Blessed Booze

A whiskey salesman and a Presbyterian pastor liven up the American History sale at Cowan’s Auctions.

- Meghan Saar

A Presbyterian pastor and a Mormon walked into a saloon. The first railed against the distribution of liquor and all the evils that came from drunkenness. The other owned the saloon, selling whiskey made by his own distillery.

The two of them came together in two impressive photograph archives that hammered down at Cowan’s Auctions in Cincinnati, Ohio, on November 17.

The saloon owner? Brigham Young. 

The “exclusively Mormon refresher” is how Mark Twain described Valley Tan whiskey. ‘Tradition says it is made of (imported) fire and brimstone,” Twain went on to write, in 1872’s Roughin’ It. “If I remember rightly, no public drinking saloons were allowed in the kingdom by Brigham Young, and no private drinking permitted among the faithful, except they confined themselves to ‘valley tan.’”