Every time I dip into the Outdoor Life magazine archives to dig up an old adventure story or Jack O’Connor column, I can’t help getting sidetracked by the art. That includes everything from our illustrated covers to iconic gun advertisements. Print magazines were one of the key ways manufacturers reached their customers in 20th-century America, and our past issues were crammed with all kinds of strange and wonderful marketing ploys.
This time, I couldn’t resist airing out some of our old alcohol ads. I pulled these pages from a range of decades, starting in the late 1940s (when color images in the magazine became more common). Though the following selection does not reflect an exhaustive search of the archives, I didn’t run across any ads for wine or spirits besides whiskey.
You’ll notice that roughly half of this collection is ads for Miller High Life. That’s because Miller’s full-page color advertisements for “the Champagne of Bottle Beer” were frequent and specific to OL readers. Unlike other generic alcohol ads that could have appeared in the pages of any men’s interest publication, all of Miller’s ads and those from the following brands feature hunting, fishing, or related outdoor content. Enjoy.
Read Next: 27 Vintage Gun Ads That Introduced Some of America’s Most Iconic Firearms
Read the full article here
