BourbonEnthusiast.com

So I was at an Antique Fair with the wife this morning - and was looking for old whiskey memorabilia... Picked up a few old Michter's and Henry McKenna jugs - but then I saw the bottle below.

The text says:
W.L. WELLER & SONS
DISTILLERS
LOUISVILLE, KY

Having visited a lot of antique shops, fairs, etc. I know which whiskey bottles are fairly common, but I had never seen a Weller bottle, so I did a little searching on the web and couldn't find anything... so bought it for $5.

I've done a little digging on antique bottles and as far as I can tell, its dated between 1905 and 1933, based on the make of the glass - I've also found, thanks to Mr. Veach, that WL Weller & Sons leased the Stitzel distillery in 1912 so they could say they were distillers. So I'm guessing that this is from the period from just before Prohibition, unless of course this is some kind of old style decanter bottle that was released in the 70's or something...

Does anyone have any info on this bottle??

Thanks for the reply - below are links to higher quality & bigger images. I'm actually trying to start a collection of pre-prohibition bottles - and figured this might be one... not sure though! No dates listed... no writing other than is listed above.

http://thewhiskeysociety.com/images/DSCF2052.JPG

http://thewhiskeysociety.com/images/DSCF2053.JPG

That is a Weller bottle from the 1890s. The archive at U.D. had a couple of them empty and one with a "Stoneroot and Gin" product in it.

So probably not a bourbon bottle eh? Oh well! Thank you for the info!

I never said it was not a bourbon bottle - I think that the style was the only bottle W L Weller and Sons used at the time. You must remember that bottles were quite expensive in those days so they company did not get too many bottle designs. I suspect that bourbon, rye, gin and other products all went into the same bottle from Weller.

Thanks for the clarification! Regardless, quite a deal for $5 IMHO!

nice find. I have no idea of its actual worth but I would have picked it up for 5.00

While I was working for United Distillers we paid $50.00 apiece for 2 of these bottles. We needed extra ones because an independent film maker wanted to do a Civil War movie and wanted an authentic looking bourbon bottle. We mocked up a couple of labels based upon a W W Weller label from the turn of the century placed it on the bottles and filled them with Rebel Yell, put in corks and let the film crew have one while we kept the other as part of the collection. They looked pretty good and I believe that Buffalo Trace has the one we kept in their gift shop area exhibits. I am not sure they realise it is a faked label.