Suits, Ties, and Miller High-Life, 1957

Taken at the Pfister Hotel, Milwaukee WI, February 1957. Color 35mm slide.

Miller High Life: King of Wisconsin

You may think Wednesday's crack about Grandma getting tipsy off a couple ounces of Miller High-Life was a joke, the photo above shows that the Cool Kids drank High Life. This is clear proof is from the Pfister Hotel set, but the distinctive trapezoid label with an 'X' sticker right above it makes the bottle very recognizable even in small photos from other sources. Granted, these photos are from Wisconsin -- Milwaukee is the home of Miller Brewing, and until the 70s there wasn't as much national distribution as there is today. People tended to drink the beer that was brewed nearby, partly out of sentimental reasons, but also because you knew the beer was fresh. Your parents probably have stories about driving to another state to buy some good beer -- driving from North Dakota to Colorado to buy up a pickup-truckload of Coors has been told to be by more than one person. One poster at Beer Advocate tells of driving to Wisconsin for some High Life...but more because of the lower drinking age of 18. As for the sentimental reasons, High Life had already been around for fifty years by the time this photo was taken -- it was "the champagne of beers", for crying out loud. Regardless if the stuff tasted like crap, you didn't dare buy something else when company was coming over, and being caught at a swanky hotel lounge drinking anything else would be a travesty.