Questions
What is a Prohibition medicinal whisky pint?
It is whisky sold as medicine while Prohibition was the law, from 1920 to 1933. You needed a doctor's prescription and a druggist to fill it, and it almost always came as a pint.
Why a pint
The National Prohibition Act allowed whisky for medical use. At first a prescription could cover a pint every ten days. A law of November 23, 1921 cut that to half a pint of alcohol every ten days. Half a pint of alcohol is exactly one pint of whisky at 100 proof, so the pint became the medicinal bottle.
Where the whisky came from
Most of it was made before Prohibition and held in bonded warehouses. Medicinal pints bottled by American Medicinal Spirits still turn up holding whisky made in 1916 or 1917 and bottled as late as 1933. By 1929 the old stocks were running low. In October that year the Prohibition Commissioner picked three companies to make new bourbon, and in January 1930 three Pennsylvania distilleries to make new rye. Watch the map on the National Distillers story.
How to tell you have one
Look for the pint size, the medicinal wording on the label, and a strip over the cap. The years each of those clues can mean are on Date your bottle. Repeal was proclaimed on December 5, 1933.
Sources
- National Prohibition Act, ch. 85, title II, 41 Stat. 305, October 28, 1919. govinfo.gov
- Act of November 23, 1921, ch. 134, 42 Stat. 222. govinfo.gov
- The Milwaukee Leader, October 11, 1929, page 5, "U. S. Picks 3 Firms To Make Whisky." loc.gov
- Twenty-first Amendment, ratification proclaimed December 5, 1933. govinfo.gov
- American Medicinal Spirits pints, the 1930 rye picks and the first barrel photo, as cited in National Distillers and Schenley.