Thursday’s ad is entitled Friends From Across the Lake, and the illustration was done in 1955 by Haddon Sundblom. It’s #110 in a series entitled “Home Life in America,” also known as the Beer Belongs series of ads that the United States Brewers Foundation ran from 1945 to 1956. In this ad, a group of people are in the back of their lakeside cabin at night — but the women still in cocktail dresses — spinning vinyl, listening to music on their portable record player. One of the is waving to a woman down at the dock, apparently Friends From Across the Lake.”
Archives for July 21, 2016
Ballantine’s Literary Ads: Ernest Hemingway
Between 1951 and 1953, P. Ballantine and Sons Brewing Company, or simply Ballentine Beer, created a series of ads with at least thirteen different writers. They asked each one “How would you put a glass of Ballantine Ale into words?” Each author wrote a page that included reference to their beer, and in most cases not subtly. One of them was Ernest Hemingway, who wrote several memorable novels, such as the The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea.
Today is the birthday of Ernest Hemingway (July 17, 1899–July 2, 1961). He “was an American novelist, short story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. He published seven novels, six short story collections, and two non-fiction works. Additional works, including three novels, four short story collections, and three non-fiction works, were published posthumously. Many of his works are considered classics of American literature.” His Ballantine ad ran in 1952.
His piece for Ballantine was done in the form of a letter on fishing, written from Cuba:
Bob Benchley first introduced me to Ballantine Ale. It has been a good companion ever since.
You have to work hard to deserve to drink it. But I would rather have a bottle of Ballantine Ale than any other drink after fighting a really big fish.
We keep it iced in the bait box with chunks of ice packed around it. And you ought to taste it on a hot day when you have worked a big marlin fast because there were sharks after him.
You are tired all the way through. The fish is landed untouched by sharks and you have a bottle of Ballantine cold in your hand and drink it cool, light, and full-bodied, so it tastes good long after you have swallowed it. That’s the test of an ale with me: whether it tastes as good afterwards as when it’s going down. Ballantine does.
Patent No. 322853A: Combined Bung And Faucet For Ale And Beer Barrels
Today in 1885, US Patent 322853 A was issued, an invention of Robert Reilly and Francis King, for their “Combined Bung and Faucet for Ale and Beer Barrels.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes these claims:
Our invention relates to a combined bung faucet for beer, ale, and other casks.
The object of the device is to provide a bung normally closed by a spring-valve and the gaspressure of the contained liquid, and only opened by the introduction of the faucet.
Patent No. 564528A: Bottling Machine
Today in 1896, US Patent 564528 A was issued, an invention of Ernest Lyle Miller, for his “Bottling Machine.” There’s no Abstract, although in the description it includes these claims:
The object of this invention is to provide a bottling machine which can be readily adapted to various sizes of bottles, and which, moreover, can be made simple and compact in construction and reliable in its operation; and the invention resides in the novel features of construction set forth in the following specification and claims, and illustrated in the annexed drawings