Friday’s ad is for Ballantine Ale, from 1947. It’s from their late-40s diorama series, this one showing the most likely apocryphal origin of the Ballantine logo, told in a poem:
Step back a hundred years and more,
And take your place inside yon door.That’s Peter Ballantine at the table,
A brewer from Scotland, skilled and able.He’s testing his ale — and now you’ll see
How the 3-ring trade mark came to be.One healthy drink, “Aye lads,” says he,
“This ale o’ mine ha ‘PUR-R-RITY!”A second drink of his fine old brew,
“Ah,” he declares, “It ha’ BODY, too!”A third drink now, see him slowly savor,
“An’ sur-r-rely,” he says,
“It ha’ FLAVOR-R-R!”The spying 3 rings on the table dark,
“Lads,” cries Peter,
“I ha’ my mar-r-rk.”
That would have been 1840. Ah, to be a fly on the wall.
