Four Roses - This bud's for you.

The picture in this 1941 ad for Four Roses seems normal, if a little drab, but there's been some painting going on.

There's not much of interest in the composition here. The colors are kind of "meh". The whole thing may look better if it were over a non-white background, like what if it were on a table in a dimly lit room with light from a window splashed across the product?

While that may make the photo more artistically interesting, the picture, as-is, DOES focus your attention on the bottle. It's the tall dark thing. I still think it could have been silhouetted nicely with a dark background if the art director were clever enough. Time is money, though.

Four Roses chose, instead, to pay an artist to "plus up" the bottle. Everything in the photograph is pretty much left as it came out of the dark room. The bottle, however, has been re-painted to make the glass extra shiny an dthe reflections extra watery. See?

Glass of product, tray, and roses - original. Bottle of product - retouched. The label was left alone (who wants to repaint all those letters?) but all the brown glass was beautified by hand. Earth-shatteringly controversial? Nope. Interesting? I dunno. Maybe.

What's more surprising than that is the fact that Four Roses (after changing hands a few times since it's birth in the 1800s is now owned by Kirin Brewing Company, of Japan! How bout that? Also of note is that a whiskey that is "a blend of straight whiskeys" is regarded, according to Wikipedia as "sub-par" or "rotgut". Hm! Funnier still, Kirin also owns Johnnie walker Black Label whiskey. The good old boys aren't going to like this.

Hopefully, something funnier tomorrow.