I've posted many of these ads on this blog over the years, including these for Old Log Cabin Whiskey, PM Blended Whiskey, Schenley, Corby's and most recently, for Old Quaker.
And here's another example – an ad for Golden Wedding Kentucky Whiskey. It ran in the Journal back on April 6, 1953.
I'd never heard of this brand, which certainly had an oddly sentimental angle to its advertising with its image of a newly married couple and the tagline, "Choice of a Lifetime." It probably wouldn't work as well these days, with about half of all marriages ending in divorce. ("Choice of a Lifetime – Maybe" just doesn't have the same appeal.)
I love the offbeat visuals of the ad. The fedora-wearing drinker's grocery cart is loaded (just as he will be later) with various packages and cans, with a bottle of Golden Wedding jammed in there.
Gee, didn't they have State Stores back in 1953? Or could you really pick up a bottle at your local A&P?
The copywriter's attempt to tie it all together with a 'marriage' theme is amusing too. "What a break for a married man's budget!" That seems contrary to the old adage, "Two can live as cheaply as one."
Anyway, if the gentleman in the ad keeps boozin' it up, I doubt that he'll be married long enough to eventually make the switch to "Old Grand Dad."
Golden Wedding is still in production!
ReplyDeletehttps://rockspirits.ca/partner-brands/golden-wedding-whisky
Funny, but most of the older ads for it that I saw have a couple of geezer guys drinking toasts to each other.
And would a married guy in the '50's be doing his own shopping?
Evidently, State Liquor Stores started in Ohio in 1933; I don't remember ever seeing a supermarket in Ohio selling anything but that 42 proof stuff . The State Stores were in operation into the Nineties.
ReplyDeleteI can see Lorain being a hard drinking town as back then the men had all the hard jobs.Whether it be Ford Motor or the steel mill or Thew Shovel or the shipyard.They had hard manual labor jobs.And they wanted hard liquor to ease their troubles in life after work.It was just different back then.Now there are no jobs and half the city is just on hard core drugs.
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