Liquor Ads From the New York Times April 28, 1959 Part II

Hey welcome back folks. I'm back at the old school ads from the April 28, 1959 edition of the New York Times courtesy of the TimesMachine. Today I wanted to focus on an ad from Justerini & Brooks.

The ad makes the following claim:

Charles Dickens was an eminent patron of Justerini & Brooks who have been purveyors of fine wines and spirits for over two centuries. Today this celebrated house is famous for a standard of quality that has brought good cheer and good fellowship to every corner of the world. Try the famous J & B Rare Scotch, of flavor unsurpassed. 

I was like "Whoa. Charles Dickens drank J&B????" (I can just hear my friend Melvin yell out J-B in Spanish.) Well that's not quite how it was. J&B Rare Scotch Whisky was created in 1932, while Charles Dickens lived until 1870. So he didn't drink the J&B Rare Scotch. In my mind, was this just an example of hyperbole for the sake of advertising? I had originally profiled J&B Rare Scotch Whisky in the post Crimson: The Color of Blood (1973) and I guess I missed the Dickens connection. What I found out was that he was a customer and bought wine and other spirits from the Justerini & Brooks Company. I decided to look a bit closely into the Justerini & Brooks Company.

Justerini & Brooks can trace their history back to 1749 and according to the Justerini & Brooks history website they awarded the Royal Warrant by every consecutive British monarch since King George III (1761). Since 1858, they started to export wine and spirits to overseas private collectors. And here I thought that the initials J&B represented a scotch whisky that my dad drank back in the 1970s. But back to Charles Dickens.

On the same history website for the Justerini & Brooks, they have images of an invoice to Charles Dickens for services rendered, as well as two signed checks by Dickens to Justerini & Brooks. Here they go for your viewing pleasure:

I guess the ad mentioning Dickens wasn't hyperbole after all. Here are a couple of other J&B Rare Scotch Whisky ads featuring Charles Dickens from the early 1960's:

It just like I say: You should always learn something new everyday. Today I definitely did. I'll be back with some more movie and old school ads post in the days to come.

Until Then Happy Drinking,

SiscoVanilla

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