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OLD WHISKY BARREL

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BELMONT WHISKY

OF SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

1" WHIMSY IS A MINIATURE LIQUOR KEG

ONE END HAS MANUFACTURER OF THE TRINKET

'H&S'

METAL POCKET CHAIN IS ABOUT 9cm x 2.5cm

CIRCA 1895 - 1910

INFORMATION IS SPECULATIVE ABOUT THE DISTILLER / BOTTLER AND ANY OTHER REPORTS ARE WELCOME

THANKS TO KENTUCKYGEM FOR HIS POST:

A. P. Hotaling & Co. Belmont Whisky. Whisky spelled KY indicated pure Kentucky Bourbon instead of the west coast product spelled KEY. Del Carlos address was again listed as 3692 Eighteenth St. and the phone number was Park 2154.                   
Hmm, that should be enough to start the search. Sure enough, the Sanborn map plainly shows a saloon at that location on the corner of Delores.

Several hours of sleuthing for hard data about D. Del Carlo, the principals of the saloon and or company, or the years that it was in business came up absoultely blank. Nuthin'! None of the City directories or phone books dating from 1895 - 1915 make any mention of the business. Still, there it is, plain as day. Dating is also made easier by the Pure Food and Drug Act stamp of 1906 on the label. And that makes sense, since the residential part of the city expanded westward after it was rebuilt, subsequent to the Great Earthquake and Fire.

Two theories about the Belmont brand are possible; either Del Carlo purchased unblended Kentucky Whisky in hogsheads from Hotaling and rebottled it under license, or they were nothing but a fly by night backwater saloon bottling red eye with a fancy label. Lending credence to the latter is the fact that the Belmont brand does not appear in the list of brands registered to Hotaling. In fact, only two western wholesalers registered the name Belmont; one being James Gibb (Belmont Whiskey) in 1902, the other an outfit by the name of Venaglia, Costa & Co. (Belmont Club Whiskey) that registered it prior to Gibb, in 1899. Shame, shame on Del Carlo; another imposter?

And yet, look at the label! It plainly shows the Hotaling brand on the barrel ends. Either the brand is indeed legit, or Mr. Del Carlo was skirting the dark edge of the gray area in an attempt to avoid the wrath of old A.P.'s legal department~

Whisky (Scottish English and British English) or whiskey (Irish English and American English) is a type of distilled alcoholic beverage made from fermented grain mash. Different grains are used for different varieties, including barley, malted barley, rye, malted rye, wheat, and corn. Whisky is aged in wooden casks, made generally of charred white oak, except that in the United States corn whiskey need not be aged.
 
While the exact origins of whisky are unknown, its existence was first documented in Ireland and Scotland in the 15th century. Whisky is a strictly regulated spirit worldwide with many classes and types. The typical unifying characteristics of the different classes and types are the fermentation of grains, distillation, and aging in wood. Indian whisky is an exception, wherein grain fermentation is not a requirement and the most common basis is fermented molasses. The requirement for aging in wood is also not entirely universal.

Etymology
Whiskey or whisky is an anglicization of a Goidelic name (Irish: uisce beatha and Scottish Gaelic: uisge beatha) literally meaning "water of life". Earlier anglicizations include usquebaugh, usquebea (1706) and iskie bae (1583). It meant the same thing as the Latin aqua vitae, which had been applied to distilled drinks since the early 14th century. In the Irish Annals of Clonmacnoise in 1405, the first written record of whiskey appears describing the death of a chieftain at Christmas from "taking a surfeit of aqua vitae". In Scotland, the first evidence of whisky production comes from an entry in the Exchequer Rolls for 1494 where malt is sent "To Friar John Cor, by order of the king, to make aquavitae".
 
History
The art of distillation began with the Babylonians in Mesopotamia (in what is now Iraq) from at least the 2nd millennium BC, with perfumes and aromatics being distilled long before potable spirits. Distillation was brought from Africa to Europe by the Moors, and its use spread through the monasteries, largely for medicinal purposes, such as the treatment of colic, palsy, and smallpox.
 
Between 1100 and 1300, distillation spread in Ireland and Scotland, with monastic distilleries existing in Ireland in the 12th century. Since the islands had few grapes with which to make wine, barley beer was used instead, resulting in the development of whisky. In 1494, as noted above, Scotland’s Exchequer granted the malt to Friar John Cor; this was enough malt to make about 1500 bottles, so the business was apparently thriving by that time.
 
James IV of Scotland (r. 1488-1513) reportedly had a great liking for Scotch whisky, and in 1506 the town of Dundee purchased a large amount of Scotch from the Guild of Surgeon Barbers, which held the monopoly on production at the time. Between 1536 and 1541, King Henry VIII of England dissolved the monasteries, sending their monks out into the general public. Whisky production moved out of a monastic setting and into personal homes and farms as newly independent monks needed to find a way to earn money for themselves.
 
The distillation process at the time was still in its infancy; whisky itself was imbibed at a very young age, and as a result tasted very raw and brutal compared to today’s versions. Renaissance-era whisky was also very potent and not diluted, and could even be dangerous at times. Over time, and with the happy accident of someone daring to drink from a cask which had been forgotten for several years, whisky evolved into a much smoother drink. With a licence to distil Irish whiskey from 1608, the Old Bushmills Distillery in the north coast of Ireland is often regarded as being the oldest licenced whiskey distillery in the world.
 
In 1707, the Acts of Union merged England and Scotland, and thereafter taxes on it rose dramatically.
 
After the English Malt Tax of 1725, most of Scotland’s distillation was either shut down or forced underground. Scotch whisky was hidden under altars, in coffins, and in any available space to avoid the governmental Excisemen. Scottish distillers, operating out of homemade stills, took to distilling their whisky at night, when the darkness would hide the smoke rising from the stills. For this reason, the drink was known as moonshine. At one point, it was estimated that over half of Scotland’s whisky output was illegal.
 
In America, whisky was used as currency during the American Revolution. It also was a highly coveted sundry and when an additional excise tax was levied against it, the Whiskey Rebellion erupted in 1791.
 
In 1823, the UK passed the Excise Act, legalizing the distillation (for a fee), and this put a practical end to the large-scale production of Scottish moonshine.
 
In 1826 Robert Stein invented an effective continuous still, and in 1831, Aeneas Coffey refined it to create the Coffey still, allowing for cheaper and more efficient distillation of whisky. In 1850, Andrew Usher began producing a blended whisky that mixed traditional pot still whisky with that from the new Coffey still. The new distillation method was scoffed at by some Irish distillers, who clung to their traditional pot stills. Many Irish contended that the new product was, in fact, not whisky at all.
 
By the 1880s, the French brandy industry was devastated by the phylloxera pest that ruined much of the grape crop; as a result, whisky became the primary liquor in many markets.
 
During the Prohibition era lasting from 1920 to 1933 in the United States, all alcohol sales were banned in the country. However, the federal government made an exemption for whisky that was prescribed by a doctor and sold through licensed pharmacies. During this time, the Walgreens pharmacy chain grew from 20 retail stores to almost 400.

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