AB&GC Round Bottom Bottles

Vol. 33 $7.00

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January - February 2022 May - June 2022

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Facts, assumptions, and stories about round-bottom bottles: which ones stand up, and which don’t?

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The House had an Illness A Fruit Jar Covered with Brownies The case of the ‘missing flasks’ of the St. Louis Bottle-Jar Expo Stockton’s Port Wine Bitters The Wisconsin Connection and so much more!

The official publication of the Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors

Vol. 33

No. 3

$7.00

Facts, assumptions, and stories about round-bottom bottles: which ones stand up, and which don’t ?

By Ken Previtali

Round-bottom Ginger Ale bottles on display at the FOHBC 2013 Manchester National Antique Bottle Convention, Manchester, N.H. – Ken Previtali award winning display.

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Cheers!! From the Brinton & Brosius girl, trade card, Philadelphia, 1912, “The bottles are easily opened and the beverage fairly sparkle and fizz.”

Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

Before we delve into the main subject of this article, we will begin with a preface. Usually, I do not write in the first person, but it is necessary this time. I always wondered how many people actually read “prefaces,” so I looked up the word. The Latin origin means “words spoken beforehand.” Some prefaces can be the author’s self-indulgent meanderings used to thank so-and-so for this or that or are used to explain something that didn’t need explaining. However, prefaces can serve a greater and perhaps more useful purpose—to provide context for what is to follow or to set the record straight on the author’s writing from the past. For this article, the preface serves both purposes.

Historical accounts of just about anything rely on the accuracy of what was understood at the time, who wrote it down, and where. It is what I call “current wisdom.”

It is what we know or believe right now.

In a world that has digitized so much of the documents of history, a significant part of our current wisdom has been replaced.

Of course, in the future, the interpretation of all the newly connected information will change again as “well, they didn’t know that back then, did they?” and our current wisdom will continue to evolve.

Embossed Culverhouse London Ginger Ale in a yellow olive tone.

May – June 2022

Nearly 35 years ago, I started collecting ginger ale bottles and studying their history. I scraped information from numerous books on the soda industry, many published in the 1880s or before. I went through 50 years’ worth of National Bottlers’ Gazette (1882-1932). Graciously, the editors of BeverageWorld magazine (successor to the Gazette) let me spend days studying in their library and archives.

I made hundreds of photocopies. The initial culmination of all that work was an article on the history of ginger ale published in 1991 in BeverageWorld, by those same editors with whom I had become friends.

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Let’s not give up yet on these “words spoken beforehand,” I’ll get there.

In that 1991 Beverage World article I wrote this:

ale’s content was alcoholic: From the Southern Reporter and Cork Commercial Courier, December 22, 1825:

The best-informed historians attribute the invention of ginger ale to the Irish in the 1850s. However, as with most of history, there is another point of view: Robert Robinson of New York City claimed he was the first one to make ginger ale in the U.S. in the 1840s, calling it ginger soda. By all accounts it was more like the “ginger-ades” being made in England at that time, rather than the ginger ale “flavor” produced in Ireland. Nobody really knows, but it is likely that Dr. Cantrell in Belfast, was the first inventor of ginger ale—perhaps with Grattan & Company, also of Belfast, as a party to the earliest production of the beverage. Grattan proudly claimed the rights by embossing a slogan on its bottles: “The Original Makers of Ginger Ale.” Possible, but not provable.

“A. J. Welstead’s Tea & Grocery Warehouse, Bottled Wine, Cider, Porter & Ale Vaults—Clarified Spruce and Ginger Ale Brewery–Introduced by A. J. W. and now universally established, light, wholesome and cheap beverage. Clarified Spruce & Ginger Ale brewed by A. J. W. The well-known excellence of these Bottled Liquors, now high in general estimation, needs no comment...”

The best informed historians attribute the invention of ginger ale to the Irish in the 1850s. However, as with most of history, there is another point of view: Robert Robinson of New York City claimed he was the first one to make ginger ale in the U.S. in the 1840s, calling it ginger soda.

That was my current wisdom at the time. The article was reprinted in Bottles and Extras in 2001 and was quoted on numerous websites and blogs on the history of soda. However, as “digital diggers” dove into new troves of information, they found things I did not know in the “dark ages” of 1991.

Since then, several published accounts challenge my assertion that ginger ale was invented in Ireland in the 1850s, even citing an 1818 advertisement by a J.F. De Gruchy of Baltimore that listed “ginger ale” as one of his products. However, we don’t know what De Gruchy’s “ginger ale” was.

But I now know “ginger ale” was being advertised in over 20 Northern Ireland newspapers as early as 1825, which is concurrent with the founding of Grattan & Company.

Early newspaper advertising and articles raise more questions on the origin of “true” ginger ale. Were the earliest “ginger ales” brewed alcoholic beverages and not extract-flavored carbonated water? Perhaps they were like Robert Robinson’s version, which was reported to be crushed ginger root steeped or boiled in water, then sweetened and carbonated. Based on some newspaper ads from the period, we might conclude that ginger 44

Even 25 years later, ginger ale was advertised as being made by fermentation. In May 1850, the Limerick and Clare Examiner published this: “... Bottling Ales, Porters, Cider, and which will be ready in few days.

Mineral Waters of all kinds in repute, as also Lemonade and Ginger Ale, made by fermentation; those two latter refreshing beverages are not manufactured in any other House in this city.”

And then in 1863, there is this from Godey’s Lady’s Book: “GINGER ALE.–To ten gallons of water, put twelve pounds of sugar, six ounces of bruised ginger (unbleached is the best). Boil it one hour, put it into a barrel with one ounce of hops and three or four spoonfuls of yeast. Let it stand three days; then close the barrel, putting in one ounce of isinglass. In a week, it is fit for use.

Draw out in a jug, and use as beer.”

That is undoubtedly a recipe for ginger beer, but Godey’s Lady’s Book called it ginger ale. There was much confusion between the two beverages, which wreaked havoc in the ranks of the early Temperance Movement, and gave true ginger ale a “bad name” that it was burdened with throughout prohibition and beyond.

There is also some doubt about the quality of very early ginger ales, which makes documenting the product’s true origin difficult. For example, here is a commentary from the Dublin Weekly Register dated September 12, 1840. (Carlow is a small town 52 miles southeast of Dublin.)

“In Carlow, the use of coffee as a beverage has given way to that of what I may call explosives, such as spruce beer and ginger ale. I do not think this is a change for the better. The coffee, as it was prepared, was certainly not good, but, bad as it might be, I think it was calculated to do less harm than those stimulants.”

The writer most probably called them “explosives” not because of over-carbonation but perhaps primarily because of the fiery, hot taste of the ginger ale of that period. Ginger contains resins and volatile oils that will not dissolve in water. These components concentrated in an extract made the quality of early ginger ales dubious indeed and probably quite raw and burning.

Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

However, by 1859, a method had been developed for partially “de-resinifying” ginger extract. The improved extract’s better release of the distinctive flavor “re-invented” ginger ale, and its incredible popularity began.

Being a chemist, Dr. Cantrell would have likely applied the improvement to his already highly successful recipe.

What is still in question is when and who really invented the flavoring extract recipe known as “ginger ale.”

In this digital age, I also learned that in the 1840s, Dr. Thomas J. Cantrell worked for the chemist firm of Grattan & Company that made and sold soda water.

During Cantrell’s time there, it is suggested that he perfected his closely-guarded formula for “ginger ale,” which Grattan & Co. most likely did make and sell at the time. Cantrell and his ginger ale formula left Grattan in 1852 and joined up with 60 years later, the soluble ginger extract used by flavor manufacturers to produce their ginger ale flavor James Dyas to establish their was offered by numerous companies. The H.K. Mulford own chemists’ firm. Cantrell company started in 1889, and by 1920, employed went on to create what was to about one thousand employees and had 52 buildings become one of the largest soda on a 200-acre property in Glenolden and Folcroft, water manufacturers in Ireland Pennsylvania. and, ultimately, the world. By 1866, Cantrell was exporting his ginger ale to America.

The conclusions: I retract my 1991 assertion that what was generally called “ginger ale” in the first half of the 19th century was specifically invented by Cantrell, but I do believe his flavor formula was unique at the time and the genesis for true ginger ale. Thomas Chester, in his 1882 book Carbonated Beverages, The Art of Making, Dispensing, & Bottling Soda-Water, Mineral-Waters, Ginger-Ale & Sparkling-Liquors, supports that view.

“Cantrell & Cochrane, the celebrated Belfast and Dublin manufacturers, whose “aromatic ginger ale” furnishes the standard by which the products of all other makers must be estimated.”

I also correct my statement that it is not provable that Grattan & Company was the original makers. If they did make ginger ale before Cantrell’s employment at the firm, most likely it was more akin to the steeped/brewed ginger-ade beverage and probably not made with a flavoring extract. But it is almost certain they were the first to use Cantrell’s extract-based formula for making true ginger ale, but it wasn’t in 1825.

Most round-bottom bottles were label-only.

This example from England is circa early 1870s.

Denniford’s Celebrated Ginger Ale, Russell Street, Plymouth.

Note: The earliest reference to Grattan’s claim to be the original makers May – June 2022

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seems first to appear around 1871, nearly 20 years after Dr. Cantrell left Grattan & Co. Grattan must have realized just how much they missed the mark by letting Cantrell and his recipe slip out the back door. Perhaps they decided they might regain some ground on the fortune that escaped them by at least claiming they made ginger ale first and promoting that “fact” in their advertising and embossing it on their bottles.

This preface to set my record straight from 30 years ago on the origins of ginger ale is now complete. The most important point is that we consider our knowledge to be true until we learn otherwise, and the learning never stops. That is the context for what follows.

As a reminder, we started this ramble with this title: Facts, assumptions, and stories about round-bottom bottles: which ones stand up, and which don’t?

To be clear, there are several types of bottles that do not have a flat base.

This offering of “current wisdom” will focus on my area of expertise, ginger ale, but to examine the facts, assumptions, and stories about round-bottom bottles, we have to start from the beginning. (Well, not too far back; certainly not to the days of Roman amphoras.)

So, what are the facts, assumptions, and stories?

It is well-documented that the late 18th century and early 19th-century stoneware and glass bottles could not withstand the pressure of the new super-charged carbonated waters.

Around 1795, J. Schweppe & Company was putting up soda water in stone bottles.

“I cannot procure any glass bottles which will not burst, nor any stone ones what are impervious to the fixed [carbonated] air.” It appears by his comment that the stronger English soda water bottles were not yet available in America. Rather than continuing to try to bottle his soda water, he instead began selling it at “soda fountains.”

The growing popularity of “aerated waters” drove glassmakers to find a more permanent solution. The challenge was making a bottle that had a consistent thickness. Bottles that did not need to withstand high carbonation pressure could have varying thicknesses, especially those with a flat bottom. It didn’t help that early CO2 generators made it difficult to control the volume (%) of gas imparted to the water, thereby increasing the potential for dangerous explosions.

The initial solution, probably based on Schweppe’s stone bottle, was an ovoid-shaped glass bottle that was described as egg-shaped. This type of bottle became known as a “Hamilton.” That name has stuck, but not for the right reason. Hamilton was not the inventor, but instead was one of the earliest to describe the form of the bottle, which he did in his patent description on making soda and other mineral waters in 1809: “I generally use a glass or earthen bottle or jar of a long, ovate form for several reasons viz not having a square bottom to stand upon it can only lie on its side, of course, no leakage of air can take place the liquid matter being always in contact with the stopper. It permits its contents to be poured out more easily and consequently with less loss of fixed air. It can be much stronger than a bottle or jar of equal weight made in the usual form and is, therefore, better adapted for packing, carriage, etc.”

His patent was for his manufacturing process, not the bottle.

In Olive Talbot’s comprehensive article The Evolution of Glass Bottles for Carbonated Drinks she writes this:

J. Schweppe & Co. was putting up soda water in stone bottles around 1795.

In 1802, Jacob Schweppe’s business partner, Nicholas Paul, decided that a glass bottle was far superior to stone: “A long experience, and careful comparison of results, have induced me to prefer glass bottles, notwithstanding their higher price, to the earthen ones commonly used for that purpose. My reason for this preference is that the earthen bottles, from their porous texture, are apt to let a quantity of gas escape. I have experienced, on the contrary, that mineral waters could, with proper precautions, be transported in glass bottles to the distance of three or four hundred miles by land and could bear a voyage to the East or West Indies, or indeed any voyage whatever, without being in the least injured.”

Professor Benjamin Silliman of Yale University, an early soda water manufacturer in New Haven, Connecticut, made a similar observation in 1806: 46

“The first bottles specifically designed for carbonated drinks were undoubtedly ovate. The reason always given for this is that the bottles could not stand upright and were therefore kept on their sides, thus preventing the cork from drying out and allowing the gas to escape. Certainly, this precaution against upright storage was advisable when carbonated drinks were new and people were unused to the strong pressures within the liquid. Still, perhaps a more important reason for the egg shape was its basic strength. A flat-based cylinder has weak areas at the shoulders and the junction of side walls and base; if these are rounded off gently, the strength increases, but the ovate shape is still superior in its ability to withstand internal pressure. This was particularly important at a time when it was difficult to control the thickness of glass throughout the container.

Also, the new egg bottles would become associated in people’s minds with the new type of drink.”

The Coleraine Chronicles newspaper published this advertisement in June of 1845: “Aerated Waters, Single and Double Soda Water, per dozen... 3s [shillings]... Aerated Lemonade, Aerated Ginger Ale, Exclusive of the bottles, which are 2s per doz. and will be taken back at full price...”

We don’t know if the bottles in the advertisement were egg-shaped or the flat-bottom style. But we can document that eight years later, flat-bottom and egg-shaped soda water bottles were in use concurrently for a long time. In 1853, the “Great Industrial Exhibition” catalog listed exhibitor 997: Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

The Dublin Glass Bottle Company. The entry indicated that they offered both flat-bottom and egg-shaped designs:

The Dublin Glass Bottle Co. offering both flat-bottom and egg-shaped designs, Official Catalogue for the Great Industrial Exhibition, 1853

The egg-shaped or ovoid bottle used for soda water eventually evolved into one with a rounded base. These bottles, like their predecessors, were heavy and thick, especially at the base.

Most round-bottom bottles were label-only. This embossed example is circa early 1870s.

Cassin’s English Aerated Waters, Cassin Bros., San Francisco, California.

When this changeover in design began is difficult to pinpoint precisely.

While some round-bottom bottles were made in Ireland, most were made in England. Some records show that this type of bottle was first used in the 1840s, with embossed examples appearing in South Australia within that time period. The bottles are known as Maugham’s patent, but again we have a misnomer as his patent pertained to the process of making Carrara Water and not the bottle.

However, evidence supports that this form of round-bottom bottle was in production at least in 1845. From The Spectator, July 1845: “The title of ‘Carrara’ has been given to the new beverage on account of the Carrara marble being the source from which the purest lime is obtained and which is employed in the manufacture of the water. The bottle made use of in order to stand the great pressure is constructed on the principle of high-pressure steam boilers, viz.: -a cylinder with semi-spherical ends.”

Carrara bottle courtesy ABCR Auctions.

(Carrara water essentially was the mid-19th century version of an antacid.

Modern antacids in pill form contain calcium carbonate, which is limestone. In the 1840s, the efficacy of the Carrara water as a “wonder-remedy” had mixed reviews from the medical ranks. Still, the public drank it up, and recipes for manufacturing it continued to appear into the 1880s.)

Embossed Schweppes Oxford Street, 51 Berners Street (London).

In addition to this announcement in The Spectator, Maugham’s patent for the antacid water is also referenced in a notice from the Hull Packet May – June 2022

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four hundred miles by land, and could bear a voyage to the East or West Indies, or indeed any voyage whatever... ” Maugham–1809: “...can be much stronger than a bottle or jar of equal weight made in the usual form and is, therefore, better adapted for packing, carriage, etc.” (In the 19th century, one meaning of “carriage” was to transport.)

London exhibition report–1878: “...they [round ended bottles] are largely used for exporting ginger ale, etc.”

newspaper, August 13, 1847, in Yorkshire, England: “Maugham’s Patent Carrara Water. Licensees under Mr. Maugham’s Patent beg to inform the Public this celebrated Water may now be obtained of all respectable Chemists, &c.”

The new cylindrical bottle style took quite a while to break the egg bottle of its hold as the accepted vessel for soda water. In 1878, a soda water machinery and appliances exhibition was held in London, and a report in November of that year documented that both egg-shaped and cylindrical bottles were indeed in use at the time: “Although the egg-shaped bottle holds its ground, many mineral water manufacturers prefer the cylinder shape because the bottles pack closer together, and thus economize room and cost in cases, in consequence of which they are largely used for exporting ginger ale, etc. It is a strong shape and has a good appearance.”

Further development in the design of the round-bottom bottle was also documented in that 1878 exhibition report: “Messrs. Kilner state that they have recently introduced a bottle having the same shape of body, but with the edge of the bottom rounded off and only the centre of the bottom flat, so that while retaining the strength of the round-bottom, it has the advantage of standing upright.”

This bottle was sometimes referred to as a “tenpin” as its balance standing upright was easily upended.

“Messrs. Kilner” referred to the Kilner Brothers glass company of northern England.” (More to follow on Kilner.) Along with the original style round-bottom bottle, English and American firms continued to use the eggshaped form into the early 20th century.

Three references above mention the subject of shipping soda water products in glass bottles.

What is generally not mentioned, most likely because it was considered common knowledge at the time, is that the bottles were packed and shipped in various ways. Sailing ships, teams of horses and wagons, steamships, and railroads all carried massive amounts of goods, primarily in wooden barrels. When it came to shipping soda water bottles, the ovoid and rounded bottom shapes provided a distinct advantage: they could be packed easily in barrels, carefully nested with each other in the packing material, most likely straw.

One of the assumptions made about round-bottom bottles is that the primary reason for the shape was to force bottles to be stored lying down to keep the cork wet. (Some have even suggested that one purpose of not being able to lay the bottle down ensured the contents had to be quaffed down much faster, thus increasing consumption and volume of business.

Let’s relegate that idea to the category of “a story” rather than a fact.)

However, so far, we have learned that the ovoid or rounded bottom glass bottle served a number of documented purposes: strength to prevent explosion, impermeability to prevent loss of carbonation, greater insurance that corks would be prevented from drying and shrinking, and last, but significantly not least, its shape afforded economical and safe handling and shipping.

By 1870, millions of ginger ale bottles, both full and empty, were being shipped around the world, predominantly from Ireland and England, most certainly all in barrels or casks, as they were most frequently known.

(To be clear, we are now shifting our focus to ginger ale as from 1870 on, the vast majority of round-bottom bottles were explicitly made for that product. The use of egg-shaped bottles appears to have continued, but primarily for plain soda water and some lemonades.)

In the 19th century, casks were used for nearly everything from whiskey and beer to nails, flour, dried foodstuffs, and, yes, bottles of ginger ale.

Casks came in many sizes, from the massive 255-gallon tun that stood over four and a half feet high to the small scuttle-butt that barely reached 18” high. Import/export records from the 1870s indicate that a “package” of ginger ale held ten dozen bottles. But what size cask would that be, and how much would it weigh?

Nicolas Paul - 1802: ...with proper precautions, be transported in glass bottles to the distance of three or The serif font of the number on the base of this bottle indicates a European bottle factory. There is a very good chance Kilner Brothers made this in England, but experts on the brothers may have more complete knowledge of mold numbers.

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Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

Within my collection of ginger ale bottles, the size of the round-bottom bottles coming from Ireland and England were much different from those made in America. One noticeable characteristic of the bottles from the United Kingdom was their length and circumference consistency.

[Left] Bottle makers in the U.K. kept the round-bottom bottle dimensions a consistent ~ 9.25” long with a ~ 2.5” diameter.

The bottle on the left is an example of an American bottler using an un-embossed bottle that most likely never made it back across the Atlantic: Pacific & Puget Sound Bottling Co. Seattle, WA. (I have seen two examples of this label-only ginger ale on this type of bottle.)

[Below] Why were American round-bottom bottle sizes so inconsistent? I have no answer. From left to right: (all embossed “ginger ale”) U.S. Ginger Ale Company, Cleveland, O., Caswell Hazard & Co., New York, Sylvestre & Labregque, St. Louis, Anton Heil, Tompkinsville, S.I. (Staten Island, NY.)

Making consistent-size bottles is undoubtedly more efficient for manufacturing, but there’s more to it than that. Casks were an accepted unit of measure in commerce, and many laws on both sides of the Atlantic governed exact sizes, albeit with varying degrees of success. Buying and selling by the dozen was (and is) a convenient and accepted practice, and ten dozen equally-sized ginger ale bottles would fit in a consistently-sized cask. That made everything easier for bottlers, shippers, and wholesale customers.

After doing some measuring and rough calculations, plus researching the sizes of 19th-century casks, it appears that the hogshead cask was the one that Irish and English bottlers used to ship their products around the world starting in the late 1860s.

With some creative extrapolations, it appears that ten dozen bottles could be layered safely and far enough away from the side of the cask.

Note: The Illinois Glass Company 1906 catalog listed a “round-bottom May – June 2022

Chapman & Jose Soda Water, Geraldton.

Western Australia, Cobalt blue torpedo bottle.

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sent to this port (New York) alone, inside of a single year, and the trade is steadily increasing. Here are two agents in New York who make a specialty of importing it, while such large grocers as Park & Tilford order one or two thousand dozen at a time for their own trade. So firm is which Cantrell Cochrane’s beverage has obtained on public favor that Park & Tilford sell twenty dozen to one of the only American ginger ale that appears on their price list.”

In 1883, The National Bottlers’ Gazette recorded that over a five-year period from 1878 to 1882, over 5.6 million bottles of ginger ale were imported into America. That’s nearly 48,000 casks being shipped across the Atlantic, predominantly from Ireland. The bottles were mostly made in England as it is reported that by the mid-1850s, very few of Ireland’s glass bottle factories were still in production.

Unfortunately, no illustrations of “bottles packed in a cask” have surfaced. Whether the bottles were packed like this is not known. At the widest diameter of the cask, about 15-16 bottles would fit. With some creative extrapolations, it appears that ten dozen bottles could be layered safely and far enough away from the side of the cask. These drawings by the author are done to scale.

ginger ale” bottle. The dimensions happen to be nearly the same as the U.K. bottles that fit so nicely into a hogshead cask.

Ginger ale found its way to all parts of America. Consider this 1888 order from Baker & Gilbert of Virginia City, Montana made to R.C. Halliday of Dillon, Montana for one bbl. of ginger ale to be delivered by freight team. (that’s horses and wagon.) There was no railhead in Virginia City. It was a declining gold rush town, and the Great Northern railroad builders decided there was no reason to put Virginia City on the route. So, the horse and wagon were the only delivery method, and by the looks of the map, the Ruby Mountains made the trip from Dillon to Virginia City a circuitous one indeed. We don’t know if Halliday had the ginger ale shipped to Dillon (there was a railhead there) or if it was bottled locally. We can safely say it was a cask of bottles that was being delivered to Baker & Gilbert.

Freight costs by steamship were also a factor. This listing from the mid1870s documents shipping charges and weights for various casks of product. The standard abbreviation used for a cask is “bbl.” The dimensional volume of a cask of ginger ale is listed as nine cubic feet, which is nearly that of the hogshead cask.

Let’s talk numbers. Now that we have established that ginger ale was being shipped in “packages” of ten dozen bottles each, it is staggering to look at the import figures.

Thomas Chester reports on the importation of Cantrell & Cochrane’s ginger ale in 1882: “The extraordinary popularity of this Belfast ginger ale appears from the fact that as high as sixty thousand dozen bottles (six thousand casks) are 50

It is difficult to tell where and who in the U.K. made these millions of bottles. A firm mentioned above was certainly one source of production—the Kilner Brothers. The John Kilner family began making bottles in 1842 in the north of England. By 1863, the business had undergone several transitions in family relations and factory locations. By 1894, the Kilner Brothers’ factory employed as many as 400 hands: men, women, and boys.

Their primary product was glass jars of all sorts from the outset, but they did make soda water bottles, as indicated in the 1878 Exposition report.

There are many in-depth accounts of the Kilner Glass Company but scant information on their soda water bottles. Kilner Brothers did make the bottles we are describing as a “cylinder with semi-spherical ends.” A great Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

deal of their production of these bottles was probably shipped to Ireland, where they were filled with ginger ale and exported to America. Almost all had no embossing.

This C & C bottle label wants the customer to know it’s genuinely Irish!

We can’t be entirely certain that Kilner Brothers made these consistently-sized round-bottom bottles. For those with a “blob-top” finish, we can’t tell who made them as there are no maker’s marks. However, we have better evidence for some round-bottom bottles with a crown finish. A perhaps heretofore unreported maker’s mark of “K.B.” appears on the curvature of the base of several labeled examples. The crown on these bottles is applied, not machine-made.

[Far Left] Cantrell & Cochranes Ginger Ale crown-top with KB embossed base.

[Left] Schuyler Delatour crown-top with KB embossed base. This American company applied their label to its English-made bottle. It could have been imported by Delatour or was a “re-use” of a bottle already on this side of the Atlantic.

This brings us to the question of why put a crown finish on a round-bottom bottle if William Painter’s 1892 invention virtually eliminated leaks, making the “lying down” requirement obsolete? Some say that consumers of ginger ale expected it to come in a round-bottom bottle; “after all, the Irish ginger ales are the best, and they always come that way...”

The dimensions of the “K.B.” marked crown-top bottles are nearly identical to the blob-top style. The “no leak” crown-top finish of the bottle made no May – June 2022

“Pilgrim & Co Hamilton C.W.” Soda Water Bottle, possibly Canada, 1860-1880.

Torpedo form, brilliant light to medium sapphire blue, applied heavy collared mouth - smooth base, ht. 8 inches; A rare bottle from Canada West now the province of Ontario. Generally fine condition. - Heckler

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difference to the efficiency of shipping ten dozen to a cask. So, there’s one mystery of the round-bottom bottles story with perhaps a better explanation.

In 1899 the Minneapolis Star Tribune remarked: “...it is worthy to note that 3,000 barrels of ginger ale of 120 bottles each, or 360,000 bottles have been sent to Manila.” (Most likely for the troops in the Philippine-American War, a war between the United States and Filipino revolutionaries.)

By 1899, is it possible that all the bottles were crown-top finished? Perhaps, but it is unlikely we can confirm that. However, many American firms were using the round-bottom/crown-top combination. Some even offered both the traditional-style finish and the crown top. Either way, shipping in casks was very much in practice. American firms trying to make a dent in the Irish ginger ale “cartel” also packed their ginger ale in casks.

R. Robinson’s XXX Ginger Ale bottle, Circa 1880, 402 Atlantic Ave, Brooklyn, rare color!

An interesting notation is found in Thomas Chester’s 1882 book describing a modified bottle box (or crate) where there is no “bottom” to the box.

Instead, a “lattice” of crosspieces suspended the bottle securely.

From Chester; “The bottles are placed in these boxes bottom upwards, their shoulders resting on the cross-pieces. This arrangement is particularly intended for bottles closed by internal gravitating stoppers, but it is also the best for corked bottles, as it keeps the corks moist and prevents the escape of the gas, past a dried and shriveled stopper. English “soda” water bottles are always made with round bottoms to ensure a position that will keep the corks wet, but American manufacturers are strangely indifferent to this important advantage, so happily secured by the bottomless box.”

These pages of the Vartray Company catalog circa 1901 establish that both blob-top and crowntop finishes on round-bottom bottles, as well as the egg-shaped style, were being sold at the same time (packed in casks or cases).

Note this from the New York Sun, June of 1898: “Almost half a million old bottles are handled every day by a single firm in New York City. Most of them are wine and beer bottles, but there are also hundreds of bottles used for catsup and other table sauces. The mineral waters furnish a large proportion of the full numbers. None of these bottles was washed or cleaned by the firm that collects them, but they must not be old and “gummy,” or they will not be accepted. They are shipped all over this country, and a good many of them are sent back to Europe. Those reshipped across the water are mostly ginger ale bottles sent to Ireland...”

It would not be a stretch to conclude those coming and going overseas were in casks.

There are just a few questions left in this ramble. What about all those flat-bottom blob-top ginger ale bottles from the 1870s to 1890s that were closed with corks? (I have over 120 in my collection; all embossed “ginger ale.”) What prevented their corks from drying out if they weren’t kept “lying down?” And there are many hundreds more cork-closure soda bottles than just those marked ginger ale; how were they shipped?

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Were the American ginger ales in flat-bottomed bottles shipped to and consumed by more locally based customers in a very brisk business, where keeping the cork wet was not a time-sensitive problem? It is indeed surprising that Mr. Chester noted bottlers in America did not use the bottomless box. Could his “current wisdom” in 1882 have been inaccurate?

However, in support of his view, other references to the bottomless box are so far not showing up in the documents of the period. So, we have an open question, and surely not the only one stirred up by this ramble.

Finally, there is the notion that these bottles shaped like a “cylinder with semi-spherical ends” were considered useful as ballast in ships’ holds.

To address this assumption or story, a short primer on “ballast” is needed. If you have ever stepped onto a rowboat or small sailboat, you may remember the first thing you had to do to prevent going overboard or tipping everyone else into the drink was to find your balance. To keep the boat steady, one would immediately aim to distribute his/her weight evenly across the boat’s width, usually by straddling the center with legs equally distanced.

The name “torpedo” was applied by some to all round-bottom bottles; it is more correctly applied to the “eggshaped” style. Image courtesy eBay seller.

Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

Essentially, that is the function of ballast in a ship’s hold. The balanced weight below decks helped prevent disastrous lateral pitch and roll in heavy seas.

Postcard is canceled Times Square Station, 1909.

That has to be a round-bottom bottle, right?

There are accounts floating around that the bottles were actually laid on their sides in the hold. Here is one such story about “ballast bottles” that doesn’t make a lot of sense any which way you read it! The name “torpedo” was applied by some to all round-bottom bottles—it is more correctly applied to the “egg-shaped” style.

Ballast could be a cargo of a certain weight or other material which could be offloaded when more valuable cargo was to be picked up. These materials could include sand, gravel, iron bars, or anything that would not easily shift in the hold. If any bottles were to be used as ballast, they would certainly be packed in casks. The notice of freight costs above states that a cask of ten dozen ginger ale bottles would weigh 2 cwt, 14 lbs. That converts to 238 lbs. Just 500 casks of full ginger ale bottles would make nearly 60 tons, a significant weight in a ship’s hold.

Loading cargo and or ballast was a critical task and needed to be performed with exacting discipline. Because of their shape, easy handling, and consistent sizes, casks were particularly efficient for stowage. While there were different methods to stow casks, the most common was called “bilge and cantline.” Pieces of wood or billets were placed on the floor, where the lowest tier of casks would rest. This method supported the widest part (bilge) of the cask and kept them from being crushed under the weight of the casks above. A cantline is the v-shaped space between two abutting, parallel horizontal cylinders. This arrangement distributed the weight of the casks evenly against each other and stabilized their lateral movement.

Bottle images: Except where noted, all are from the author’s collection.

SOURCES (in ascending date order): The Repertory of Arts, Manufacturers, and Agriculture, Volume 16, Second Series, Notice of all patents granted for inventions, London, (1810) British Newspaper Archive, clips from 1825-1847 https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk Official Catalog of The Great Industrial Exhibition In Connection With The Royal Dublin Society (1853) Godey's Lady's Book, Godey, Louis, Edited by Sarah Josepha Hale, Philadelphia (1863)

Bilge and cantline cask stowage pattern (after K. Smith 2009 and Staniforth 1987)

The “story” that ginger ale round-bottom bottles were used as ballast may be partially true, but perhaps not as one might have imagined. There were many other options for ballast, but certainly any casks of empty bottles being shipped, either to be filled or being returned to the bottler, would not have been heavy enough to be effective ballast at the bottom of the ship’s hold. More likely, the casks of empties would be placed on the top tiers of the load or above other forms of ballast. We can call them “ballast” bottles, but they haven’t truly earned the name.

It is very likely that a fact, assumption, or story about round-bottom bottles has been overlooked in this offering of current wisdom. However, I will leave the digital diggers to find new information that may clarify or improve this article and to see what stands up and what doesn’t.

The information and observations gathered herein rely on the accuracy of what was understood at the time, who wrote it down, and where. That applies to us chroniclers of today, the historians who came before, and also those who will follow.

May – June 2022

Carbonated beverages. The art of making, dispensing, & bottling soda-water, mineral-waters, ginger-ale & sparkling-liquors, Chester, Thomas, Copyright 1882 by John Mathews, New York.

The National Bottlers’ Gazette, New York, 1882-1932 A Treatise On Beverages or The Complete Practical Bottler, Sulz, C. H., (1888) “Glass Imports and Exports,” National Glass Budget. (May 15, 1916) Soda Water Apparatus Book of Directions for Bottlers, James W. Tufts. Unknown Edition, (ca. 1890) An Economic History of Ireland since 1660. By L.M. Cullen. London, (1972) A History of Glassmaking. Douglas, R.W., Henley-on-Thames, (1972) The Evolution of Glass Bottles for Carbonated Drinks, Post-Medieval Archaeology, 8:1, 29-62, Olive Talbot (1974) The First Irish Industrial Exhibition: Cork 1852, Irish Economic and Social History, Vol. 2, Davies, A.C., (1975) The Casks from the Wreck of the William Salthouse. The Australian Journal of Historical Archaeology 5:21-28.

Staniforth, Mark (1987) Comparative Analysis of Cask Material from Late 16th Through Early 19th Century Shipwrecks, thesis, Smith, Kimberly M., (2009) Historic Glass Bottle Identification & Information Website, (2020) Bill Lindsey* et al., *Mr. Bill Lindsey was kind to review this article, applying his knowledge and academic skills.

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