Rums Dry, Greenville, South Carolina

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Rums Dry, Greenville, South Carolina

By Michael Elling, Sharon, Tennessee

Photographed below is an example of a yellow label NEHI Rums Dry "Waiter" bottle that has a bottler city name, along with the standard, green glass, bottle. (Click thumbnails to see full-size image.)

Standard Rums Dry Barrel Design is always on green glass, shows familiar wooden barrel in stunning yellow/red colors. This prewar item has Good Housekeeping Seal and also embossed "fill ring" to insure precise measure of 6 fluid ounces.

Standard Rums Dry Waiter Design is always on clear glass, shows waiter bringing product, and includes class illusion to "Smart People" who are the customers. This unique Greenville, SC, waiter bottle reveals local bottler commitment. This item however, contains smeared and missing letters from text, and a registration of the pictures off center to the label field and shoulder monogram. The reverse text says, "NEHI ROYAL CROWN BOTTLING COMPANY, GREENVILLE, S.C." Collectors normally shun bottles with these obvious quality problems.

In Greenville, South Carolina. Rums Dry was the NEHI brand name of a pale dry ginger ale, which found a market in areas where ginger ale had a tradition of being used for medicinal purposes, or was being used as a mixer for alcoholic drinks.

Available from 1933, very few NEHI bottlers actually marketed it. Over a period of 20 years, I have only found evidence of 6 other bottlers than at the headquarters, Columbus, Georgia. These are: Blackstone, VA; Bluefield, VA; Columbia, SC; Fostoria, OH; Orangeburg, SC; and Staunton, VA. All of these bottles show the most common picture label, the wooden storage barrel wherein all genuine ginger ale beverages are aged and mellowed.

But in 1938, a unique brand design was introduced as a yellow painted label; the Rums Dry For Smart People waiter bottle.

These are all 6 oz, clear glass, monogrammed shoulder, bottles with two unmistakable "barrel hoop" wear rings that provide the label with very good protection. Centered in a circle, a restaurant waiter is shown hurrying along with a beverage tray including a bottle and two standard drink glasses. Collectors refer to this design as the waiter bottle and rarely have more than one in their collections because they are all considered to be company bottles of Columbus. Now, we have proof that an additional bottler also marketed the product in their own bottle at Greenville, SC. The surprise is that the bottle is not prewar, as one would suppose, but is a Laurens Glass Works manufacture with a mould date of 1954!

This bottle was seen in a recent eBay auction issued by Donald Diamond, of Blackville, South Carolina, a familiar and respected name among eBay bottle bidders. Now collectors are alerted to be sure to check all the reverse sides of these waiter bottles in the hope that they can attain a Greenville, and possibly others as well.

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