Colt 45 (malt liquor)
malt liquor
Colt 45 is an American brand of lager or malt liquor made and primarily marketed in the United States and Canada, originally introduced by National Brewing Company in the spring of 1963. Through a series of mergers and acquisitions, the National Brewing Company and its brands (including Colt 45) are today owned by the Pabst Brewing Company.
Colt 45 is available today in a multitude of packages and sizes.
History
National Brewing Company introduced Colt 45 in 1963. Previously, the only major national brand of malt liquor was Country Club. The label was designed with a kicking horse and horseshoe, a reference to its "extra kick" compared to competing brands.
Listed on the Pabst website as a "Fun Fact", Colt 45 was named after running back Jerry Hill of the 1963 Baltimore Colts, who wore the number 45 and not the .45 caliber handgun ammunition round. The credited name change came because of malt liquor’s association with violence in disenfranchised neighborhoods. However, Hill described the claim as a "rumor," and stated that he never made any endorsements or received any royalties for the use of his name. In a 2020 interview, Hill stated that "They wanted to name the product Colt 45 … I just happened to be the Colt who was wearing 45."
Advertising
Throughout most of the 1960s and 1970s, Colt 45 was marketed towards the suburban white-collar middle class demographic.
The public source identifies “Colt 45 (malt liquor)” as malt liquor. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Colt, malt and liquor.
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This entry incorporates text from “Colt 45 (malt liquor)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.