[Expanded version of a post which first appeared here on October 24, 2017. Last changes made January 25, 2026].

Luxury Champagnes Served Stateside in Wartime

A review of sample menus in the menu archive of the New York Public Library (N.Y.P.L.) reveals that even during the Second World War the Wine and Food Society of New York (W.F.S.), a branch of a U.K-based organization founded in the early 1930s, continued to hold tastings, but did not table German or Italian wines.

Early in the war some French wines or spirits still featured in its events, and some from Iberia or elsewhere in Europe but none German. For example, a luxury W.F.S. oyster tasting on February 27, 1940 comprised over two dozen choice French wines alongside fewer California, Hungarian, Italian, and Spanish wines. The war was on in Europe but America had not yet entered. It was business as usual, in gastronomic life at any rate. Soon, however, American wines would take pride of place at wartime tastings of the W.F.S.

In November 1941, still ahead of Pearl Harbor, another New York gastronomic group, the Gourmet Society, held a classically French dinner. Two wines were served, one a chablis, the second a cabernet sauvignon, both from California. The impact of war in Europe was obvious: either the wines the group would normally pair with the food were no longer in stock or available, or in solidarity with a nation in subjection, French wines were ruled out.

Almost a year after Pearl Harbor, on October 21, 1942, the W.F.S. held a tasting of red wines with cheese. There were numerous estate California wines – almost 40! – a few Ohio and New York State wines, and some Chilean wine, No French or other European types were represented.

Also of note is the mainly domestic selection for a “Tasting of Champagnes, Sparkling Wines and Champagne Biscuits”, held at the Pierre Hotel on April 27, 1944. The Pierre was a society hotel, favoured by the W.F.S. for its events along with the equally tony Waldorf-Astoria.* A couple of Iberian entrants featured at this tasting but nothing French, or German.

Champagne here meant, from the context, Champagne-style wine as against the sparkling burgundies also included. The wines tabled by the W.F.S. and Gourmet Society in 1941 and 1942 bear comparison with another wine list, see below, which accompanied a supper at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on December 31, 1942 (menu source: The Culinary Institute of America, accessed via Hudson River Valley Heritage). This event was not sponsored by the W.F.S., but was a Waldorf initiative, probably held annually for some years.

 

France had been under 100% Nazi occupation since November 1942, yet top French Champagnes still featured at the Waldorf event – a special occasion (New Year’s) too. It was one thing, perhaps, for the Waldorf’s usual wine card to accompany its daily meal service. It was another (in our view) to allude to the war on the menu cover but focus on the vintages of a country under the Nazi boot. For the Pierre event mentioned, held about 18 months later, French wines were completely absent.

The Waldorf’s New Year’s supper took place not in its storied Grand Ballroom, where Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians serenaded New Year’s celebrants for decades, but the Waldorf Lounge. The Lounge later became the Bull and Bear, a steak restaurant and pub. Late-evening dining of this type provided a second evening meal for most celebrants, hence was stripped-down, with just a few, home-style dishes offered. Wartime conditions may have intensified the austerity of the meal – except for the wines!

The menu cover art conveyed an impression of traditional Waldorf elegance via the coiffed society figure, who toasts and gazes admiringly at a man in uniform. The idea of a military figure is emphasized and/or policeman – an omnibus authority figure. Maybe too a service employee: doorman, bellman, chauffeur and similar. The duo is superimposed on an image of the hotel. The elite status of the Waldorf is pointed up by its majestic isolation in the illustration. The actual thronged surroundings of the building are strangely absent. One might as well be contemplating Taj Mahal, or Mont Blanc !

As noted the wine offerings, despite the mid-war period and simplicity of the supper, remained luxurious and heavily French. No less than 22 Champagnes featured as against 10 domestic sparklers. The French wines were weighted to vintage bottlings while the American group hailed from different regions including the Northeast. New Jersey’s Renault winery, still going strong, supplied one wine, and contributed as well to the 1944 Pierre tasting.

British wine writer Michael Broadbent has written that excellent 1945-1947 Champagne was available in London just after the war but stayed in postwar cellars until an ample supply of pre-war Champagnes was used up. Evidently there was still old Champagne in London, whether from hoarding or failing to fetch the price asked.  Similarly, the Waldorf at least in 1942 had on hand a good stock of aged Champagne marques, offered to punters at about double the price of domestic sparklers.

[See first footnote re the wine agency adverts below, from a 1945 issue of New Yorker magazine].

 

 

 

Wine consumers in Britain during the war had no second option, of domestic origin. A British grape wine industry did not exist then, which makes Broadbent’s statement all the more notable.

With the return of peacetime in America, French and German wines returned to W.F.S. tasting tables. Nonetheless, American wines were now viewed in a new and more favourable light, and continued to feature at some of its events.

American wine would grow steadily in appeal in decades to follow, which culminated in the famous 1976 Paris Wine Tasting, aka the Judgment of Paris. This landmark event undoubtedly gave an extra boost to native wines, both at home and in international markets, factors which continue to this day.

By including American wines in its wartime tastings the W.F.S. contributed in its way to the postwar valorization of domestic viticulture, the top end certainly. Presumably other American branches of the Wine and Food Society were doing similar, during and certainly after the war, hence weakening the old assumption that domestic wines, even the best of them, were second rate.

Inevitably, wine and food writers, restaurateurs, wine merchants and other influencers, to use a modern term, followed suit. They all helped spread the word, and reinforced each other, so that America was ripe to reap the full benefits of the Judgment of Paris. That cultural shift has only deepened since the 1970s.

The influence on American foodways of gastronomic groups in general has been studied by scholars. See e.g. American historian David Strauss’s illuminating 2011 study Setting the Table for Julia Child: Gourmet Dining in America, 1934-1961. But sans the war, in our view, the American wine scene and industry would look rather different today, as bars and restaurants in general during wartime placed a new focus on American wines, to palliate the loss of European wines. The gastronomic groups still active did similar.

We may note the mid-war wine list of Gluckstern’s, a Jewish-style restaurant in New York. Most wines were American, with only two, “B & G” (likely Barton & Guestier) and “chianti”, possibly French and Italian, respectively. In 1944 Anchor Seafood House in New York featured numerous “native” wines identified by varietal name: sauterne, chablis, riesling, etc., ending with sherry. This menu still offered “imported” still and sparkling wines at higher prices. These may have been French, but possibly were South American. Similarly, the restaurant Solowey’s in New York featured nine “domestic” wines, included on its wine list before any imports. The imports were limited to a few elderly (1920s) French survivors, a handful of wines from Uruguay, and an apparent Italian wine.

A certain picture starts to form, but the Waldorf New Year’s wine list stands out. It featured vintage French Champagnes in a luxury of choice at the war’s mid-point, and presumably in all its menus of the period. The expansiveness of its great cellar and its upmarket clientele, who had the brass to still buy French, likely explained an exceptional case. But maybe too the Waldorf was more cavalier about these matters than other hospitality in New York.

Certainly one would need to review methodically all wartime wine lists archived the N.Y.P.L., and wine list resources beyond that, to get a more complete sense of the domestic vs. imported wine picture during World War II in America. A wider canvass of wine advertising in well-distributed magazines (Life, Look, Vogue, etc.) would assist, as well. Still, we feel the menus canvassed in these notes point to the general tendency, with the Waldorf hence an outlier.

This, before the war domestic wines were usually listed after the imported section, were fewer in number, and almost always cheaper.*** The 1939 wine list of Sammy’s Plaza in New York is typical,** with imported wines clearly outweighing the domestic selection in variety and evidently in prestige. The wine list, also from 1939, of Colligan’s Stockton Inn, then a long-established fashionable bar-restaurant in New Jersey, eschewed domestic wines completely, in a typical pre-war pattern.

Note re images: Source of each image is linked in text. Images used for educational and research purposes. All intellectual property therein belongs solely to the lawful owner, as applicable. All feedback welcomed.

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*A Bellows Champagne included, not vintage-dated, was possibly French-origin from before the war, as Bellows was a well-known wine and spirits merchant with a carriage trade. Gotham Champagne was American, as a 1947 advert showed in New Yorker magazine. See also the multi–page spread on American wines in a 1945 program of the Boston Pops. It illustrates a number of points made in this post including the new focus on American (usually Californian) estates as the source of finer wines.

**In the 1930s in California domestic wines sometimes received unusual prominence on menus, due to the historic importance of Napa and other California wine production. I discuss an example from 1937 in my post, “A Locavore Wine List in San Francisco”.

***As well, they usually were referred to by generic varietal names or basic regional ones – tokay, burgundy, riesling,  etc. – vs. the European method of identifying the estate of origin. For American wines tasted during the war the W.F.S. used in addition the European way to describe the wines, e.g., Beaulieu, Cresta Blanca, Inglenook and so forth. This surely played some role in conveying to the American wine consumer the significance of estate origins of wines. We should bear in mind that before the war some events of the W.F.S. were ticketed and open to the public, as I discussed earlier. Presumably this continued for the wartime tastings although complete clarity on this point has been elusive.

 

Starting this Monday I will have one beer per evening from the pack shown, from Wellington Brewery in Guelph, Ontario. The carton label states both can labels and brewing recipes hark back to the 1990s. The brewery was founded in 1985.

 

 

As I have been sampling Wellington’s beers from the beginning, I am in a good position to judge. The label designs all ring a bell, and however the beers were put together they will be good. Wellington is at the top of its game right now, both for its old school line, say County Ale and Imperial Stout, and newer releases.

A nice way to spend Christmas week, certainly. And other beers will lave the palate too. I don’t “count”, you see, at this time of year, not punctiliously. And punk I am not: moderation will always helm the beverage bateau.

New material will appear here at some point after New Year’s, but exactly when I cannot say. Check in here often, if only to read, or re-read, some of the vast archive here. There are over 2,000 posts since 2015 on the broadest range of topics imaginable in beer, beer history, spirits and their history, food, travel and other topics.

Scroll at your leisure, or if you are looking for something specific, the search box on the site is your friend. Say, for porter history, beer cuisine, the beer sparkler, beer journalism, Quebec beer history, Canadian beer in World War II, what have you.

As samples of the riches here – meretricious modesty begone! – stroll down a block in St. John’s Wood, after which hop the Atlantic for a wartime New Year’s bash at the Waldorf Astoria in New York.

Just two of two thousand, there.

My best Holiday wishes to our regular and occasional readers, especially for a good and happy New Year.

P.S. I started on the Wellington pack with the Black Knight porter. An excellent pick it was, with a full yet not luscious or markedly burnt malt flavour. Somewhere between a rich modern example, Founder’s Porter say, or Sierra Nevada’s, and yes the old Molson Porter. Molson’s entry had just about lasted into the 1990s before being axed by shortsighted management of the day. It’s a good place for a porter to be, while not the only place on the spectrum, to be sure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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This product, grandly called Barnburner Prohibition Release Kentucky Distilled Whiskey, was sourced by Oakville, Ontario’s Maverick Distillery, imported in bulk and bottled in Ontario. It is effectively a bourbon and for more information including mashbill particulars, the distillery’s website is informative. (The product label does not call it bourbon since usage of that term where bottled here is not permitted under applicable U.S. and Canadian laws).

The cleverly-named Prohibition is an excellent substitute for the bourbon now banned from Ontario shelves by the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, through orders of the imperious Ontario Premier Doug Ford. That was a response to American tariffs imposed on Canadian exports under President Trump’s trade policy. Not satisfied with having Ottawa levy a suitable countervail tariff on American booze, as applies to many other products imported from the States, with a stroke of the pen no American wine, beer or liquor is available here now, for the foreseeable future.

Somehow the Barnburner Prohibition got a pass. Perhaps it was imported to Ontario before the L.C.B.O. ban took shape. (The L.C.B.O. controls both wholesale and retail distribution of alcohol in Ontario). Ontario distilleries can sell their products through their own shop, so the L.C.B.O. ban on American products in its own retail outlets does not apply.*

As to the whiskey itself, it hails from bourbon-central, Bardstown, Kentucky. We visited Bardstown and other bourbon locales in Kentucky many times over the years on bourbon investigation trips. The producing distillery for Maverick Prohibition is not disclosed. There are a couple of likely prospects, but it does not really matter; what’s in the bottle does.

The whiskey has pleasing notes of blonde butterscotch, strawberry cream-in-a-chocolate, and light smoke (from the charred barrels used in maturation). Being five years old one doesn’t get a marked woody/tarry note, but then too the spirit has commensurately more say, or distillery character as often termed. And it is certainly old enough, five years is very respectable to age straight whiskey.

Maverick also sells a higher-proof – 60% abv – single cask version. There is also its Union, which blends the Prohibition and a Canadian whisky, one part to three, respectively, which sounds good but we did not try this. As good as Union may be, we always prefer a straight whiskey to a blend.**

Straight means here, distilled to a relatively low proof which retains more mash flavour in the alcohol, the distillery character mentioned. In the States the maximum for distilling out bourbon or straight rye is 160 proof, or 80% abv. Often bourbon distillers target well under to ensure a hearty flavour, i.e., one independent of what the barrel will contribute in aging.

The taste of this actually brought back the flavour of Yellowstone bourbon as it was in the 1970s, that strawberry note. Yellowstone is still marketed, the L.C.B.O. has listed a bottling in recent years. I tried it one year, a quality product certainly although it didn’t quite meet the memory I had. Of course, few things stay the same over such a long period.

I’m glad to have the Prohibition as a good-tasting straight whiskey which offers that dimension of the bourbon palate, just one element in the infinity pool of tones, tangs and tastes that defines the straight whiskey palate.

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*Some L.C.B.O. stores sell a Barnburner-labelled product, but that one is an all-Canadian made whisky, another in the Maverick line.

**Another and maybe better way to say this is, straight and blended whiskies are really two different categories, to be weighed according to their respective characteristics. An exception is the class of spirits known in the U.S. as a blend of straight whiskeys, but I don’t think Union is of that type. I’ll try to get out to the distillery in the New Year and learn more of what they do. We are fans as well of their Ginslinger Gin, recently discussed on this site in connection with Pink Gin (the cocktail) history.

 

 

 

 

 

 

© 2015-2025 Copyright of Gary M. Gillman. All Rights Reserved. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, any reproduction, distribution, or display of the materials published at https://www.beeretseq.com without the express written permission of the copyright owner, is strictly prohibited.

 

 

 

Gourmet and Commercial Art 

From the outset of Gourmet magazine (see Part I) the magazine’s covers, especially in the period Henry Stahlut drew them, have been recognized for their artistry. Stahlut did the work from the first issue (January 1941) until about 1960, according to Cook’s Info.

A collection of beer-related Gourmet covers appears in a webpage of Conde Nast, the last publisher of Gourmet, among a group of magazine covers available for purchase. The July 1941 “ham” cover depicts a section of porcine interior in vibrant pink interleaved by creamy fat, the beer alongside a contrasting, deep amber. A sheaf of grain and sprig of hops in the corner highlight the brewer’s essential kit, for the aware reader.

The cover art during the Stahlut period is certainly accomplished with a serene, evergreen quality. The covers for issues published in the warmer seasons often present an open-air, still life effect. I prefer these (in general) to the cooler season covers, which while artful can seem stodgy today.

In the June 1948 cover one’s attention is drawn to unusual glass mug shown next to a hyper-American slab of charcoal-broiled meat. The glass seems oddly foreshortened, as if half a German Masskrug was sliced away! The muglet is topped with a shiny chrome cap for a final American touch a la 1940s. (Why did I think of the gas cap for a hot rod?!).

The July 1945 cover features a glass of extra-pale beer, summery-looking and in synch with the lobster shack theme. A sea green lobster dominates the foreground. Just behind him in contrasting bright red is a cookpot with immersed fellow crustacean, this time also red. Mr. Sea Green looks as pensive as a lobster’s nervous system will allow, as if to say, I’m next, I know it.

A cover from 1944 shows a large sausage in purplish-brown casing stuffed with jellied meat chunks. Alongside is a three-rivet, wooden-handle knife wbich slices through an oblong of brown bread. A rather Germanic affair it is, despite the year.

Maybe the provender was felt all-American by this time, or regional American at least.* A 1950 cover shows a similar sausage filling but en croûte; the context here possibly Alsatian.**

The Conde Nast page includes beer photos outside the remit of Gourmet. One I hadn’t seen before is impactful no less than the others, but in a different way. The black and white photo, from 1966, pictures actor James Mason in a Dublin pub.

The poised Mason appears neat in his bow tie and sleek suit. A server just behind, of similar visage, is attired differently, for his occupation. Each wields the black Guinness “jar”, showing his respective role. Together they symbolize the Irish urban pub, captured perfectly for the period.

Returning to American beer, the row of mugs on a 1933 Vanity Fair cover conjure a different effect, pre-Prohibition-nostalgic. Note the cotton-wool heads on the glasses, maybe a touching-up as they don’t seem natural.

The brassy-coloured, faintly cloudy beers ring truer, of Gambrinal authenticity.*** A red and white wrinkly bar towel strewn with pretzels wraps up the old-time saloon look. For many of drinking age before Prohibition, came the dawn of Repeal 13 years later bars and beers still meant one thing: the swing-door saloon and an old-time line ’em up, rip ’em up atmosphere.

Art and beer were ever a twain, as these photos and illustrations amply show for their time and context.

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*The Stahlut surname sounds German, come to think of it. Perhaps the artist was rendering homage to his cultural roots, irrespective of time and context.

**Further research in Gourmet archives suggests Poitou was the locale, but numerous French provinces offered something similar.

***This issue of Vanity Fair is dated March 1933, so beer wasn’t quite legal yet. That occurred on April 7 that year with the coming into force of the Harrison Cullen Act. The beer pictured therefore was either near beer or illict beer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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In the Summers of ’41 and ’57 …*

The importance in American food history of Gourmet magazine, which commenced publishing in January 1941 and finally ceased in 2009, is questioned. Some of the whys and wherefores are set out in a Gourmet retrospective (author not credited) published at Cook’s Info, among other sources.**

In July 1941 Gourmet published the article Beer and Vittles by Annette M. Snapper. She was then Director of Consumer Service of Pabst Brewery in Milwaukee. News accounts and other sources indicate she started with Pabst during National Prohibition (1920-1933). Her tasks included formulating recipes for Pabst-etts, a kind of process cheese Pabst made when commercial brewing was foreclosed to it except for near beer.

When still with Pabst, Snapper became well-known during and after World War II as an “inquiring reporter”. She made multiple trips to Europe to investigate conditions in hotels and restaurants, and later reported on food shortages in France and elsewhere in Europe. A late-life (1960) journalistic profile of Annette Snapper in the St. Petersburg Evening Independent further illuminates her career.

Her article in Gourmet shows she had learned everything one would need, to do public relations for a brewery, and then some. She excelled in the field known as indirect marketing, an expertise for which she was recognized by Ruth Kohler in the latter’s 1948 The Story of Wisconsin Women.

An example of Snapper’s brewery work was her 1938 booklet At Home With Pabst, setting out food and entertaining ideas in which Pabst beer figured. She also spoke to restaurant and hotel groups across the country on how to improve their operations including menu planning. The Gourmet article was a further P.R. excercise, a rather indirect one as it did not mention Pabst Brewery or its brands.

The article is mainly about beer, with food addressed near the end. Beer occasionally interested Gourmet’s then chief editor Pearl Metzelthin, I discussed another instance recently. In her Gourmet article, Snapper started by surveying the sweep of beer history. She then differentiated lager and ale, and explained how porter and stout fit in. A technical explanation of malt and hops followed, capped by a summary of the beer manufacturing process.

When it came finally to food Snapper noted that beer was little used in American cookery. She explained that some countries did feature beer in national recipes citing Germany as an example. Snapper made an interesting point, that German recipes employing beer dated from a time German beers were rich-bodied and sweet (true historically), whereas contemporary American beers were lighter and drier (or so she implied), hence not as suited to cook with.

Where beer with food really came into its own for Snapper in 1941 America, was to accompany a limited group of foods, especially salted, smoked, and sour foods. She wrote:

… [P]urely as accompaniments to food, beer and ale have a very definite place. Both go well with the salt, the sour, and the bitter—Bismarck herring with pumpernickel, beef a la tartare—so peppery that it really stings the tongue, sauerbraten and red cabbage, Vienna schnitzel with spaetzli, Hungarian goulash, tripe, and steak pie. Besides these, ham in almost all its guises and virtually every kind of fish and wild game, as well as strong radishes, nuts, and cheeses, have always been affinities of beer. And canapes of anchovies, sardines, smoked eel, smoked salmon, caviar, fish pastes, shrimp marinade, olives—plain, ripe, and stuffed, all combined with beer for piquancy of flavor.

Beer, you see, is a versatile drink.

The cover photo of the issue with her article depicts a glazed ham dotted with cloves, its shank end covered in a frilled paper. Two handsome pilsener glasses stand behind, filled to the brim. A photo spread inside shows youngish couples drinking beer at a stylish cafe or restaurant, and disporting at the beach.

The New York Wine and Food Society’s beer-tastings during World War II exemplified, I might add, how Snapper saw beer in relation to food. See for an example their marathon 1942 tasting.

While Snapper’s article hardly carved out new territory for beer as epicurean datum the very fact Gourmet published it, given the elevated tone of its general coverage, had to enhance beer in readers’ minds. (For a typical range of topics covered by Gourmet in its first decades see the table of contents in the March 1948 issue).

In July 1957 Paul W. Kearney’s article “The Amber Brew” appeared in Gourmet. It seems his full name was Paul William Kearney. He was born in 1894, year of decease not confirmed. He was a general freelance journalist, and also authored books on a wide range of topics.

He had published a book in the 1920s on toasts and toasting, which along with the Gourmet piece likely attested to a long interest in the subject of beer.

The Gourmet article focused on Colonial-era brewing and scientific advancements in brewing during the 19th century, especially Pasteur’s work on fermentation and the advent of mechanical refrigeration.

Kearney seemed to accept the questionable line of 1950s large-scale brewers that modern beer was superior to its Pre-Prohibition incarnation due to improvements in technology.

He distinguished lightly among lager, ale, and bock beer, noting they differed only slightly in character. He seemed satisfied withal with beer’s largely generic character of that time, considering it an achievement of technology.

There are glimmers of a more sophisticated understanding. He noted that “craftmanship” still played a role in the brewhouse, and that Pennsylvania of his time, important to brewing in Colonial America, harbored the largest number of brewers among the states.

Kearney’s article was doubtless useful for the average reader, but seemed a parsing of contemporary brewing histories and shorter-form treatments, the type issued by large brewers or brewing associations. No brands or even brewery names were mentioned. No understanding was shown of the wide range of beer styles before Prohibition. No illustrations appeared in the article to lend it added weight, except for a simple drawing of hops on the vine.

And, an ostensible puzzle, Kearney omitted completely the story of how  German-Americans implanted the lager tradition during the 1800s. Their lagers mostly displaced ales and porter of the type the statesman Samuel Adams, mentioned by Kearney, had known (Adams was a one-time maltster, not a brewer as Kearney wrote). President George Washington, who brewed domestically on his estate and Kearney had also cited to highlight the character early American brewing, was another example.

I suspect the omission of the critical German-American role in American brewing history was due to still-sensitive memories of the 1939-1945 war. There seems no plausible explanation otherwise.

The article from a strict beer standpoint is less than satisfactory. But it undoubtedly drove home for readers the image of beer as a drink with a long and honorable history. A drink, Kearney added, that historically was favoured by “King and commoner”. (I suspect most Gourmet readers of the days regarded themselves as somewhere in the middle!).

In time, a national beer revolution took place, creating ultimately thousands of small brewers across the land. Beer became recognized as a full participant in all reaches of American gastronomy. This entailed an acceptance, first, that beer (its palate) had a complexity and range comparable to that of wine.

Second, that different beers were suited to accompany particular dishes – not just the narrow group Annette Snatcher had mentioned. Third, that beer had a role in the American kitchen*** albeit beer cookery never became an established branch of the national cookery.

Annette Snapper passed away in 1975, a few years before the beer revolution became visible nationally. Neither she, nor Paul Kearney almost certainly, lived long enough to witness the ultimate flourishing of beer in American foodways and in culture generally. But these writers participated in the long process, with Gourmet magazine, to help beer get there.****

Series continues in Part II.

Note re image: Source of image is the entry for Gourmet magazine at Wikipedia. Image used for educational and research purposes. All intellectual property therein belongs solely to the lawful owner, as applicable. All feedback welcomed.

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*This blog series was lightly edited for style on January 21, 2026, and to include our discussion of Paul W. Kearney’s 1957 article.

**Another good resource is the October 27, 2025 article “Gourmet Magazine: Its Rise, Fall, and Lasting Legacy”, posted at Eat Healthy 365 (uncredited).

***Evidenced by the scores of books published in recent decades on beer cookery and beer to accompany different foods.

***A similar process occurred in Canada, following American precedent, but with local features. Some early craft breweries were set up for example by British immigrants who wanted to replicate the beer and pub experience they knew at home, or by Canadians who had travelled in Britain and were impressed with its brewing and pub cultures. These efforts were parallel to, rather than inspired by, emerging American craft breweries, at the time called micro-, designer, or cottage breweries.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

© 2015-2025 Copyright of Gary M. Gillman. All Rights Reserved. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, any reproduction, distribution, or display of the materials published at https://www.beeretseq.com without the express written permission of the copyright owner, is strictly prohibited.

 

 

There was a time when the cold season brought hot beer. Not hot as in siiiick (see cool current Tylenol ad), but hot like a fire makes. Mulled was a term in common use in Britain and America from the 18th to 19th centuries. Mulled drinks, sometimes zinged with a red-hot poker, are not quite forgotten. They aren’t legion either, mind.

Why and wherefore? Central heating played a big role, maybe safety regulations, maybe changing tastes.

Modern beer- and specifically porter studies have mostly omitted mention of, count them, two forms of this drink. Fettled porter and pickled porter. They were once associated with some English counties and the Scottish borders.

By modern I mean, you might find something about one or the other in, say, a 19th century dictionary of slang or regional usage, or in a Victorian Notes and Queries entry, but not by any modern writer I know. I make exception for the odd discussion by persons mainly concerned with pub history who do not address in any detail the “beer” side of these mixtures.

As I always say, if I missed any beer writer’s previous contribution in this area, do tell me.

So what’s the lowdown? The following advert wraps a lot of it together, from the Isle of Thanet Gazette, November 13, 1875.

 

 

This is down in Kent, in Margate. More typically fettled porter was found up north. One classic producer was Dabell’s Fettled Porter House, as finally named, of Nottingham. It lasted into the 1950s, and was later demolished. Some 1990s notes on Dabell’s from “Ian” are useful, see here. His account quotes a 1926 encomium on the drink that likened it to port wine.

Another admirer of fettling black beer thought the palate suggested good elder wine, as I show further below.

A typical 19th century definition for fettled porter appeared in H. Cunliffe’s A Glossary of Rochdale-With-Rossendale Words and Phrases:

Warm porter mixed with sugar, lemon and spices.

Various accounts suggest ginger and nutmeg for the spice. It would have varied with the maker and no doubt regional patterns existed. What seemed to set fettled porter apart from the other spiced and frothy porter and ale mixtures of tradition is, no eggs went in, and lemon frequently did.*

Obviously that’s a twain that would never work, so ’twas one or the other. As to fettled, it means what you may think and is connected to the common phrase “in fine fettle”. In other words, porter made right, or perfect, by dosing with these things and heating.

 

 

Now to pickled porter.

An odd expression, since alcohol itself can form a pickle, to preserve meat, say, but that is not the meaning here.** Pickled porter was possibly different from fettled porter, as the above ad lists two forms, but maybe the difference there was simply the fettled stout was stronger than the pickled porter.

Ads are not hard to find, in fact, for “fettle” – the spice mixture pre-made – intended for pickled porter. So there the meaning was the same. In 1854 on December 3 the London Weekly Dispatch advertised:

FETTLE FOR PICKLED PORTER …

TABLESPOONFUL to half-a-pint very hot makes the porter elder wine …

ADAM HILL, 3M, Holborn.

In the case below, a Norwich producer of non-alcohol drinks sold for a similar purpose the generically-termed “spiced syrup” (Cromer and North Norfolk Post, January 5, 1895, via British Newspaper Archive, as previous scans).

 

 

I think therefore the fettle and the sugar syrup were basically the same thing, except where the fettle was just the spices and the landlord or drinker added the sugar.

Finally, Lancashire was another stronghold for the fettling of porter. Dialect writer Benjamin Brierly memorialised the tradition in the Victorian period. See an example in his (1884) Tales and Sketches of Lancashire Life.

Today one can often find easily a spiced porter or stout. It is as easy to add sugar and a lemon slice and drink it warmed. Or you can add the spices, sugar and lemon yourself to plain porter or stout.

However you do it, report well and truly will you, how close you got to good port or elder wine. I am all ears.

Note re images: Source of images is linked in text. Images used for educational and research purposes. All intellectual property therein belongs solely to the lawful owner, as applicable. All feedback welcomed.

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*See William Fernie on this point in his 1905 Meals Medicinal, etc. Fernie adds useful information on the type of vessel used to heat the mixture before a fire. Note the alternative term hooter. The derivation of the modern slang for a woman’s breast seems to reside here, perhaps extending to the warm milk of nursing.

**Unless perhaps a corruption of “pickling porter”, so that the porter could be drunk as such or used to pickle meat or fish.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Flying Dietician

As third part of my canvass of Pearl Metzelthin, a notable figure of American food history, attention is drawn to her article “Dietician in the Airways”, published in the March 1938 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association (from p. 197):

 

 

 

In what amounts to two pages of close type she explains in her own words the services she provided to American Airlines, the problems she worked on, and innovations introduced. In this regard, I note she was not the first to advise on supplying hot meals to airborne passengers, nor did she claim to be.

Information on that topic is obtainable at different levels of detail including a number of full-length books. Here, I content myself to link Diana Hubbell’s May 8, 2023 article in Atlas Obscura, “Remembering the Golden Years of Airline Food”, an engaging survol (!), even as Metzelthin is not mentioned.

Obviously Metzelthin worked in the comparative first days of airline food development. Sophisticated work has occurred since (some would say not for the better, but factoring the low price of modern travel I have no complaints).

The 1938 article is certainly more complete than press accounts of the day which summarized her work. These often focused on foods deemed not suitable for in-flight service, such as cabbage and fish.

Since there is no substitute for a pioneer’s own words, Metzelthin’s memoir is of good interest as such. I thought the portion below not least so, since it shows how she integrated her interest in style and design with an otherwise utilitarian task.

When I was assigned work as research dietitian and designer, I immediately visualized a type of plate and cup other than the ones being used, and later I designed the unbreakable beetleware dishes which are oblong and square, and worked out the problem of their manufacture with the president of the firm that made them for American Airlines. The traycloths and “lapkins” I designed in colors to harmonize with the whole service. These are in buff linen with a red and blue design. In order to make the new food service efficient and at the same time aesthetically pleasing to the eye as well as the palate, I was permitted to proceed with the standardizing of the recipes, the planning of the menus, and the designing of all the equipment on which the food is served.

She also had her business hat on, as we might say today. For beverages, Metzelthin mentions only in this piece coffee, bouillon and hot water. A July 30, 1937 spread in the Dayton Forum expanded on the drinks American Airlines offered, mentioning the coffee brand, Kaffee Hag, a decaffeinated type. It is still sold worldwide, the producer’s history is rather a story unto itself. Wikipedia offers a good start for the curious.

 

 

The article omits any reference to alcoholic drink. I think as a dietician – she appeared regularly in this journal in the 1930s – Metzelthin felt it inadvisable to confront this area. We must recall too Prohibition had only recently ended, in 1933. Its shadow was still potent, and the public imagination not yet attuned to the aircraft beverages trolley and panoply of hard drinks from cocktails to cold beer.*

In 1939, addressing the Women’s National Press Club in Washington, Metzelthin cautioned that prior to departing, passengers should not consume more than a “half a cocktail”, since the altitudes reached doubled the potency. See in October 18, 1939, The Washington Daily News. Her tone suggests drinking and flight did not mix and that in the 1930s. at least, American Airlines did not vend alcohol in flight, although I could not confirm this.

Metzelthin completed the airlines assignment in 1937 or the year after and moved on to other work, notably finalizing her world foods book and assuming the editor role at Gourmet magazine.

In sum, she was a multiform personality, as are many high achievers who work in the highways and byways of food and beverages, including the writing and consulting areas. She had a unique skill set that included an impressive multilingual capacity, which, paired with a keen intellect and strong ambition, enabled her achievements.

Her career deserves to be better known today, including her work for a biscuit firm, mentioned elsewhere in these notes. Her significance to Gourmet is more easily appreciated, in good part since the early issues are on record – although not easy to find! – and testify amply to the role she played in setting the magazine on a sure footing.

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*By the 1930s it was understood alcohol did not contribute much or any food value to the diet. But, in other words, a moral dimension also applied to the alcohol question at the time, at least in an “official” setting, as here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Interludes of Fortune and Becoming a Food Writer

Pearl Violette Neufeld Metzelthin, to render her full name, is remembered today in food historical studies for three things:

– her role as founding editor of Gourmet magazine (1941-1943)

– the work she did in the late 1930s for American Airlines designing an in-flight hot meal service, hence making an important contribution to the nascent field of airline passenger catering

– her 1939 World Wide Cook Book; Menus and Recipes of 75 Nations. The book was based on her world travels and other research, and sold well from the outset. It was reissued under her name posthumously in 1951 as The New World Wide Cook Book.

Modern food historical studies both popular and academic mentions these achievements but usually in a few lines, to my knowledge again. After all there is much ground to cover in the great steppes of American culinary history, and she died a long time ago.

There is more to know however and an object of this series is to ferret out un- or less-trod areas. By this means we can appreciate more fully her background, formative influences and some of her focus areas.

She really belonged to a pre-war school of food writers and lecturers who combined an interest in gastronomy and travel with training and work in nutrition.* In this regard, she reminds me of the Canadian food doyenne – she still is, in my view – Jehane Benoit, whom I discussed here.

On the biography side of things, we obtain excellent detail from her entry in the 1942 edition of Current Biography:

 

 

 

The laconic last sentence comes rather as a shock, alluding as it does to tragedy of a maximum degree. Given press reports’ invariable image of her as an engaging, genial figure, her mien and manner must have masked considerable personal trauma and angst, factoring too her early widowhood. Yet, rather than sink under their pressure she overcame challenges to a point she is still remembered today.

Her immediate family mentioned was perhaps her father, who moved the family to Warsaw in the 1890s, and any siblings who ultimately did not return to America, as she and sister Rose did (see Part I). Our research suggests her father may have been Leopold Neufeld, a wine dealer in Baltimore. The mother was Bertha Moses. Press stories from the 1890s suggest the father moved the family to Poland, a place many Jews wanted to exit from at the time, but he wished by these reports to claim his share of an inheritance from his father, a well-off industrialist.

See e.g., the May 8, 1892 report in the Baltimore American, “In Danger of Siberia”. Some biography on Metzelthin suggests she did sojourn in Siberia, but whether in connection with her father’s affairs or her own, is unclear. If the father was in the Maryland wine trade this suggests a degree of family influence for her later professional work.

While she had no great interest in the Bacchic side of things – didn’t write about it at any event, from our survey – wine ties in to food, travel and other aspects of the good life. She probably was familiar early on with “gracious living”, in the phrase of the time, abetted by years living and studying in Europe and then as chatelaine for a diplomat.

Current Biography 1942, a standard work of reference for the time, stated her birth at 1894, but it may have been 1884. For one thing, she married by this account a German diplomat in 1912, when she would have been 18. Some press accounts on Metzelthin had the marriage earlier, in 1911 or 1910, but even 18 seems rather young for such a union. All this noted I remain somewhat uncertain on her actual birth year.

Her diplomat husband by other accounts died in 1920, which was the spur for her career in food writing and consultancy. As just one example of her omnibus presentation style, see the billing in Rochester Evening Journal for her talk given at a department store in 1930. She spoke on behalf of the Women’s Radio Institute on diet and nutrition, not excluding, “beauty, hygiene, diet, fashion, and other pertinent topics”.

A kind of progenitor of Dr. Phil, Judge Judy, and Nigella Lawson, all in one. Perhaps Henry Kissinger too. Her  profile in the October 16, 1939 The Alabamian noted the exotic, international elements of her background but insisted (correctly) on her essential Americanism.

The Current Biography entry lists three press references for its sources but makes clear the subject supplied some of the information. This account does not state she took a medical degree, unlike some other publicity she received, but only studied for one. This is correct, confirmed by her own statement to a Pittsburgh newspaper in 1930. The Pittsburgh story was rather more penetrating than most others, reaching inside its subject.

The 1942 entry is, I won’t say padded but shaped in the way bios and CVs have been immemorially, for example her “presentation” at various imperial courts, and perhaps her age. Taking all with all she had an impressive career to that point, and was still building her last achievement, as co-creator and the first editor of Earle R. MacAusland’s Gourmet magazine. Gourmet had an important influence on the post-1945 American dining and culinary ethos, helping to form a future, epicurean America.

Our next Part will take a closer look at the services she provided American Airlines. We conclude this Part by noting from the end of World War II until her death she seemed relatively inactive. After the war she issued a further book, The Avon Improved Cook Book and Complete Guide to Pressure Cooking, apparently underwritten by the famous cosmetics firm.

Metzelthin had a lifelong interest in matters of fashion and style, which likely explains the Avon connection. Apart this book, she seemed little active. One reason may be ill health owing to a “very severe fall” that befell her sometime after the war, which occurrence she notified to The Overseas Press Club of America in early 1947. She mentioned how she missed seeing her friends.

Thus how dolour coloured her last years, seeming to foreshorten a career singular in its form and by its springs. It is still largely true that those who write on food or drink, or contribute to any particular aspect of the culinary and gastronomic arts, tend to be one of a kind, arriving at the interest in 1000 different ways. Nigella Lawson, James Beard, Elizabeth David, Julia Child, most of the greats, I would say and so many others, form examples.

Part III will conclude this series with a look at Metzelthin’s development of a hot meal and beverage service for American Airlines in 1937.

Note re image: Source of image is linked in text. Image used for educational and research purposes. All intellectual property therein belongs solely to the lawful owner, as applicable. All feedback welcomed.

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* [Added December 8, 2025]. An obituary January 3, 1948 in Newsday (via Proquest) had her age as 64, but did state she married the diplomat at 17. It also had her father as “Francis Neufeld”, and the mother’s first name, as Bertha. It further stated she had three surviving sisters, Rose Neufeld, Edith Verner and Gladys Epstein. This account attributed her husband’s death in 1920 to malnutrition in Germany, so perhaps her siblings, and father if still living were in America by the end of World War I. We note as well Neil Grauer’s appreciation of Metzelthin published in The Sun of Baltimore November 23, 1994 (Proquest). Grauer had her born in 1884 as well, and added interesting details concerning the couple’s life in China and especially their escape in 1914, reaching San Francisco after a wending, hair-raising journey, then across the nation to New York, and thence to Germany via Iceland and Scandinavia. He states they spent the war years in Germany.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Pearl of Wheat Beers

In a three-part series I explore the career of American food writer Pearl Metzelthin. Of unconventional background, even in this context, she was active in writing and editing, and also advised on diet and nutrition, from the 1920s until her death in late 1947.

In this Part her views on a now-obscure German beer type will be discussed, but first a preface.

I am always interested in historical taste descriptions of drinks, those relying especially on simile or metaphor to convey impressions of flavour – versus that is general statements of praise, or their obverse, or a middle ground, which reveal little of the subject (e.g., “refreshing”, “tonic”, “soporific”, “dry”, “luscious”, etc.).

As I’ve noted before, modern beverage description tends to more detail, and reliance on analogy, than in the past. While detailed descriptions of beer, wine and spirits can be found in different periods since the 1700s (at least) the golden period is from about 1975 to the present. Wine writing had a definite influence on the modern beer- and spirits-tasting vocabulary, in this respect.

The “gunflint”  or “chalk” familiar historically to tasters of Chablis and other white wines, which gets at their mineral quality, can also apply to some beer. Likening the bouquet or taste of beer to various fruits – cherry, blackberry, peach – or flowers – roses, gardenia, orchid, say, is another gambit gleaned from  the wine world.

In 1939 the food writer, dietician and consultant Pearl Neufeld Metzelthin (1884-1947), described Berliner Weisse, a German wheat beer, in a way that prefigured how beers in general are canvassed today. Her vivid commentary appeared in her World Wide Cook Book; Menus and Recipes of 75 Nations.

Metzelthin was born in Baltimore, Maryland, but moved as a child to Central Europe, Poland and Germany are mentioned in biographical sources, where she was educated.* In 1910 she married a German diplomat surnamed Metzelthin and spent adventurous years with him in China and elsewhere for his work. By the 1920s in America she launches her career as nutritionist and educator and writer on food. She also lectured on these and other topics, and became an all-round food authority.

She is remembered especially for helping to launch Gourmet magazine with Earle R. MacAusland in January 1941. The magazine prospered even during the war when she was chief editor (until 1943), and flourished in subsequent decades. Gourmet played certainly an important role in advancing American appreciation of fine food and drink and international travel – what was compendiously called at the time “gracious living”.

Issues of Gourmet edited by Metzelthin disclose a strong interest in European and other foreign eating, but from the beginning also featured American regional traditions. The March 1941 issue contained the article “Terrapin Comeback” by S. Clark, meant to highlight the old Maryland table. The same issue contained the article “Merienda Days in Old Monterey”, by Anne B. Fisher (connected somehow to M.F.K.? Her first husband was Alfred Young Fisher. Later that year M.F.K. contributed “Three Swiss Inns” to Gourmet).

At the base of this Part see Metzelthin’s obituary from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle for further biographical detail, and more will follow in this series. Because Metzelthin lived and studied for years in Berlin she had a good knowledge, clearly, of its beer type and enjoyed drinking it, two things not always synonymous. Her book in general was based on wide travel and careful research, and regarded as an accessible and accurate introduction to its subject.

She stated of the beer:

For a bracer a Berliner Weisse, the cold, carbonated White Beer, pale, lemon-colored, is served in a large bowl-like glass about three times as large as a brandy snifter. You get a noseful of carbonated bubbles when you attack the heady, effervescent mixture. The acidy, but mild yeasty taste reminds you of a lemon phosphate, but is so delicious that “phosphate” is a pale word in comparison. Raspberry sirup poured over the top to add zest to the Weissbier is called “mit Zipfelmiitze” (with a nightcap), and has a character all its own.

The analogy to lemon phosphate adds a particular American touch, a legacy of her Baltimore childhood. The late 1800s was the era when soft drinks emerged in America in close to their present form. Lemon soda was among the earliest types, a combination of lemon “sirup” and effervescent water.  So she is telling us, a good Weisse beer is like the best lemon soda you ever had, multiplied by ten.

We get it, factoring too her “yeasty” and “acidy” remarks. Her comment on the raspberry addition is interesting unto itself as suggesting an essentially different kind of drink results, hence with its own constellation of tastes and effects. She does not mention the alternative use of woodruff (Waldmeister) in Weisse, in green-coloured syrup form, associated with Berlin-style beer especially after the war. Perhaps its use was not common beofre the conflict, or in pubs she frequented at any rate.

By the tenor of her remarks Weisse was often drunk without any syrup, contrary to anecdotal reports after World War II. Beer writer Michael Jackson (1942-2027) testified to this in early writing, noting Berlin waiters were taken aback if the beer was ordered “straight”. For those interested in early foreign reactions to Weisse generally, see here for another American’s impressions, in 1892.

Metzelthin’s book mentions beer numerous times, for example in the Danish and British sections, as an accompaniment to characteristic dishes. But her remarks on Berliner Weisse reveal a special affection, probably owing to her Berlin student days in Kaiser Wilhelm’s era.

 

 

Series continues in Part II, with more on Metzelthin’s background and how her career was shaped.

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*At some point she also studied in France, at Neuilly, and apparently Geneva. She was Jewish-born, a subject not addressed in her writing as far as I know. Some news accounts, e.g. in the Washington Star, 1927, described her as a “Jewish clubwoman”. She did often speak to women’s organizations connected to synagogues or other Jewish organizations. Her birth year was sometimes given as 1894, even in reputable sources as will appear further in Part II. It seems however she was born in 1884. An obituary in Nassau Daily Review-Star, January 3, 1948, stated her age as 64. Her New York Times obituary did not mention a birth year or age, as somewhat as customary for women at the time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Jennie From the Bar

A 1931 Australian news feature, “Have you a Favorite Bottle? The Epicurean Philosophy of Jennie at the bar” contains scintillating writing, by Adrian Walker.* It appeared in Sydney’s The Arrow, November 20, 1931.

The article is uncommonly well-written for the journalistic ranks, occasionally one finds this in fourth estate annals of bars, drinks, and everything concerned. I’ve encountered some good examples in Britain, Ireland, North America, Australia, some recorded here in the past, and this is another.

The article commenced:

 

“What’s yours?

That is Jennie’s way of saying ‘How do you do?’ Jennie is in practice at the bar. Before you reply do you pause, as some do, and critically survey the rows upon rows of bottles, or do you just say in the stereotyped way,

“Mug straight, please?”

Yesterday I visited the pub next door, and while waiting for Jennie to pull my half pint I let my eyes rove over the shelves. The same old familiar view met my gaze, but for the first time I really saw it.

I was amazed at the vast and varied selection of bottles that stared me in the face; every one with its special challenge.

THERE were broad shoulders, round shoulders, square shoulders, drooping shoulders; long necks, short necks, fat necks, thin necks, and the most grotesque bodies ever you did see.

Big, black square-bodied brutes gloated over demure little flasks; long, slim chaps disdained their little rotund brothers; beautiful curves nestled closely to one another, while angular jokers dug their elbows into ‘ladies’ waists.

Even Euclid set down in that field of curves and angles would have evolved some new problems – mainly of equilibrium.

The portrait of Jennie is rather severe: all-business, nothing by way of preliminaries before taking your order. It’s straight to “what’s yours”. When asked by Walker to describe the effect alcohol had on patrons she threw it back to him, “You should know that!”, at which point he takes his leave and the article ends.

But there is much of interest between these bookends. She observes – he calls her a philosopher and psychologist rather grandly – that men will drink for every occasion, happy, sad, and what have you. The alcohol is the draw, in other words, so-called occasions the window-dressing.

Jennie notes women are also given to tippling, resorting to back rooms with their gin or “pinkie” (probably a Pink Gin), at least for this class of bar. Sipping a gin Walker buys her – she didn’t need much invitation – information flows on the preferences of early-morning drinkers, and say businessmen vs. “tony” customers. The tony are probably what were once called men-about-town or boulevardiers.

Tony tipplers liked a Pink Gin or Martini, the businessmen stuck to whisky. Business types, on the other hand, were liable to enjoy beer no less than “navvies” (labourers), except in half not full mugs. Hence she deflates  a widely held (still) stereotype.

20 brands of beer were available. Either beer was drunk “straight”, or dosed with a range of oddments, from “lager” (!) to squash, raspberry to peppermint, green ginger to cloves. A foretaste of the craft brewing revolution far ahead in the future.

 

 

There was a large selection of wines offered which people drank at the bar, as meals are not emphasised. Evidently Australia’s wine industry supplied most of the range, even in those days before the modern efflorescence of the wine business and bacchic connoisseurship in the Antipodes. Fortified wines, today by the wayside as a standard order, were popular, even in that climate – that was a cultural inheritance of Australia’s British and Irish founders.

Walker contrasted how the arrayed bottles of wines, whisky and beer struck him variously:

One senses reading all this that the great days of Anglosphere bar culture are long past. There was a large range, not just of bottled liquors of diverse kinds, but cocktails, so made onsite by Jennie, to gratify customers’ whims. Today in the average bar relatively few cocktails and mixed drinks, ditto for a wine and beer selection, suffice to satisfy the typical taste – specialty bars and cocktail destinations apart, but there will always be only a comparative few.

The bar Walker described seemed not special in that sense, he describes it simply as “the pub next door” –  to his Arrow office no doubt. The choice of drinks and (at the time) liberal trading hours – you could get a drink at 6:00 a.m. – evokes more the pre-Prohibition American saloon than anything else. Walker’s writing style is modern but the kind of bar he describes owed more to Edward’s and Victoria’s ages, than ours.

All this, pace hard-nosed Jennie who insisted the bar had seen its share of flamboyant flappers. The type Walker thought inhabited just the cartoon strips, long feathers in hair, cigarette and drinks in hand.

So it’s all there, the life of a Sydney boîte – drinking life – before heavy regulation set in, before liquor industry consolidation simplified offerings and peoples’ expectations. I wonder how Jennie would fit in to the modern bar scene. I suspect rather well, as she cut to its core in how she operated, and at bottom, those things don’t change.

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*One might expect he was a novelist or other litterateur in spare time. Adrian Walker’s family was long-established in Australia, with Scottish roots. He was born in 1899 in Windsor, a town northwest of Sydney, son of lawyer and M.L.A. Major Robert Bruce Walker. He trained as a solicitor but apparently become a journalist in preference. He married a stage actress in the late 1920s, a tumultuous union by news accounts, and possibly was divorced. He gained extensive journalistic experience at different Sydney newspapers, often writing human interest features. Ca. 1930 he authored an interesting account of travel by boat to England printed in the Australian press in instalments. In later years he lived in England and on the Continent, but was back in Australia in the 1950s. He died at Dee Why, a Northern Beaches suburb of Sydney, in 1972.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

© 2015-2025 Copyright of Gary M. Gillman. All Rights Reserved. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, any reproduction, distribution, or display of the materials published at https://www.beeretseq.com without the express written permission of the copyright owner, is strictly prohibited.