Gibson Monongahela Pennsylvania Whiskey - the biggest distillery in America in 1900

This brand is now owned by a Canadian company but its origins are in 1856 when Ulsterman John Gibson (born in Belfast in 1794) bought 40 acres to build a distillery on the banks of the Monongahela River. He had been active in the spirits industry in Pennsylvania since about 1837. It became a huge operation and a settlement called Gibsonton Mill grew up around it. His son 22 year old son Henry inherited the business in 1883 and renamed it John Gibson’s So & Co. Prohibition killed the business until 1972 when the brand name was revived.

(The ‘Gibson’ script logo on the bottles looks suspiciously similar to the one which Orville Gibson would later stamp on the headstocks of his guitars and mandolins)