Kennel Club
You read it right, it's not Dog Gone Good Whiskey, It's
Dog-on Good Whiskey. That's a catchy little phrase.
The logo that bore the slogan is just as catchy!
As Paul Harvey used to say, many years ago, "Here's the
rest of the story".
Rusconi & Fisher first appeared as a partnership in the 1898
San Francisco
In the ensuing years, they became a power in the S. F.
wholesale liquor market, no doubt due to the popularity of the Kennel Club
brand, which they had sole agency of. The brand was so successful that the
glass works that produced the bottles for the product utilized no fewer than
four different molds.
(remember - just click on the photos and they will open in a separate large format - high resolution - window.)
The first big push for the Kennel Club brand occurred in the
Pacific Wine and Spirit Review of 1900. The dog (apparently some type of hound)
became the mascot for Kennel Club whisky (note Ky and not Key), their flagship brand.
The bottle on the far right in the lineup is quite obviously the earliest
of the four variants. The first bottle has all the attributes of having been blown by
an eastern firm. The mold is amateurish in appearance, and the bottle is notably
cruder than the other three. The slug plate is oblong in appearance and the
lettering does not resemble anything we are accustomed to seeing on western
produced fifths. The tooling of the top does not resemble western techniques
and the base mark is an oddball. It has three numbers contained within a drawn
out diamond shape. It's the bottle on the far right, and is under a fifth, but
more than a sixth, in capacity.
The next bottle (2nd from right) is slightly larger, has a
smooth base (no basemark) and has embossing which looks very much western in
appearance. It is heavily air vented and the embossing is crisp and well executed.
This mold, and the ensuing bottles blown in it, were no doubt, a product of the
San Francisco
The next bottle (3rd from the right - 2nd from the left) is
a no brainer when it comes to dating. The base mark is 32H, which attributes
the bottle to Abramson Heunisch Glass Works of San Francisco. Abramson Heunisch
were the successors to the "SFPGW". The base mark dates the mold to
ca. 1900, when the firm opened their new glass works at the corner of 15th and
Folsom in San Francisco
In 1907, the firm name was changed to Rusconi, Fisher &
Co. A new ad campaign was embarked upon (pun intended) and the hound was now
pictured perched atop of a hogshead of Kennel Club.
It was at this point in
time that they also
commissioned a watch fob and an etched shot glass to help
with the brands visibility. Note that the spelling of Whiskey on the shot glass - "Key", indicating that it was now distilled, blended and rectified in S. F., as opposed to Kentucky (Ky).
This variant is the bottle on the far left of the lineup, and is the last of the
series of cylinder fifth molds blown for Rusconi Fisher. It has "& Co. "
added to the embossing pattern. This bottle utilizes the same base and rear
half mold as the middle bottle, which as noted before dates to ca. 1900 - 1906.
A new front half mold was cut and exchanged for the earlier one which was sans
"& Co. ". This mold was the last
cylinder used.
Around 1910 the rectangular Full Quart became the standard. A
mold was cut for the "tanker", (Barnett #708), embossed simply Rusconi
Fisher & Co. San Francisco". The
reverse of the tanker no doubt sported labels for Kennel Club, as well as the
other brands that the company sold. This bottle was utilized until 1917, when
the company shut it doors for good.
Quite the run; 19 years in business. Yep, that's a Dog on Good run!
(Photo credits; watch fob - ebay seller "2chic2beshabby", shot glass - collection of the late Ken Schwartz, tanker - courtesy of friends Pete and Shannon H.)
