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The Men Behind Liquors

Here’s some biographical detail on the men behind favorite tipples.

1. Captain Morgan

The Captain wasn’t always just the choice of sorority girls looking to blend spiced rum with Diet Coke; in the 17th century he was a feared privateer. Not only did the Welsh pirate marry his own cousin, he ran risky missions for the governor of Jamaica, including capturing some Spanish prisoners in Cuba and sacking Port-au-Prince in Haiti. He then plundered the Cuban coast before holding for ransom the entire city of Portobelo, Panama. He later looted and burned Panama City, but his pillaging career came to an end when Spain and England signed a peace treaty in 1671. Instead of getting in trouble for his high-seas antics, Morgan received knighthood and became the lieutenant governor of Jamaica.

2. Johnnie Walker

Walker, the name behind the world’s most popular brand of Scotch whisky, was born in 1805 in Ayrshire, Scotland. When his father died in 1819, Johnnie inherited a trust of a little over 400 pounds, which the trustees invested in a grocery store. Walker grew to become a very successful grocer in the town of Kilmarnock and even sold a whisky, Walker’s Kilmarnock Whisky. Johnnie’s son Alexander was the one who actually turned the family into famous whisky men, though. Alexander had spent time in Glasgow learning how to blend teas, but he eventually returned to Kilmarnock to take over the grocery from his father. Alexander turned his blending expertise to whisky, and came up with “Old Highland Whisky,” which later became Johnnie Walker Black Label.

3. Jack Daniel

Jasper Newton “Jack” Daniel of Tennessee whiskey fame was the descendant of Welsh settlers who came to the United States in the early 19th century. He was born in 1846 or 1850 and was one of 13 children. By 1866 he was distilling whiskey in Lynchburg, Tennessee. Unfortunately for the distiller, he had a bit of a temper. One morning in 1911 Daniel showed up for work early and couldn’t get his safe open. He flew off the handle and kicked the offending strongbox. The kick was so ferocious that Daniel injured his toe, which then became infected. The infection soon became the blood poisoning that killed the whiskey mogul.

Curious about why your bottle of J.D. also has Lem Motlow listed as the distillery’s proprietor? Daniel’s own busy life of distilling and safe-kicking kept him from ever finding a wife and siring an heir, so in 1907 he gave the distillery to his beloved nephew Lem Motlow, who had come to work for him as a bookkeeper.

4. Jose Cuervo

In 1758, Jose Antonio de Cuervo received a land grant from the King of Spain to start an agave farm in the Jalisco region of Mexico. Jose used his agave plants to make mescal, a popular Mexican liquor. In 1795, King Carlos IV gave the land grant to Cuervo’s descendant Jose Maria Guadalupe de Cuervo. Carlos IV also granted the Cuervo family the first license to commercially make tequila, so they built a larger factory on the existing land. The family started packaging their wares in individual bottles in 1880, and in 1900 the booze started going by the brand name Jose Cuervo. The brand is still under the leadership of the original Jose Cuervo’s family; current boss Juan-Domingo Beckmann is the sixth generation of Cuervo ancestors to run the company.

5. Jim Beam

Jim Beam, the namesake of the world’s best-selling bourbon whiskey, didn’t actually start the distillery that now bears his name. His great-grandfather Jacob Beam opened the distillery in 1788 and started selling his first barrels of whiskey in 1795. In those days, the whiskey went by the less-catchy moniker of “Old Tub.” Jacob Beam handed down the distillery to his son David Beam, who in turn passed it along to his son David M. Beam, who eventually handed the operation off to his son, Colonel James Beauregard Beam, in 1894. Although he was only 30 years old when he took over the family business, Jim Beam ran the distillery until Prohibition shut him down. Following repeal in 1933, Jim quickly built a distillery and began resurrecting the Old Tub brand, but he also added something new to the company’s portfolio: a bourbon simply called Jim Beam.

6. Tanqueray

When he was a young boy, Charles Tanqueray’s path through life seemed pretty clear. He was the product of three straight generations of Bedfordshire clergymen, so it must have seemed natural to assume that he would take up the cloth himself. Wrong. Instead, he started distilling gin in 1830 in a little plant in London’s Bloomsbury district. By 1847, he was shipping his gin to colonies around the British Empire, where many plantation owners and troops had developed a taste for Tanqueray and tonic.

7. Campari

Gaspare Campari found his calling quickly. By the time he was 14, he had risen to become a master drink mixer in Turin, and in this capacity he started dabbling with a recipe for an aperitif. When he eventually settled on the perfect mixture, his concoction had over 60 ingredients. In 1860, he founded Gruppo Campari to make his trademark bitters in Milan. Like Colonel Sanders’ spice blend, the recipe for Campari is a closely guarded secret supposedly known by only the acting Gruppo Campari chairman, who works with a tiny group of employees to make the concentrate with which alcohol and water are infused to get Campari. The drink is still made from Gaspare Campari’s recipe, though, which includes quinine, orange peel, rhubarb, and countless other flavorings.

These fictional characters were born with a name too

You may know these fictional characters, but you might not know their full names. Lets put some trivia in your box.

1. The Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons has a name! It’s Jeff Albertson. But that wasn’t the decision of creator Matt Groening. “I was out of the room when [the writers] named him,” he told MTV in 2007. “In my mind, ‘Louis Lane’ was his name, and he was obsessed and tormented by Lois Lane.”

2. Barbie’s full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts. (Ken’s last name is Carson.)

3. Cap’n Crunch’s full name is Captain Horatio Magellan Crunch

4. Snuffleupagus has a first name—Aloysius.

5. In the Peanuts comic strip, Peppermint Patty’s real name is Patricia Reichardt.

6. The Wizard of Oz rolls off the tongue a lot easier than his full name, Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkel Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs. From Frank Baum’s Dorothy And the Wizard in Oz:

“It was a dreadfully long name to weigh down a poor innocent child, and one of the hardest lessons I ever learned was to remember my own name. When I grew up I just called myself O.Z., because the other initials were P-I-N-H-E-A-D; and that spelled ‘pinhead,’ which was a reflection on my intelligence.”

7. Mr. Clean has a seldom-used first name—”Veritably.” The name came from a “Give Mr. Clean a First Name” promotion in 1962.

8. In a deleted scene in the 2006 Curious George movie, The Man With the Yellow Hat’s name was revealed as Ted Shackleford. (Since the scene was deleted, perhaps this doesn’t count.)

9. The real name of Monopoly mascot Rich Uncle Pennybags is Milburn Pennybags.

10. The policeman in Monopoly has a name, too. You can thank Officer Edgar Mallory the next time he sends you to jail.

11. On Night Court, Nostradamus Shannon was better known as Bull.

12. On Entourage, Turtle’s real name is Salvatore Assante.

13. Sesame Street’s resident game show host Guy Smiley was using a pseudonym all these years. He was born Bernie Liederkrantz.

14. The Michelin Man’s name is Bibendum.

15. On Gilligan’s Island, Jonas Grumby was simply called The Skipper.

16. Staying on Gilligan’s Island, The Professor was Roy Hinkley.

17. The unkempt Shaggy of Scooby-Doo fame has a rather proper real name—Norville Rogers.

18. The Pillsbury Doughboy’s name is Poppin’ Fresh. He has a wife, Poppie Fresh, and two kids, Popper and Bun Bun.

19. The patient in the classic game Operation is Cavity Sam.

20. The true identity of The Lone Ranger was John Reid.

Fortis Insurances being rebranded as Ageas

As the financial crisis rages over the world, its consequences are becoming evident in identities too. One of them is the disappearance of the iconic Fortis bank logo from the streets of the Benelux (the economic union of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg), with its final name carrier Fortis Insurances being rebranded as Ageas.

After a string of unfortunate events Fortis found itself effectively collapsing and its parts were sold. This past April, the remaining stand-alone insurance activities renamed itself Ageas — derived “from the Latin word ‘agere,’ meaning action, drive, and a conviction to forge ahead,” according to this lengthy name explanation. Still being a considerable business.

Origin of some famous toys

Here are some famous toys that have been around for decades..............

Matchbox die cast cars – Matchbox cars were started in 1953 by British toy company Lesney Products. Co-owner Jack Odell created the idea for the tiny cars because his daughter was only allowed to bring toys to school if they could fit in a matchbox. So he decided to scale down one of their larger toys, the red and green road roller, and that became the #1 1A Diesel Road Roller (pic above), the first Matchbox car ever. A dump truck and a cement mixer would complete the first 3 cars in what would come to be known as the original “75 series” of Matchbox cars.

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Hot Wheels die cast cars – Lesney dominated the small die cast car market from the time they introduced Matchbox cars throughout the ’60s. Mattel decided to throw it’s hat in the ring to grab some of that die cast money with it’s Hot Wheels line in 1968. That series of cars in 1968 has come to be known as the “Sweet 16″. They were all released at roughly the same time, but the first numbered car was #6205a – The Custom Cougar.

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Barbie – A Mattel executive’s wife noticed that all girls’ dolls looked like infants. There were no adult female dolls for kids to play with. When she brought this up to her husband he and the rest of Mattel were unenthusiastic about the idea. Anyway, on a trip to Europe the wife came across the German Bild Lili doll, which was an adult female doll based on a popular comic strip character. She bought three, brought them home to America and worked with Mattel engineer Jack Ryan to create the first Barbie doll which was named after her daughter, Barbara (see pic above). Barbie was introduced at the 1959 Toy Fair in New York. Retailers were reluctant at first but within a year the dolls were selling out of stores across America. Ken was introduced in 1961 (named after Barbara’s brother) and then Skipper in 1964.

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Mr Potato Head – In the late ’40s George Lerner created a set of plastic face pieces that could be stuck into a variety of fruits and vegetables to make a “funny face man”. The idea was based on games he’d play with his sisters involving creating funny characters out of food. When Lerner shopped the “funny face” pieces around in 1950, it was rejected by nearly every company due to food rationing by the war making playing with your food seem wasteful and irresponsible. Lerner convinced a cereal company to buy the pieces and put them in the box as premiums. Then in 1951, textile manufacturers Hassenfield Brothers (later, Hasbro) saw the product, liked what they saw and decided to buy the license from Lerner as well as pay the cereal company to stop production. The newly dubbed Mr Potato Head debuted in May 1952 and was a rousing success. It was such a success that it became the first toy advertised on TV as well as the first toy that marketed directly to children (as opposed to the parents). At first, only the plastic face/hair/hands/feet pieces were included. Parents had to supply the potatoes for their new child’s toy. Hasbro started including molded plastic potato bodies for the first time in 1964.

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GI Joe action figures – The original release of GI Joe action figures was a direct result of the popularity of Barbie. Hasbro reasoned that if girls loved to play with a female doll, then boys would love to play with a guy doll. However, since boys are awesome, they want to play with something badass, and dolls are the exact opposite of badass. So Hasbro coined the term “action figure” and released the original 4 figure assortment of GI Joe “action figures” in 1964. Each of those first four figures represented one branch of the military. The concept would change to “GI Joe Adventure Team” in the ’70s in order to de-emphasize the military angle. Then in the mid-’80s the line would be gloriously reborn as 3 3/4″ figures and dubbed GI Joe: A Real American Hero, once again coming full circle and being all about the military, laser guns and blowing stuff up.

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Baseball cards – The earliest known American baseball card was distributed in 1869. It is known as the Peck & Snyder Cincinnati Red Stockings card. It features a picture of America’s first baseball team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings. Peck & Snyder was a major baseball equipment manufacturer and this card was a way to advertise their business. On the back of the card was an advertisement for Peck & Snyder products. The Peck & Snyder card was just one card. The first official set of American baseball cards was released in 1886 by Old Judge cigarettes. The set features famous players of the time in a sepia toned print derived from a woodcutting. On the back of the cards were advertisements for Old Judge cigarettes.

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Comic books – The first comic book known to be printed in America was The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck in 1842 (far left). It was a 40 page hardback measuring about 8.5″ x 11″. It contained illustrated comic stories and was an American printing of a french comic. The “modern” format of comic books began with a comic called Famous Funnies. Eastern Color Group published Famous Funnies: A Carnival of Comics in 1933. This book was, for the most part, given away as a premium in department stores. Then, in 1934, Eastern Color Group would release Famous Funnies #1 which would contain some original comic strips and be sold through retail outlets for 10 cents. It’s popularity sparked a boom that is now called the Platinum Age of comics.

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Pez and Pez dispensers – Eduard Haas invented Pez in Vienna, Austria in 1927. The name comes from the first, middle and last letters in the German word for peppermint (Pfefferminz). Pez was originally marketed to smokers to freshen their breath, so it stands to reason that the first Pez dispenser in 1947 looked like a cigarette lighter. In 1948, the dispenser changed to the taller, plastic shape but they still had a head similar to a cigarette lighter. Then, in 1952, a Pez executive, Curtis Allina, came up with the idea of putting character heads on the Pez dispensers. Some of the first characters used were Popeye, Santa and several different Disney characters (Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, etc).

Irrfan Khan changing perceptions on cleaning in new Henko TVC

Henkel India's detergent, Henko Stain Champion, after taking Irrfan Khan as its brand ambassador rolled out its first TVC of the ‘Safayi ka Nazariya badlo’ ( change your perception on cleaning ) campaign.

Mastermind quiz about H.P. Lovecraf

Mastermind is a quiz program that has aired on British television for almost 40 years. The standard format is for the contestant to answer a rapid-fire series of questions on a specialized subject of their choice, followed by another round of “general knowledge” questions.

In this segment from 2006, the specialized subject is “The fiction of H.P. Lovecraft.” Have a go.