An Introduction & Old West Whiskey Bottles

David Brandt · Jan 9, 2017

Hello Everyone! This is David Brandt and I am a professional whiskey distiller. I am starting a craft distillery just outside of of Los Angeles called Sespe Creek Distillery. We do everything by hand and believe we will have a truly unique line of smoked whiskies out in the future. The style of these whiskies beckons back to the old west. Our vision is to hold true to this image and develop a bottle & label that embraces and celebrates the old west antique whiskey bottle.

I hope you will not take this a sacrilegious, but I want to create a bottle design that incorporates as many accurate characteristics found in old west whiskey bottles. I want to be true to the era and hopefully promote interest in collecting antique bottles ... NOT create fake antique bottles.

I know I could just copy a design, but that is not what I am after. There is more to it. There is the knowledge and stories behind the designs that I would like to share with the whiskey consumer on our website and I am asking if you would like to contribute your expertise. I am happy to give credit on our website should we use any information given.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Cheers,
David Brandt
Owner/Head Distiller
Sespe Creek Distillery
Los Angeles

sandchip · Jan 10, 2017

Sounds cool to me. Goodness knows, today's bottles have no character whatsoever. What did you have in mind shapewise: flask, cylinder or figural?

David Brandt · Jan 11, 2017

Sandchip - the variety of shapes and designs are mind numbing! There is some practical issues given that we are a start up company and though reasonably funded, every penny counts! So our first decision is bottle shape ... from what I could figure out, bottles produced in the Old West where mainly cylinder or flask shaped. I will define the Old West/Wild West geographically as west of the Mississippi that includes the Louisiana purchase, Rocky Mountains and West Coast, between the time from the Louis & Clarke exploration up to the early 1900's (1910).

For practical purposes, we plan on going Cylindrical since applying labels is much easier with a semi-automated labeling machine. However no final decision has been made.

From what I can find, major producers of bottles came from San Francisco, Portland, & St. Louis. Are there others we should look at?????

sandchip · Jan 12, 2017

Don't know how molds are made today, but one thought is to find a nice crude cylinder with an applied top and post-bottom base, and make a high quality, two-piece sand mold from which the iron mold would be made. The top part of the mold is then cut from the neck just below the collar assuming these will be blown in an automatic bottle machine since the body of the bottle is blown in two separate molds. All this is assuming that you plan to use cork stoppers. A screw top could be accomplished by having the top molded after the upper part of an applied collar and ring. Study the embossed lettering on the early cylinders, digitizing the desired letters which would more than likely be cut into the iron mold with a CNC router, replicating the old handcut lettering instead of the sterile, precise lettering found on today's bottles. I don't know if any of this makes any sense depending on whether or not you collect and are familiar with both early and modern bottle blowing methods. PM me if you need to.

An Introduction & Old West Whiskey Bottles

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