Help with Bottle Info

edited August 2012 in Question and Answer
I have a post prohibition whiskey flask that has an embossed/raised image of what looks to be a "post horn" interlaced with some other graphics that could be a music note (top right) and polo mallets (bottom left and right. The image is just below the neck of the bottle. The distillery is D-126 (Seagrams/Calvert). Anyone see this before?

Comments

  • For what it's worth to anyone interested, with some (actually lots) of research I confirmed the brand of this whiskey. I will say the horn is not a post horn, but rather what is called a signal hunting horn, used during fox hunts and such. And the supposed polo mallets aren't that at all. If anyone is interested, I can provide the details on this investigation. And the final conclusion.
  • I would be interesting in hearing a bit about what you found. I did spend some time looking at Lord Calvert and a few other brands trying to pinpoint it but never found anything.
  • I would really like to know, I recently found a bottle similar to this and have been researching it myself. That's how I found this actually!
  • Sorry folks for the long delay. The brand of whiskey is Hunter Whiskey distilled by Seagrams (distillery permit # D-126). I discovered by first researching different types of horns that looked like the horn in the logo, and found one that matched (besides the post horn). So-called "signal horns" or "hunter horn" are used during fox hunts, with an example shown in the attached pic. Also note the riding crop held by the rider in the foreground. The crop has a long whip and handle that is just behind the riders right hand. Although the handle held by this rider appears to be more like a golf putter, other riding crops I've found have a distinct T-shaped handle, similar to that shown in the whiskey logo. Putting all this together I took a guess at Hunter Whiskey, and was correct. Next searched old whiskey ads on ebay and other sites and found Hunter Whiskey dating to the mid 40's into the 50's. The Hunter Whiskey logo features a hunter horn with crossed riding crops (crossed riding crops is a logo in itself used by many riding clubs), one crop with a long whip (the one that looks like a musical note in the whiskey logo) and the other with a short whip. Both crops are common in fox hunts, and in riding sports in general. The hunter horn with crossed riding crops wasn't adopted by the Hunter Whiskey brand until 1948 (at least as far as my research revealed). The bottle shown in the attached pic is from 1948. Early ads (1945-1947) don't have the logo.
  • To avoid confusion, my comment that Hunter Whiskey was distilled by Seagrams is based on readings that indicate the Hunter brand was purchased by Seagrams around 1940. Not long thereafter, the Hunter-Wilson distillery operation was relocated to the Seagram Louisville plant. Prior to the purchase of the Hunter-Wilson distillery, Hunter was a rye whiskey out of Baltimore. But due to the fading popularity of rye, Seagrams switched the Hunter brand to good ol' bourbon whiskey.
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