chicago Cubs baseball team.  

The Cubs were in their heyday in 1910, sparked by the famous double play combination of Tinker to Evers to Chance.  The Cubs had won the World Series in 1907 and 1908 and although coming in second in 1909 had compiled a record of 104 wins against only 49 losses.    When the team sparkled in 1910 and gained the World Series again, Dennehy hired local cartoonists to craft Old Underoof ads that discussed the contests.  

One cartoon, entitled “Still in the Game,” showed a bear holding an elephant gun with four spent shells on the ground.  They represented the four Cub pitchers who had given up 13 runs in the two previous Series games to the Philadelphia Athletics.   The Cubs also lost a third game, occasioning a cartoon entitled,  “No They Are Not Dead.”  The Chicagoans won the fourth game by one run in extra innings and then lost the next and the Series.  Undaunted about the loss, by opening day 1911 Old Underoof was back and Dennehy was optimistic about the season.  It would be 108 years and 2016, however, until the Cubs would win their next World Series.

Although it might seem that other whiskey men might have jumped on the baseball bandwagon to sell their brands, the answer may be that beer, not hard liquor, has always been closely associated with baseball.  In a sense Klinordlinger and Dennehy were breaking out of the mold in their celebration of the Pirates and Cubs.  Hi-Hi Seligmann faced a different reality.  He hardly could have advertised a whiskey named “The Brewers.” 

Note:  Considerably more detailed information on of each of these whiskey men can be found at the following posts:   Solomon Klinordlinger, January 4, 2014;  Moritz “Hi-Hi” Seligmann, June 28, 2016; and Thomas Dennehy, June 18, 2014.

Solomon Klinordlinger Hit a Home Run in Pittsburgh

Beginning in Civil War times Solomon Klinordlinger for years had a profitable but modest wholesale liquor business. Then he named a whiskey brand after the emerging Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team and hit a merchandising home run.  A man with a baseball bat in his hand, shown here, paved the way to Klinordlinger’s fame and fortune.

Like many successful whiskey men,  Klinordlinger was an immigrant.  He was born in the town of Bayern, Germany, in 1834, the third in a line of five Klinordlinger sons. At the age of about 15 he accompanied an older brother, Abraham, and two younger siblings, Nathan and Max, to the United States.  The 1860 U.S. Census found Solomon and his brothers living together in Pittsburgh with Abraham’s wife and child.   The older brother was listed as a merchant, probably involved in the liquor trade, and indicated significant assets to the census taker.  Solomon apparently was working for Abraham.

By 1865 Solomon was financially secure enough himself to marry.  His bride was Fanny Bierman, daughter of Feist Bierman, who like her husband had been born in Bayern, Germany.  It is unlikely that they had been childhood sweethearts reunited after some absence because she was 10 years his junior. The new couple made their home in Pittsburgh.  Over time their union produced four children, daughters Minnie, Laura and Carrie, and a son, Sidney.

In time Klinordlinger struck out on his own.  Although he claimed that S. Klinordlinger & Co. harked back to 1860, his firm first showed up in local business directories in 1872.  His early location in Pittsburgh’s Diamond Square indicated strong financial underpinning to the enterprise.  Diamond Square, a prestige location, was home to the city’s first courthouse and jail (1775) and its first newspaper (1786),  and today is known as “Market Square.”  The Klinordlinger firm billed itself as “Wholesale Dealers in Pure Rye Whiskey and Importers of Brandy, Gin and Wines.”  Solomon also was a “rectifier,” blending and compounding whiskey obtained from other sources.  As shown here, he initially sold his products in large ceramic jugs decorated in cobalt, many of them holding two or more gallons.

His business grew steadily over time.  In a barely disguised ad, The Pittsburgh and Allegheny Illustrated Review  of 1889 declared:  “Mr. Klinordlinger...has established a trade which today ranks him as one of the leading merchants in this line. His business is chiefly done in the States of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland and West Virginia, and is thoroughly canvassed by his salesmen. He carries a large stock of pure rye whiskies, free and in bond; also a large line of brandies, gins, wines, etc., which are of the best quality. Special attention is paid to mail orders, and the firm would be pleased to receive from any dealer a trial order, and are confident of their ability to convince him of their superiority in supplying his wants.”

Despite these indications of success, Klinordlinger was facing stiff competition. In the latter years of the 1880s,  no fewer than 41 wholesale wine and liquor dealers were operating in the Pittsburgh area, including one run by his brother, Abraham.  All were vying to sell to 70 retail dealers, and more important, 1,400 saloons.  Those wholesalers all were seeking a healthy slice of the estimated $6,100,000 in annual Pittsburgh liquor sales --  in today’s dollar, more than $91 million.

Meanwhile a home town baseball team named the “Alleghenies” had joined the newly formed National League and on pulling out of their earlier league had been denounced by the competition as “piratical.”  Making sport of the accusation and obviously noting the alliteration with Pittsburgh, the team officially changed its name to “The Pirates.”  At the same time the newly ordained Pirates were showing great baseball prowess and gaining huge fan support.  Winning season followed winning season.  The Pirates were the National League champions in 1901 and 1902 and played in the first World Series in 1903, losing to the Boston Americans. In 1909 the team won the World Series against the Detroit Tigers.

Klinordlinger was not just cheering the Pirates from the grandstand. With the wisdom of his namesake Solomon foresaw the potential for baseball in the Steel City.  Capitalizing in on the team’s immense popularity he named a whiskey brand after them, calling it “Pirate Club Pure Rye Whiskey.”  The picture on the label showed a strapping man with a large mustache and a baseball bat in hand with “Pittsburg” prominent on his chest.  Sol merchandised the brand in three sizes of bottle, shown here, from a clear quart to an amber flask to a two ounce “nip.”  He also issued shot glasses with an etched picture of the player.  Those were given to favorite customers in retail stores and saloons that carried Pirate Club whiskey. About this same time he took on a partner and the name “Klinordlinger & Wallace” appeared on some items.

About 1892 the company was relocated from Diamond Square to 966-968 Liberty Avenue, its address for the remainder of its days.  In addition to Pirate Club, Klinordlinger featured other proprietary brands such as “Happy Moments,”  “Monongahela Golden Rye,” “Watch Dog” “Sensation” and “Toll Gate.”  He never bother to trademark any of his brands, not even Pirate Club Rye, despite a local competitor issuing a “Pittsburgh Club” label.  To favored customers the company issued shot glasses and an "American brilliant" back of the bar bottle with the owners names etched in.

The 1900 Census found Solomon, age 65, living at 1336 Pennsylvania Avenue in Pittsburgh. With him were his wife Fanny and their daughter Carrie with her husband Henry Weiskoff and a granddaughter.  Also part of the family group was son Sidney Klinordlinger, unmarried at 28, who had been brought at an early age into the family business. As his father aged, the son  increasingly took over the management of the firm.  That may explain why the 1900 census listed Sidney’s occupation as “liquor merchant” and Solomon’s only as “agent-liquor.”

With Solomon’s full retirement about 1912  Sydney took full ownership of the liquor wholesale company and changed its name once again, this time to S. S. Klinordlinger.  By 1917, however, the firm had shut down and Sidney was running a clothing store.  The reason for terminating may have been that mail order markets had been curtailed by an act of Congress in 1913, and other nearby states like Ohio and West Virginia had gone “dry.”

The elder Klinordlingers aged gracefully, surrounded by their family and friends. Recorded by a local Jewish periodical, the couple celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 1915 at the Almanac Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in the presence of all their children and grandchildren.  The renewal of their vows was blessed by Rabbi Arnhold, now 86 years old, who apparently had officiated at their original nuptials.  By now Solomon and Fanny were living with another daughter and her husband in their Pittsburgh home.

Solomon died at the age of 84 in September 1918 and was buried in Pittsburgh’s West View Cemetery, shown here.   He went to his grave knowing, as one latter day observer put it, that he had “...brewed some of the finest spirits in Western Pennsylvania from the 1880s through the early 1900s...Perhaps tastiest to all Steel City sports folks...Pirate Club.”   In Pittsburgh Klinordlinger clearly had hit a home run.