# Booth's Old Tom Gin Bottle



## Old Tom (May 1, 2010)

Just began collecting bottles... I Found this one at a local antique dealer and could not resist getting it. Hopefully it's worth more than the $20 I paid. It's allegedly from 1885. It seems to be in good shape except for the  broken glass/cork sealing the bottle. Any idea the value? It's a pretty neat old bottle. 
 Thanks.


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## surfaceone (May 4, 2010)

Greetings Old Tom,

 Welcome aboard, and thanks for bringing this lovely labelled Booth's. Sorry, I've no valuation information. A bit of anecdotal information will have to suffice for the time being. Perhaps one of our British members will know more.

 "Old Tom Gin is the last remaining example of the original lightly sweetened gins that were so popular in 18th-century England. The name comes from what may be the first example of a beverage vending machine. In the 1700s some pubs in England would have a wooden plaque shaped like a black cat (an "Old Tom") mounted on the outside wall. Thirsty passersby would deposit a penny in the cat's mouth and place their lips around a small tube between the cat's paws. The bartender inside would then pour a shot of Gin through the tube and into the customer's waiting mouth. Until fairly recently limited quantities of Old Tom-style Gin were still being made by a few British distillers, but they were, at best, curiosity items." From.

 Here's another labelled Booth's identified as being c.1925-1935: 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	


From.






 "Gin often referred to as Mothers ruin derives the name from the mid-eighteenth century by the effects of gin-drinking on English society. 
 Gin started out as a medicine - it was thought it could be a cure for gout and indigestion, but most attractive of all, it was cheap. In the 1730's notices could be seen all over London. The message was short and to the point

 'Drunk for 1 penny, Dead drunk for tuppence, Straw for nothing'!!

 In London alone, there were more than 7,000 'dram shops', and 10 million gallons of gin were being distilled annually in the capital
 Gin was hawked by barbers, pedlars, and grocers and even sold on market-stalls.
 Gin had become the poor man's drink as it was cheap, some workers were given gin as part of their wages. Duty paid on gin was 2 pence a gallon, as opposed to 4 shillings and nine pence on strong beer.

 Much of the gin was drunk by women, consequently the children were neglected, daughters were sold into prostitution, and wet nurses gave gin to babies to quieten them. This worked provided they were given a large enough dose!

 Booths gin is a famous London dry gin produced by the Booth family around 1740. The distinctive bottle has a reference to the Red Lion distillery where the drink was produced.

 *These very old gin bottles were to be found at the top of the town hall. It looks like there was someone who enjoyed a secret tipple enough to climb 225 steps to do indulge*" From.

 "I suppose that my interest in gin derives from the days when my father used to advertise Booth's Gin. Booth's was the gentleman's gin, founded in London around 1740, and a favourite, if it is to be believed, of both Her Majesty the Queen, and Her Late Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother. 

 Strangely, "Booth's Finest London Dry Gin" was actually yellow in colour: I seem to remember some story about how the straw in the wooden barrels turned the gin yellow by accident;  a tradition which Booth's maintained until the demise of the company in, I suppose, the mid 1980's. "Booth's High and Dry" (which came in a lovely frosted bottle, a splendid heraldic red plastic lion on a "silver" chain around the neck) was the gin of choice for the connoisseur of the Dry Martini.

 As you've probably realised by now, Booth's panelled offices in Park Lane closed their doors for the last time some years back, and the brand was swallowed up by one of the corporate Big Boys, who allowed it to fall into obscurity. There is a gin calling itself "Booth's London Dry" (in a blue plastic bottle, but with the famous red lion) which seems to be still available in the United States, but I read somewhere that it's actually distilled in New Jersey, and I suspect that it has no authentic connection with the original British brand." From.


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