Hotaling's Kangaroo Whiskey-Part 2

By 1883 Hotaling's successful ventures in Australia led him to trademark a brand of whiskey especially for the Colonies. This time, he chose Sydney, New South Wales, and the Barron, Moxham Co as his agents. The new brand was to be known as Kangaroo Whiskey, and featured a boldly embossed "Roo" on the bottle's face. The bottles were blown in San Francisco, filled at Hotaling's Jackson Street warehouse and shipped to NSW.

To date, the Kangaroo bottles remain extremely rare, with only a handful coming to light, and only one actually making it to the US. I "discovered" the existense of this bottle quite by accident. A number of years ago, while going through some early papers, I came across one of Hotaling's circulars that advertised this product. WHOA!! That started the ball rolling, and after many phone calls and letters back and forth to Aussie collectors I finally tracked the bottle down. The problem was that the owner was a notorous "flip-flopper", a guy who played me like a fish. He found the bottle while diving in Sydney harbor, so really had no idea of it's value or history. Well, no sooner did I explain the entire story to him and express my desire to purchase the bottle from him, he got a big case of the "gimmies". At first he wanted $1500AUS, but that changed almost immediately after he talked to some of his buddies. Suddenly, the price jumped to $7000AUS, which I agreed on. Maybe I sounded a bit too eager, so he backed off again. Somehow, he got wind of Glass Works Auctions and the big bucks that Yanks were paying for bottles, and he contacted them. When the bottle finally came up I was so disgusted with the entire proceedings that I could care less about bidding on it. The bottle sold for a very high price and now resides in Ken Schwartz' collection.

Included below are some of the advertisements and information for the Kangaroo Whiskey. As far as how many were actually blown, I have no idea. All records have been lost, so the numbers will never be known, but they could be substantial. In my searches, 6 examples have turned up. There is one "mint" bottle and 4 with some sort of "minor" damage in Australia. All came from Sydney area tips. Ken's Kangaroo, and those other 5, represents the entire known population of this most desired Western Whisky.

Hotaling's Kangaroo Whiskey

It is widely known that A.P.Hotaling had many interests worldwide including holdings in the Australian Colonies beginning in the late 1860s. His first introduction of the J.H.Cutter Whiskies in that area was in 1871, when he began shipping cases of the product to the White Hart Hotel in Melbourne. Henry Edwards, proprietor of that establishment, served as his agent in the Victoria area of South Australia. It is claimed that he shipped as many as 1500 cases of Cutter Whiskey per month to that establishment, but to my knowledge very few bottles have been recovered there. It is likely that any old dumps, or "tips" as they are called there, have long been covered by subsequent construction and expansion of that city.
Included here are two newspaper "announcements", heralding the arrival of the famous Cutter Whiskies to Australia. These were clipped from the Melbourne Argus, the prominent Victoria newspaper of the early 1870s.

THE GREAT IMPOSTER

THE IMPOSTER IS WILLIAM HOELSCHER. LAUREL CROWN--- THAT *LYING SACK OF ****! YES, AND I INVENTED THE INTERNET!!!

I guess I shouldn't be too hard on old Billy Hoelscher, he... wait a minute, yes we should! When you try to scab off of the biggest whiskey name on the west coast, maybe the entire country....that takes some serious stones, or he was just plain stupid. Maybe in today's world, no big deal. I'm mean it isn't A.I.G. or Goldman-SUCKS, but for the time period it is akin to trying to pass off bogus Jack Daniels, maybe worse! Hotaling and Moorman were in no mood for any more 'bull-spit'. They had just ponied up 51,000 (1879) clams to get rid of Milton J. Hardy and E. Martin and their crappy Cincinnati "hell broth". They had fought that battle for 6 long years. They had to deal with John F. Cutter and his claim that they had stolen the business from his father. Chielovich tried to copy their barrel, other small time infringements, too many to name were dealt with continually. Now here comes Hoelscher, not only copying their trademarks, but claiming that he originated them! He even found someone at the California Trademark Office to sign off on his paperwork, no actual fact checking needed apparently.

This does sound like today's events, mortgage fraud, bureaucratic ineptitude, jeez, maybe Hoelscher was just ahead of his time.

Warren Friedrich, in his research, has found quite a number of battles between liquor dealers, wine and spirit distributors, brand originators, so on. It seems like they were all battling in the press and in their advertising as to which distributor was legit., who was selling counterfeit product, who was copying labels, trademarks, etc. Many of these battles actually were settled in court! Fines and or jail time were assessed. They were serious about this counterfeiting stuff, and Warren has mainly been focusing on the early 1860's. Move on to the late 1870's, it would be just a guess on how much more J.H. Cutter product Hotaling is selling, as compared to those early 60's dealers. Safe to say, if the early dealers were that pissed about being scammed, what Hoelscher was doing was, well let's just say he was in way over his head.

It seems like Bill Hoelscher was doing just fine during the 1870's. According to Thomas' Whiskey Bottles of the Old West, Hoelscher and Conrad Mausshardt had formed a partnership and ran their own successful wholesale and retail liquor store for a number of years. William Hoelscher had a brother, Author G. Hoelscher. Author entered the scene in late 1878, as a silent partner. Mausshardt exited about the same time. The new name of the company (the two Hoelscher brothers) was now Wm. Hoelscher & Co.

Not that I know this as fact, why let facts get in the way of a good story, but it seems that Bill Hoelscher's problems started with Author getting involved with the decision making. Early in 1879 the idea was hatched, barrels and crowns make for good trademarks. Hey, why not use the O.K. and A No.1 brand names as well. Can't you just see the two Hoelscher brothers sitting down and coming up with this plan... I mean I wonder how many shots they threw back before this sounded like a great idea!

On Feb. 21, 1879, William Hoelscher signed and had notarized, documents purporting to be the owner and originator of certain devices and designs. Labels for Laurel Crown O.K. Old Bourbon and Laurel Crown A No1. Old Bourbon had been printed by M. Schmidt Litho. S.F. and were attached to the application. Hoelscher was awarded the trademark, #479, on Feb. 25th, 1879.

Trouble was that a certain well known brand, J.H.Cutter Old Bourbon, had been using the "English Crown" and the famous Cutter barrel, and the O.K. and A No1 brands for years. Several of these trademarks were registered in the U.S. Patent Office. C.P. Moorman, and his west coast agent A.P. Hotaling, had been in a spirited court fight for 6 years against Milton J. Hardy, and the San Francisco firm of E.Martin & Co. Hardy was the son in law of the original John Hastings Cutter. Both Moorman and Hardy had been granted the use of the J.H. Cutter name and trademarks in an 1873 ruling.
Finally after years of battles, in the courts and in the press, C.P. Moorman was able to gain a decision in the U.S. Supreme Court, and for the sum of 51050.00 he was awarded sole use of the J.H. Cutter brand, including all trademarks. This was awarded in July of 1879.

I'm sure that A.P.Hotaling was well aware of the Wm. Hoelscher & Co., and the Laurel Crown whiskies. As soon as C.P. Moorman won the Supreme Court case, Hotaling filed suit against William Hoelscher to stop the fraudulent use of certain well known trademarks. The case was brought to a conclusion quickly and Laurel Crown disappeared as fast as it originated. There is some evidence that Hoelscher was trying to dispose of the embossed bottles. Several examples of this bottle have been pulled from the San Francisco Bay. Could Hoelscher have dumped his empty bottles to get them out of sight? Possibly, but bottle recyclers picked up a few of them and they were shipped into Belleville, NV. I have seen quite a few broken Laurel Crowns in "beer label town".

So from Feb. 1879, maybe Hoelscher started using the bottle a little before the application, until July 1879 or until Hotaling shut him down. 6 - 8 months is a pretty short time line! Now you know why they are so rare.
Did Bill Hoelscher really think he could pull this off? Maybe he thought the Moorman - Hardy court battle would go on indefinitely. Maybe he was delusional and really thought he originated the trademarks (Al Gore). It seems like he came to his senses. After the Laurel Crown fiasco, he prospered in the wholesale liquor industry for 30 more years!

About 10 known examples of this extremely rare fifth. Hoelscher was determined to copy the Cutter bottle completely. There are two different embossed Laurel Crown bottles. Most have the 'A No. 1' in a circle on the reverse, and one that I know of has the 'O.K.' in a circle on the reverse. Maybe other O.K.'s exist, but Fred Kille has the only one I have seen.

Here is one of the S.F. bay "rollers". Not the skaters, but a bottle that rolled around in the bay until the embossing was just about gone.

Which one is it??

My old mentor Blackie Owen used to torment the hell out of me with shards. He told me I wasn't a digger or a whiskey collector unless I could identify broken bottles while doing "field work". I had to pass the whiskey piece test numerous times just to get into his bottle room and peek at the master's collection. This broken one came out of the foothills above Nevada City.

That didn't take too long to get a positive ID. I guess I will have to make it more of a challenge on the next one.

Francis Cassin, the older brother has somewhat better luck!

After chatting with Roger Terry on some western whiskey history, the counterfeiting of the A. P Hotaling [Cutter] bottles by E. Martin reminded me somewhat of the sequel story concerning the older Cassin brother's [Francis] dealings.

F & P. J. Cassin having launched their Grape Brandy Bitters product in 1867, and promoting it throughout the Pacific Slope region hoping to gain a foothold in the up and coming bitters market, must have been a bit perplexed to watch another bitters product come onto the market about a year later and begin to show a remarkable marketing success with it. Louis Gross & Co. were the manufacturers of the celebrated Dr. Henley's Wild Grape Root IXL Bitters and it was not long before the Cassin brothers decided that they needed to promote their own version of this successful bitters product. In November of 1868, they began promoting Cassin's California Wild Grape Root XXX Bitters. Well, that tore it with Gross & Co. and the Cassin's found themselves in court again! On December 2nd, 1868 an injunction was granted by the Twelfth District Court. " L. Gross & Co. vs F. & P.J. Cassin- Suit was brought this day by L. Gross & Co., who alleged in their complaint that they are proprietors of the 'Wild Grape Root IXL Bitters;' and that they have the above as their trade-mark. That F. & P. J. Cassin are imitating their trade-mark, bottles and labels, and are selling an inferior article of bitters, called 'Cassin's California Wild Grape Root XXX Bitters.' That they are deceiving the public and interfering with the sale of the IXL bitters. An order was issued to-day restraining defendants from selling same until further hearing was granted."

On January 19th, 1869, the Cassin's succeeded in gaining the suit pending in the Bitter case, and boy did they ever play that up! Advertisements for their Cassin's Wild Grape Root XXX Bitters began showing up in all the Northern California papers, and in almost every issue where one appeared, their was a Henley's Wild Grape Root IXL Bitters ad of an inflammatory nature on the same page! A kind of Hatfield & McCoys feud.

READERS AND WRITERS

I have received several emails regarding being an author of a post to our Western Whiskey blog. There is room for up to one hundred authors for the blog, that should give us plenty of variety. All it takes is registering your name and email address with the admin.  I would love to have anyone that would like to be an author of postings give it a shot. My creativity comes is fits and starts, as you can tell, sometimes weeks pass without a creative thought passing between my ears.

As far as commenting on an existing post, that is open to anyone that is signed up as a follower.

Sign up as a follower, it is very easy. An email will notify you of new postings to the blog.

It is apparent that everyone likes to see bottle picts. It is easy to post them, and I think we should start a photo library of all the glob fifths and flasks. They are easy to group, we could assemble quite a photo album of bottles over time. I haven't tried it yet, but videos are supposedly easy to insert into your blog posting. If you have a video of a bottle dig that you want to share that would be fantastic. If you want to video a few bottles for us to drool over, super. Remember, the white gloves are optional and may in fact be a trademark of a popular auction house.
Email me with any questions or if you want to author.... soleagent@aol.com

The Old Signet Saga

A number of years ago, in the summer of 1999, we attended the Reno Bottle Show. Deb (my wife) and I opted to “rough it” that year and towed our travel trailer, staying at the Nevada State park adjacent to the Bowers mansion west of the site of Washoe City, about half way in between Reno and Carson. Had a blast at the show and looked forward to camping and exploring over the next few days succeeding the show. During the course of conversation with old pal Loren Love of Dayton, he recounted how urban sprawl was affecting even the Nevada dessert with subdivisions beginning to spread out from Carson towards Dayton. He lamented how even the old site of Sutro was slated for development and how a subdivision had recently been competed nearby. The building had pushed nearly to the western edge of the old townsite and the balance of the site was slated for plat approval the next year.

We had a few archival photographs to work with and realized that this would be our last chance to dig there before the D8’s and belly dumps arrived, and the site was lost forever. As everyone knows, Sutro had been hit hard (real hard) since the late 50’s and the odds against scoring were stacked against us. Still we had the photos and although I’ve never been particularly lucky compared to some, have been rewarded over the years for my combination of optimism, gut instinct, brute force and perseverance. With the aid of the photos and the accompanying terrain, we located where we surmised the main drag had been. Keep in mind that a century of flash flooding, winter snows and blowing wind can make dramatic changes in the dessert floor. Still, it wasn’t long before we were into glass; and lots of it. We had quite obviously, lucked upon a large dumpsite covered by a foot or better of sandy dirt. It also became obvious that the Hostetters Bitters rep. had done a land office business back in the 1870’s. Every conceivable color was present. Lemon yellow to grass green – pucey amber to nearly black; you name it we dug it. Dozens and dozens of crude, early amazing Hostetters were dug; all broken. Also plentiful were glop top cylinders. Well at least broken ones. Unfortunately, fearing for our liberty, we were also looking over our shoulders and in the air for any evidence that we’d been spotted since we were technically breaking the law, even back then. Never mind about the ethical dilemma of losing history for good thanks to progress; the threat of arrest, fines and jail time were an ever present thought.

About two hours in, the fear of arrest really began to sink in and my wife insisted that it was time to get out of Dodge. That was about the same instant that I dug an intact top, neck and shoulder with embossing that seemed familiar. And yet, I couldn’t place it. That was also about the time that we saw a tell tale plume of dust approaching toward us along a jeep road. Enough was enough. We scurried toward our truck, hopped in and sped off in the opposite direction.

Safe back at our campsite, I stared intently at the broken bottle. I knew this one, I’d seen it somewhere before, or had I? I thumbed through Bob Barnett’s 4th edition but nothing jumped out at me. Out came Wilsons text, again nothing. In desperation, I pulled out my tattered copy of Thomas’s Whiskey Bottle of the Old West. I looked back at the piece. The top looked western to me, as did the color. The few letters of embossing also pointed to San Francisco, but what the heck was it. It was then that I thumbed to page 31 and looked at the bottle in the bottom right corner; number 98. Oh My God! I was holding apiece of the holy grail! There was no mistaking the location and combination of the few letters on the piece that I was holding.

Meanwhile, my wife was outside the trailer maintaining a diligent visual for approaching BLM nazi’s. She was convinced that they’d gotten our description and license plate number and that we were done for. Yep, just a matter of time… Her mood deepened and by the next morning it was obvious that this cloud of doom wasn’t going to lift. Shortly after breakfast, we broke camp and headed north. A couple of hours later, we crossed the California border and by nightfall were “safely” back into Oregon, our trip cut short....

The next day was like any other. Work, stowing away the camping gear, cleaning the inside of the trailer, storing away bottles from the show and putting the books back in the library. It was then that I reopened the Thomas book to page 31. There it was, bottom right. That warm feeling returned as I went in search for the Old Signet piece. My piece of the grail! Hmm. Not in the trailer where I put it, not in the bottle boxes. That warm feeling quickly left me, replaced by a much, much hotter feeling. I asked my wife if she recalled where it was and she meekly replied that she was so sure that we were going to get caught that she’d wrapped it up with the garbage in the trailer and deposited it in the trash can back at the campground. Not much was said around here for the next few days… So much for history, Eh?