• Home
  • Book
  • Biography
  • For the Media
  • News and Events
  • Contact
Search the site...
Home» advertising » Pharmacies Sold the Pabst Tonic

Pharmacies Sold the Pabst Tonic

Posted by thomasmickey - July 25, 2013 - advertising, Milwaukee
0
Tweet

Miss A. Rhoda walked into Milwaukee ‘s Kopf Pharmacy on October 21, 1897. She ordered one bottle of Best Tonic , which cost her twenty-five cents.  The Hugo S. Kopf Pharmacy, located at 78 Juneau Avenue, was one of many pharmacies that sold the Pabst Tonic.

The customers were middle class women who would not enter a saloon for alcohol, but would have no fear in buying alcohol-based medicinal beverages from the pharmacist.  There were no laws regulating patent medicines until 1906 so the manufacturers used whatever methods necessary to provide the product to its customers.

Cards and pamphlets about the product were also distributed in the pharmacy.  Advertising of patent medicines was possible because the manufacturers supplied the promotional material as well the campaign strategies they thought would attract customers.  For example, it was not uncommon to conduct a contest to see what pharmacist would construct the best window display with the patent medicine as the focus of the display.

So it was that the local pharmacy became a major outlet for Pabst Tonic.


 

Join Thomas Mickey as he writes a book about the Pabst Brewery’s medicinal beverage Pabst Extract, first produced in 1887 and for decades sold in pharmacies across the country.

Welcome. Please enter your email address here to subscribe to Pabst Extract and receive notice of new posts by email. Thank you for visiting.

Archives

  • September 2021
  • December 2020
  • September 2020
  • February 2020
  • September 2018
  • January 2017
  • May 2016
  • July 2015
  • February 2015
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • July 2014
  • April 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
(c) 2013 Pabst Extract - Web by Bunnell Design