Whiskey Jug-Spring Lake Sour Mash Bourbon-Knowles Taylor Knowles KTK-1891-1920

Description

Offered is a quart sized, porcelain, white ware whiskey jug made by Knowles, Taylor & Knowles China Company of East Liverpool, Ohio that once held Klein Brothers Sour Mash Bourbon. The company began making Belleek style, high quality porcelain called Lotus Ware about 1891 that gave the company a reputation for producing a high quality product. The whiskey jugs of high quality, porcelain or ironstone were a large step up from the earthenware ones more typically produced at the time period and added enormous success to the company starting with a line for George W. Meredith's Distillery. The high quality porcelain bottle made his product look classier and before long other whiskey companies, including Sam Klein's whiskey distillery in Cincinnati, Ohio had their products sold in these elegant jugs. KTK boomed along with the the distilleries using their white porcelain jugs until the advent of Prohibition. The jug measures about 8 and 1/4 inches tall and 16 and 1/2 inches in circumference at the widest point. Klein Brothers had a few different designs and colors done by KTK for their Sour Mash Bourbon and all were done on quart sized jugs. The KTK whiskey jugs can make a great collection by themselves since there are many companies and sizes available but also incorporate into any bar collection since they're made of high quality porcelain.
KTK stared in 1854 and stayed in business in Ohio until 1931. There's little information available about Klein/Klein Brothers Distillery in spite of the exact address they occupied (17 and 121 Sycamore Street in Cincinnati, OH) being known. I located one article by Jack Sullivan that mentions Sam Klein was the owner and a "whiskey man" as well as a marketing guru, but nothing with exact dates they were in business. Interestingly, not even the Cincinnati Historical Society has any information about them with the only reference I found to a  "Kleine Brothers Company" for work done by a design company in the 1916/17 time period. It seems safe to say that since these jugs were first made for Meredith's about 1891, that the Spring Lake ones were produced for Klein's within a few years but most likely not after Prohibition which passed in 1918 and went into effect in 1920.
All prices are in US dollars. I'll be happy to combine multiple purchases into one package to save you on shipping costs. However, in 2020 the USPS added an extra fee for any package bigger than 12x12x12 inches so it's often more cost effective to keep the items in separate boxes to avoid the oversized box cost. I'll try to check it both ways and give you the best price. If an oversized box is needed for any package, FedEx is often the most cost effective way to send it and I'll use them instead if that's the case. Please use the eBay shipping calculator to determine the cost of shipping. If you would like a package shipped by a method not shown, let me know and I'll do my best to accommodate you. Please examine the pictures carefully as they are part of the item description.
Please visit my eBay store, The Antiques Nook, to see lots more items for sale. I'll be closing my store by the end of August and gradually removing items to sell them locally so check out what's there before it's gone!