True Facts: Brands that are no longer with us department

I must be getting old. [You are... very old. Ed.] I can remember when the main substance abused by Americans was alcohol. Booze. Happy juice [sic]. 

The majority of crimes against persons and property were committed by people who were under the influence. Hammered. Sozzled, Drunk as two hoops of shit. And in some parts of the Paranoid States of America, people of the pale complexion worried that they would be the victims of the dark people. You know who I mean. 

It was thought, then as now, that black people were more likely than white to get all juiced up and commit crimes of mindless violence.

Of course nothing like that happens nowadays. In the first quarter of the 21st century, the mind-altering substances which fuel scenes like this are more likely to be opioids than beer, wine and hard liquor.

A century and a quarter ago, people of the coloured persuasion who had 50 cents to spend were more likely to buy a pint of a brand that is no longer with us: Black Cock Vigor Gin.

It was made by (((Lee Levy))) a distiller in St. Louis in the first decade of the 20th century. At that time, most brewers were German -- e.g. Adophus Busch -- but most distillers were Jews, His wholesale price for a  pint of what was generically called "n1gger gin" was 27 cents. Do the math. 

There were a number of different ads for Mr Levy's best-selling product, including the one below, but the most successful one -- the one people remembered -- was the one at the right, "Black Cock Vigor Gin". Read it out load and look especially at that photo. And note the "awareness indicator" (as admen call it) -- the black rooster -- in both ads. See what kind of subtle message is being sent there.

Around the time this ad appeared, attention was drawn to it by an incident in Shreveport LA. A black man named Charles Coleman was charged with the rape and murder of a white 14-year-old named Margaret Lear. Mr Coleman's trial took four hours, and the jury presented a guilty verdict after three minutes of deliberation. He was hanged in the Shreveport jail a week late.

The terrible story made it into the pages of newspapers and magazines because Mr Coleman was drunk at the time. No one was sure exactly what Mr Coleman had been drinking, but Will Irwin, a writer for Collier's, took a guess and suggested it might have resembled the item that had been found in the pocket of a black man charged with rape in Birmingham AL -- a half-empty bottle of gin bearing a brand name, an ullustration, and the words "Bottled by Lee Levy & Co., St. Louis".

The brand name wasn't printed in Collier's because, Mr Irwin wrote, "If I should give its name here...this publication could not go through the mails. The illustration did not appear because, a US attorney said later, "said picture is wholly unfit to be further described in this instrument, and a further description thereof wouldl be an insult to this honorable court."

Today, mindful of the force of BLM and reverse discrimination, Democratic DAs and judges would probably have let him Mr Coleman off with a warning: "Don't drink no more dat niggler gin!"

These are facts -- True Facts. Source: Okrent, Daniel: Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition. Scribner, 2010.

Further reading: "Politically correct toothpaste makes your smile brighter" (the evolution of Darkie toothpaste), WWW 21/1/12.