Thursday, July 02, 2020

'Uncorked in America' - a Pennsylvania slogan from 1906


It's a famous slogan - 'Brewed in Scotland, Bottled in Ulster, Uncorked in America'. The earliest version of it I have found is from the Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine in 1923. It comes from a witty and metaphor-laden speech given to the Pennsylvania Scotch-Irish Society in 1906 by Rev. Dr. William Hamilton Spence, the minister of First Presbyterian Church in Uniontown, Fayette County, Pennsylvania –

"a genuinely Scotch-Irish taste - distilled in Scotland, decanted in Ireland, uncorked in America"

It's on page 88 here. It shouldn't be a surprise that the figure of speech has its origin in the land of the Whiskey Rebellion!

• The full text of the speech is online here. Spence's father was a Donegal man and he throws in some Ulster-Scots expressions. Very quotable material. 





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