JF Ptak Science Books   Post 279

Well, this jetliner which is actually a “flying hotel” really isn’t exactly “fueled” by six year old Seagram’s Canadian Whisky as is hinted in the advertisement, and truth be told the whisky has nothing at all to do with the plane, except for the in-kind use of the phrase “packaged luxury”.   Somehow the admen who came up with this bit for the October 1946 issue of LIFE equated the idea of flying hotels- ” steady and serene, will carry you to a ‘packaged luxury’ trip that girdles the world…”–and that “packaged luxury is another name for Seagram’s V.O.”

It doesn’t quite compute that this modest beverage could achieve any heights, let alone make you feel as though you’ve been whisked away in a then-blistering record time to a remote vacation spot in a 800 foot long jet-sled-rocket.  Perhaps it depends on how much you drink. But I do like the plane–its twice as long as the width of its wings, very tall, and has no discernible power system, unless it has something stuffed into the stern. 

Source:  LIFE Magazine, October 1946. 

(Detail, above; full-page ad, below)