Question about an old bottle of Galliano

[minas6907]

Hello! I usually just run around the pastry forum, but had a question for you all who have knowledge about spirits. A friend of mine gave me this bottle (along with a few other that dont look so old) he got it from a client of his who had quite the liquor cabinet. So I understand its an Italian liquor, but I'm wondering more about the age of the bottle. I included some pics, the label on a bottle of this stuff you would purchase now looks quite different, but the numbers on the side...that not a date is it? This thing cant really be from the 40's, right?

[Lisa Shock]

Is there a bar code on the back label?

[tanstaafl2]

No idea what the numbers mean and make no claim to be an expert but I think the McKesson Liquor Company was only around under that name from the late 1970's (maybe the going back to the 60's?) to the late 1980's suggesting it might be from that time period.

McKesson History

Another site suggesting the 1970's

Edited October 25, 2011 by tanstaafl2 (log)

[minas6907]

I should have included 2 more pictures. There's no label on the back, just a sticker of a rather spiffy looking gentleman, and no barcode anywhere. And the other side of the label that is across the top of the cap has a number.

[DesertTinker]

There's a lot of information on This Page, though they are speaking specifically about bourbon, the tax stamp info would still apply.

[Mano]

No idea of the age of yours but just this past summer I emptied a partially filled bottle of Galliano that was at least 40 years old and made a batch of Harvey Wallbangers.

Tasted fine and everyone got toasted.

[andiesenji]

That tax stamp is prior to 1950 when the design and color changed so the date could be 1940 - I can't read the Series number. It was certainly imported prior to the introduction of USPS postal codes in 1963.

McKesson Liquor Company New York owned the importation and distribution rights of many foreign and domestic liquor producers before and after prohibition.

This division of McKesson & Robbins was formed in 1896 and also owned several distilleries prior to the Volstead Act.

The parent company was founded in 1833 as a drug company. There was a huge scandal in 1938 in the parent company that had to do with bootlegging during prohibition.

Galliano was popular with Italian immigrants prior to WWI and remained primarily an "ethnic" liquor until 1970 when it was popularized in the Harvey Wallbanger cocktail.

However it was always prominently displayed on the back bar in cocktail lounges - when I married in 1961 someone gave us one of the huge bottles in a tipping stand because it was my husband's favorite after dinner drink.

There are people who collect tax stamps and there are catalogs to identify them.

Edited October 26, 2011 by andiesenji (log)

[Mjx]

I can't really tell, but the cap looks like it's plastic: if that's the case, I think the bottle you've got there is more recent than the 40s (I know plastic goes back to well before the 40s, but not its use for this sort of cap, as far as I'm aware).

[andiesenji]

Liquor companies were using corks with bakelite caps beginning in 1932. Vintage bottle collectors prize bottles with intact caps. However liquor companies also used regular corks and dipped the tops in a hard wax well into the '70s so the type of cap/cork is not an exact way to date the bottle.

As I recall Galliano (and similar liquers such as Sambucca) appeared with metal screw-type caps some time in the mid-to-late '70s and I have an unopened bottle of Midori that I have had since 1978 when it was introduced and it has a metal screw-type cap.

Here is a note about Galliano in Spirits Review

I believe the bottle shows it is 80 Proof (40%) so is older than the 60 proof that was available for quite a few years (and was made in France, not Italy) and from the label this bottle was obviously made in Italy.

I was in error about the federal tax stamp - imported liquor tax stamps were changed in 1942 and that design with various series numbers was used until 1968. Prior to 1942 there would have been a year stamp only (example 1938) only on one end of the stamp. So that is probably a lot number rather than a date stamp.

The government kept changing the stamps to slow up the counterfeiters - phony tax stamps were and are a lucrative business especially for liquor and tobacco.

Edited October 26, 2011 by andiesenji (log)