Tag: alcohol

Barclay’s Lager, 1926

Post author By Estelle
Post date August 29, 2016

It’s been a strange kind of summer in a strange kind of year. The approach of September usually gives me a feeling of normality being restored – working for a university I still feel tied to the academic calendar, and September always feels more like new year to me than January ever does. After the uproar of the Brexit result, the weird hiatus while our new Prime Minister promptly went on holiday for five weeks has made the referendum result seem like a strange dream while real life was on hold. With the government reconvening (and why was the referendum decided to coincide with that political period when it feels like no one is in charge?) Brexit’s on the real life agenda again and normality is very much not restored in September this year.

I’ve been having a bit of a holiday from the blog too – a huge queue of scanning materials have been building up and I hope to actually get on with it shortly. In the meantime, here’s an advert for Barclay’s British Lager from 1926. Averse as I currently feel to anything overtly flying the flag for British nationalism, I like this advert.

A seaman’s thirst is quenched by British Lager, Barclay’s being one of the British pioneers in brewing lager. They took advantage of world events – Germany and Austria were the prime source of lager prior to the First World War, but such imports became impossible during the war and Barclay’s set to experimenting with their own brews. They brewed it at 5%, stronger than most beers at the time. After the war they developed a successful export trade in it too – Germany and Austria’s trade being incapacitated and the other big lager producer, the USA, being hobbled by the era of prohibition.

In 1921, the Brewer’s Journal reported on Barclay’s lager in this way (from this link):

“Doubtless they do not imagine that any large trade in this type of beer can at present be looked for from the working classes. The potentiality of trade lies with the middle and upper classes, and with that floating population from the ends of the earth which the Metropolis always embraces.”

Turns out they were wrong about the popularity of lager with the working classes. And the reference to London accepting, “embracing“, people from all “ends of the earth” brings me depressingly back to a time when it feels like the march of history has got a bit lost and is going back on itself, in well-trodden footsteps that lead to nowhere you really want to go.

Tags advert, alcohol, Barclay's lager, Brexit

1900-1949 Adverts Food & Drink

No More Drunkenness, 1909

Post author By Estelle
Post date January 23, 2016

This is a kind of anti-Rohypnol advert from 1909. It’s a product that you surreptitiously slip into the unaware’s drink in order to sober them up.

“No More Drunkenness” is promised with “the Great Coza Powder”, which has “the marvellous effect of producing a repugnance to alcohol in any shape or form.”

The USP for this product is that the user isn’t aware that they’ve taken it. It’s for other concerned members of the drunkard’s family for administer in “coffee, tea, milk, beer, water, liqueurs or solid food, without the partaker’s knowledge”.

The troublesome imbiber suddenly doesn’t fancy a drink anymore as the powder “does its work so silently and surely that wife, sister, or daughter can administer it to the intemperate without his knowledge and without his learning what has effected his reformation.”

I’m not sure exactly how it works – you can get a free sample sent out to you, so it’s obviously not a one shot deal. Maybe you have to take it every day.

Annoying as the drunkard is, I suppose it’s not technically moral behaviour to secretly slip them some Coza Powder. Or it wouldn’t be if this remedy wasn’t pure quackery, and easily made in your kitchen right now. One of my favourite publications, The British Medical Journal’s “The Composition of Certain Secret Remedies” of 1909, the very same year as this advert, was a take down of the old Victorian and Edwardian pharmaceutical industry with analyses of all those “never fail” medications. It dismisses Coza by its findings that all it consists of is ordinary bicarbonate of soda, cumin and cinnamon.

Tags 1909, advert, alcohol, Coza powder, Food and drink, pharmaceuticals

1900-1949 Adverts Food & Drink

Bottoms Up the Workers, 1920

Post author By Estelle
Post date July 8, 2015

A protest against the Temperance movement in 1920. The advert is saying that the only real effect of an alcohol ban, as was seen in the US, would be to prevent the working class from accessing booze – those with money would always be able to pay their hands on it. I agree that “a sober working class” was, no doubt, desirable by those in charge.

And here’s a nice little picture of some members of the labour movement having fun – trade union delegates taking a break from the 1917 congress for a splash about on Blackpool beach. How great it would be if politicians did this at their party conferences now.

Tags 1917, 1920, advert, alcohol, prohibition, trade union

1900-1949 Adverts Food & Drink

Mercer’s Meat Stout, 1940

Post author By Estelle
Post date March 26, 2015

Mercer's Meat Stout, The Lancashire Daily Post, 1940

Here’s a curious advert I stumbled across in The British Newspaper Archive – it’s for Mercer’s Meat Stout. “Tastes good, does you good.” Now, I’ve heard of milk stout (Ena Sharples springs to mind), but…..meat stout?

Is it me, or does this look exactly like a mock advert from Viz? Meat and beer, together at last.

This wasn’t just a quirky name, it was stout that actually included meat extract in some form. It was sold (as every food-and-drink-stuff was, even chocolate) as being good for you. It was also advertised as a nourishing drink for invalids. Invalid cookery and care was a big deal pre-NHS and a special invalid recipe section was in nearly every cookbook up until around 1950. I’ve got some recipes here if you’re feeling a bit peaky.

The Zythophile blog has more information on Meat Stout. It turns out it might have had some offal chucked in during the brewing process. Mmmm. Well, one of the aforementioned invalid recipes was raw beef tea – raw mince steeped in lukewarm water – so I guess it might not have seemed so strange at the time.

Tags 1940, advert, advertising, alcohol, invalid cookery, Lancashire Daily Post, Mercer's Meat Stout, The British Newspaper Archive, Vintage recipes

1900-1949 Adverts Ephemera Food & Drink

A 20-Hour Joy-day, 1937

Post author By Estelle
Post date February 2, 2015

Hooray Hooray, it’s a happy holiday! It’s a 20-hour joy-day! To be more precise, it’s May 1937, the week before George VI’s coronation, and The Mirror couldn’t be more excited. I have the overseas edition of The Mirror, which was a week’s worth of newspapers bundled up into one edition (the overseas edition was out a week later, so the dates are actually those of Coronation Week itself). We moaned about the coverage of the last Royal Wedding, but this was something else. Nearly everyone was trying to get in on the act. (By the way, I’ve not been able to scan everything in the paper, it’s quite delicate in places, so the not so good bits are photos that might not be quite as clear.)

Firstly, the reason for George being King at all – Edward and Mrs Simpson. 12th May 1937 was originally Edward’s coronation date and, when he officially abdicated, the same date was kept for his brother. There’s lots of sweet, romantic pictures of the couple, and seemingly no disapproval at all, in this paper at least.

Here’s the schedule:

There are many ways to celebrate the day, as the Very Reverend Edgar Rogers rather tolerantly points out. He might be singing hymns, but he doesn’t mind if you’re getting completely blotto instead. In fact, is it just me, or is there a bit of a homoerotic vibe going on here? I’m imagining he has a secret passion for a “bit of rough” neighbour of his who likes a drink – all that talk of “he-manness” and everything.

And, along those lines….

It seemed like all the nations of the world wanted part of it. Nazi Germany was no exception, with Hitler giving George a special honour and sending a present.

Generous Ovaltine gave its workers an extra week’s wages to celebrate the occasion:

The Mirror had a special song commissioned, with a tune by Ivor Novello, no less.

Planning to get a good spot for the procession? Hyde Park was specially open all night on 11th May for overnight sleepers – here’s some tips:

But don’t bring your car:

Working underground? There’s still no excuse to miss the event!

You’re not patriotic enough unless you’re eating the correct food for the occasion.

Eat Nestle’s chocolate (in the days when everyone called it “Nessles”):

Or perhaps you fancy a Rowntree’s Chocolate Crisp? I know I do. It’s a Kit Kat now, by the way.

Drink beer! I love how this isn’t an advert for a particular company, it’s just that YOU’RE BRITISH SO DRINK BEER. From 1429 (that was Henry VI’s coronation) to 1937, beer has been going strong. I don’t know what they had before 1429, though.

Stuck in a crowd waiting for the King to go past? Eat some specially shaped cheese triangles:

And smoke some special coronation fags while you’re at it:

And here’s the film to use to take your pictures:

And finally, the new King pardons a murderer to mark the occasion, for some reason (welease Woderick). Well, he only stabbed his 20 year old fiancee to death, poor lamb. At least his “grey-haired” mother gets to see him again:

Tags 1930s, 1937, advert, alcohol, Coronation, Edward, ephemera, food, George VI, Hitler, Mrs Simpson, Second World War, The Mirror

Victorian Victorian Slang

Victorian Slang of the Week – Tom and Jerry (and Daffy)

Post author By Estelle
Post date October 22, 2014
2 Comments on Victorian Slang of the Week – Tom and Jerry (and Daffy)

Tom and Jerry – a slang term that has made its mark, perhaps like no other, throughout popular culture. And one intertwined with The Slang Dictionary itself.

Tom and Jerry are now most famously the cartoon cat and mouse, of course, but the term was also used to refer to British and German soldiers in the Second World War – or the “Tommies” and the “Jerries”. In popular culture, it was the original stage name of Simon and Garfunkel and also the male characters in The Good Life.

But perhaps the phrase originated in 1821 from a journal called Life in London by Pierce Egan, which had a couple of flash characters called Corinthian Tom and Jerry Hawthorn who embarked on laddish sprees around London. They were also accompanied by another friend, Bob Logic, but he’s rather gone by the wayside in slang terms. Life in London ran until 1828 and was hugely popular. There was an offshoot stage show, and even a drink called “Tom and Jerry” devised by Egan to promote the show. This cocktail – a kind of hot eggnog and brandy concoction – is actually still around as a traditional Christmas seasonal drink in parts of the US.

Pierce Egan was also the editor of the 1823 slang dictionary Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. This preceded the slang dictionary I own, which was compiled by John Camden Hotten in 1865.

Corinthian Tom refers to the dictionary in Life in London,

“A kind of cant phraseology is current from one end of the Metropolis to the other, and you will scarcely be able to move a single step, my dear JERRY, without consulting a Slang Dictionary, or having some friend at your elbow to explain the strange expressions which, at every turn, will assail your ear.”

In more intertwining, John Camden Hotten himself brought out a reprint of Life in London in 1869. And by the time he had published his own slang dictionary in 1865, Tom and Jerry meant a lowdown drinking den, a gin palace (probably because these were exactly the types of places frequented by Corianthian Tom and Jerry Hawthorn). And, to add to the cartoony slang, Daffy meant gin.

Pictures of Life in London can be found on the brilliant Spitalfields Life blog – http://spitalfieldslife.com/2012/03/28/tom-jerrys-life-in-london/

Tags 1865, alcohol, Daffy, The slang dictionary, Tom and Jerry, Victorian, Victorian slang

Victorian Victorian Slang

Victorian Slang of the Week – the Cove of the Budging-Ken

Post author By Estelle
Post date September 1, 2014

The Cove of the Budging-Ken – a Northern phrase meaning pub landlord.

But it sounds to me like the title of a 1960s cartoon film about Cornish smugglers who are also animals. Or a portentous song along the lines of “The Hall of the Mountain King”. But still! The cosy strangeness of it makes this my favourite Victorian slang so far.

See also – more of my favourite “head” insults with “Buffle-head” – meaning a stupid or obtuse person; from “buffalo”, rather than the American duck of the same name.

And “Who struck Buckley? – a common phrase used to irritate Irishmen”. This seems to have been a very common phrase with no agreement at all as to where it came from or what it really means. It also gets a mention in James Joyce’s “Finnegan’s Wake”.

Some theories here, from The Sydney Mail in 1879, about where it originated:

Tags 1865, alcohol, Insult of the day, pub landlord, The slang dictionary, Victorian slang