Twins!

Sorry about the hiatus from bottle articles. I've been entangled in a "consulting job from hell" since Canyonville. Nothing like small town politics coupled with a government employee with a big title, an equally big ego, combined with a bad attitude to make life "interesting". Anyway, the project is done... And, I was long overdue for a reversal of fortune!

 

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Twins!

No, not the bouncing baby kind.

 

 

Decades ago, I met an old guy named Howard Height. He owned the property where the old Ashland dump was located. It wasn't the earliest dump in town, but it had good age; late 80's / early 90's through early post turn of the century. It was huge! Howard dug, and dug, and dug. He also was magnanimous enough to let others dig; if you paid him a digging fee. And, he got to keep his pick of what came out of the ground. Howard set up his own little "museum" and would occasionally sell stuff if someone offered him enough. Most of the time what Howard thought was enough, was over the top, and so I never did consummate any purchases.

 

Still a visit to the museum was always a welcome diversion. I recall one time, around 1976, when Howard showed me a killer whiskey that he'd just dug. Not for Sale!; he said. Being a whiskey guy, even then, I was duly impressed. Whiskies were a rarity in the pious pre 1900 town of Ashland. Good grief, the churches outnumbered the saloons by something like 5 - 1. But on rare occasions, Ashland did yield up some power. I recall digging a tri color enameled Blumauer and Hoch - Old Kentucky Home Club / OPS shot glass around that same time. Of course, that was down in the old railroad district, where you'd expect to find whiskey.

 

The whiskey that Howard found was a mini, a sample, embossed BT&P Oak Run Whiskey. I'd never seen one, and knew nothing about it. Still, it was intriguing. First thing I did when I got back to our place was to bust out Wilsons "Spirits Bottle of the Old West". That was "the bible" back then. Sure enough, right there on page 39, was a description and on page 37, a picture of the bottle.

 

 

 

 

 

I had the amber fifth Brunsing Tolle and Postel  in my collection, and boy that mini would fit in nice. But no, that bottle was destined to be one of Howards "keepers".

 

In the 90's, Howard sold the property. It was bulldozed, graded and condominiums rose on the site. No more Ashland dump, no more Howards museum. I don't know what ever happened to that bottle. But, I've wanted one ever since I first laid eyes on it.

 

A couple of weeks ago, I got a lead about a person that had some minis. It's been a bit of dry spell in regards to bottles here. As such, I wasn't overly excited. Still, the lead you ignore is normally the one that turns out to be the "one that got away". This was one that didn't get away. I touched base with the owner, and the response that I got was mind boggling. Here was my long lost Oak Run mini. But not just any old mini, this one was complete with labels and contents as well.

 

 

But wait, there's more!

 
That's right. Twins

Brunsing Tolle and Postel "Oak Run" twins, to be precise.

An Oak Run Home Run!