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Guinness has quite a long ngram history, and I suspect that most of it is due to the stout. It goes down during Prohibition, though if you switch to British Eng

by dalke 12y ago

Guinness has quite a long ngram history, and I suspect that most of it is due to the stout. It goes down during Prohibition, though if you switch to British English it continues upwards during that era. FWIW, http://www.pre-pro.com/midacore/snyder.php http://www.pre-pro.com/midacore/snyder.php says there wasn't a national trademark protection before 1905. That would have given only 15 years for a national brand to assert itself before prohibition. http://nypost.com/2014/10/18/what-every-president-drank/ http://nypost.com/2014/10/18/what-every-president-drank/ says that Wilson's campaign song "Wilson's. That's all" came from a then popular whiskey brand. That would have been before prohibition. The brand was: Wilson "That's All" Old Label Blended Whiskey. There's a picture of a bottle at https://www.pinterest.com/engraver26/beer-booze-bottles-labels/ https://www.pinterest.com/engraver26/beer-booze-bottles-labe... , but that's a post-prohibition bottle. There are some pre-prohibition brands at https://www.sweeney-emporium.com/cgi-bin/go.pl?session=a2bjr4jn7k1nh8ed71k9uogs159vbe5h&s=site&&p=22073 https://www.sweeney-emporium.com/cgi-bin/go.pl?session=a2bjr... . Apparently there were plenty of brands pre-prohibition. So I think what you're seeing is that the most popular drinks now don't have a long history, not that brands are a result of prohibition.

dredmorbius 12y ago
what you're seeing is that the most popular drinks now don't have a long history, not that brands are a result of prohibition. That's a possibility. And prohibition certainly put a lot of established liquor companies out of business. Though that doesn't address the question of why the sudden rise to prominence of brands from 1950 onwards -- 17 years after repeal.
- dalke 12y ago
  The repeal took place during the Depression, and then there was World War II. That's not going to help market expansion. Plus, national brands used to be harder to establish. In the early 1900s, transportation costs were much higher. While there were national brands, glass bottles and water are heavy. Plus, bottles used to be reused. See http://refillables.grrn.org/content/americas-experience-refillable-beverage-containers http://refillables.grrn.org/content/americas-experience-refi... : > As soon as packaged beer became popular in the mid-1930s, cans competed with refillable glass bottles for the market. The figure and table show how the rise of metal cans and a fluctuating but significant demand for one-way bottles concurred with the decline of refillable bottles. One-way containers helped national beer companies conquer the U.S. market, and their conquest further diminished the use of refillable glass bottles. Marketing national brands also became easier with the rise of popularity of radio and TV in the 1950s. http://www.businessinsider.com/how-budweiser-became-the-king-of-beers-an-evolution-of-advertising-2012-3?op=1&IR=T http://www.businessinsider.com/how-budweiser-became-the-king... comments: > Budweiser had its glory days in the 1950s when Anheuser-Busch helped strengthen its national brand by sponsoring shows featuring Jackie Gleason, Milton Berle, and Frank Sinatra. It also promoted its beer by sponsoring sporting events and branding stadiums. By the 1980s, Budweiser was synonymous with American culture. Here's an essay about the decline of regional breweries in Cincinnati - http://www.wcpo.com/entertainment/local-a-e/cincinnatis-rise-and-fall-as-a-brewery-town-part-2great-experiment-ends-breweries-make-a-comeback http://www.wcpo.com/entertainment/local-a-e/cincinnatis-rise... . It shows that regional brands were popular pre-Prohibition, and my summary of it is that decreasing marketing and transport costs gave more weight to the economy of scale for the national brands. http://tapsmagazine.com/in-this-issue/the-rise-of-national-brands/ http://tapsmagazine.com/in-this-issue/the-rise-of-national-b... might be useful, but non-subscribers like me only see "The 1950s witnessed the emergence of national brands, as the nation’s biggest brewers aggressively promoted their flagship beers from coast to coast."

by dalke 12y ago

dredmorbius 12y ago

what you're seeing is that the most popular drinks now don't have a long history, not that brands are a result of prohibition. That's a possibility. And prohibition certainly put a lot of established liquor companies out of business. Though that doesn't address the question of why the sudden rise to prominence of brands from 1950 onwards -- 17 years after repeal.

dalke 12y ago
The repeal took place during the Depression, and then there was World War II. That's not going to help market expansion. Plus, national brands used to be harder to establish. In the early 1900s, transportation costs were much higher. While there were national brands, glass bottles and water are heavy. Plus, bottles used to be reused. See http://refillables.grrn.org/content/americas-experience-refillable-beverage-containers http://refillables.grrn.org/content/americas-experience-refi... : > As soon as packaged beer became popular in the mid-1930s, cans competed with refillable glass bottles for the market. The figure and table show how the rise of metal cans and a fluctuating but significant demand for one-way bottles concurred with the decline of refillable bottles. One-way containers helped national beer companies conquer the U.S. market, and their conquest further diminished the use of refillable glass bottles. Marketing national brands also became easier with the rise of popularity of radio and TV in the 1950s. http://www.businessinsider.com/how-budweiser-became-the-king-of-beers-an-evolution-of-advertising-2012-3?op=1&IR=T http://www.businessinsider.com/how-budweiser-became-the-king... comments: > Budweiser had its glory days in the 1950s when Anheuser-Busch helped strengthen its national brand by sponsoring shows featuring Jackie Gleason, Milton Berle, and Frank Sinatra. It also promoted its beer by sponsoring sporting events and branding stadiums. By the 1980s, Budweiser was synonymous with American culture. Here's an essay about the decline of regional breweries in Cincinnati - http://www.wcpo.com/entertainment/local-a-e/cincinnatis-rise-and-fall-as-a-brewery-town-part-2great-experiment-ends-breweries-make-a-comeback http://www.wcpo.com/entertainment/local-a-e/cincinnatis-rise... . It shows that regional brands were popular pre-Prohibition, and my summary of it is that decreasing marketing and transport costs gave more weight to the economy of scale for the national brands. http://tapsmagazine.com/in-this-issue/the-rise-of-national-brands/ http://tapsmagazine.com/in-this-issue/the-rise-of-national-b... might be useful, but non-subscribers like me only see "The 1950s witnessed the emergence of national brands, as the nation’s biggest brewers aggressively promoted their flagship beers from coast to coast."