Bourbon's Aromatic Forest Bitters Madison, Wisconsin
At the end of every summer the final tally of Wisconsin antique bottle finds for the year starts to come in. People clean out attics, basements and garages and Wisconsin antique bottle treasures filter their way to collectors. Divers, diggers, construction workers and people out enjoying Wisconsin Summer start working to figure out what they have found at the end of summer more than any other time. A few weeks ago I received an email from one such gentleman who found a bottle on a warm summer day working just blocks from the Wisconsin state capitol. Jim was on the site of a new home construction. There was a stage coach house that had to be demolished first. While raising the building what Jim believed to be a cistern was unearthed. The thing was full of old Wisconsin bottles. One of Jim's coworkers was feeding bottles to a local collector who was paying $5 for any green or blue tinted bottles. When the hole was cleaned out and the bottom of the hole had to be leveled Jim was scraping the bottom of the area with a shovel and banged against one last bottle. He threw it in the back of his truck where it rolled around for a week then took it home. One of Jim's coworkers told the collector about that last unusual looking antique Wisconsin bottle Jim found. The collector offered a whopping $200 for it without even seeing it! Not a bad bonus for a day's work, especially for a nineteen year old fledgling construction worker. Jim decided not to sell. Now months later, Just like happens at the end of so many summers Jim decided to find out what that bottle he found was really worth. Unlike so many people who find bottles Jim waited 35 years to make contact, yep, Jim found this antique Wisconsin bottle treasure in 1975 a full 420 months and 35 years before he made contact. I will eventually write the whole story of this bottle. For now you will simply have to settle for a couple of pictures. Jim's bottle; Dr. Bourbon's Aromatic Forest Bitters Madison, Wisconsin. Deep aqua in excellent condition AND iron pontiled.
