James Becker pleasantly surprised quite a few of us with pictures of a labeled Flora Temple bottle over on the Bottle Collectors facebook page. Folks this is one of Elizabeth’s favorite bottles having the horse embossing. As James puts it, “One of two known original Flora Temple whiskey labels…this one, the deep cherry puce example shown earlier. Both labels are in this same shield shape and fit nicely on the plain, flat reverse of the flask. In gold on blue, it reads ” Choice / Flora Temple / Whiskey / 1845 / Bourbon / WC Booraem / New York”.
“Booraem was a contemporary and lesser competitor of Bininger for many years. Both are listed as early as 1826, Booraem & Co. H. merchants 164 Pearl and in 1860, Booraem William E. imp. 59 Liberty.”
[All pictures by James Becker]
At the starting gate…the celebrated mare, Flora Temple, strutting her stuff in five of the many wonderful colors that can be found in her flasks! Embossed with her name, and her famous winning time, Harness Trot 2.19 3/4, the flasks, in quart and pint sizes, have immortalized her in glass. So popular was she, that Currier and Ives was still creating new prints of her 1859 run as late as 1872.
JAMES BECKER
Posted also by James….This is the dark-colored piece to the far left in the photos. My thought has been for some time…if both labels known were specifically for Flora Temple Whiskey, were all known flasks (and there are MANY) made exclusively for Booraem and his 1845 bourbon? Or did other merchants buy the flasks from Whitney Glass Works in New Jersey and Lancaster Glass Works in New York and bottle THEIR own spirits using OTHER labels. If Booraem had the monopoly, he sure must have become rich on his sales! Like John Panella says, ‘the label tells the story’, but in this instance, maybe we will never know the whole story.
Flora Temple, the “bob-tailed nag” of Stephen Foster’s song, Camptown Races, was born in ONIEDA COUNTY, New York, near the village of Waterville, in 1845. Bred by Samuel Welsh, her dam was Madame Temple, and according to Mr. Welch, her sire was a horse belonging to the Loomis Family of Sangerfield, Bogus Hunter. Tradition has it that she was “docked with a jack-knife before she was an hour old.”
BRIAN WOLFF
Read More: A Horse is a Horse, of Course, of Course by Kevin Sives
