Rivermen Unveil "Peoria Spirits" Rebrand Night Theme
October 10, 2024 - SPHL (SPHL)
Peoria Rivermen News Release
PEORIA, IL - The Peoria Rivermen announced on Thursday the theme for their third annual Rivermen Rebrand Night. This season the Rivermen will be rebranding as the Peoria Spirits on Friday, February 28.
"We've had great success the last two years doing Rebrand night and we think we've scored a 'hat trick' this with the theme this year," said Rivermen President/COO Bart Rogers. "The Peoria Spirits name draws on our rich history and creates a fun theme night for our modern-day audience."
The rebrand follows the spirit of honoring Peoria's rich past while blending it with a modern flair. The Peoria Spirits draw their name from a term used to describe distilled alcohol and Peoria's importance in the distilling industry in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Peoria was once known as the alcohol distilling capital of the world from 1844 to 1919. During that span, there were at least 73 distilleries on the Peoria County tax roll. By 1890, Peoria distilleries accounted for 40% of all alcohol produced in the United States. In the 1880's Peoria distilled more whiskey than the entire state of Kentucky. The Illinois River was critical to Peoria's boom as a distillery powerhouse, with riverboats bringing in raw materials while at the same time transporting finished beverage products to markets in Chicago and elsewhere.
The Peoria Spirits logo harkens back to this time with a 19th-century paddle-wheel steamer carrying barrels of whiskey with a ghostly specter from the past rising from the smokestacks. The shoulder patch of an old paddle-wheel steamer inside a whiskey bottle carrying barrels of whiskey pays tribute to the role river traffic played in forging both the industrial and the cultural identity of Peoria. Finally, a ghostly figure holds an outline of Peoria County in the tertiary logo with the skyline of downtown Peoria in relief which pays tribute to our home and the spirit of industry and commerce that shaped this region.
This will be Peoria's third rebrand night in three years. Previously the Rivermen rebranded to the Peoria Penicillin in 2024 (in honor of Peoria's role in the discovery and production of mass-available penicillin) and as the Illinois Flying Carp in 2023 (in honor of the fisheries of the Illinois River and to draw awareness to the invasive Asian Carp that threatens those fisheries).
The Rivermen will start their season on Saturday, October 19 on the road against the Quad City Storm. Then the Rivermen will return home for their home opener on Friday, October 25 against the Roanoke Rail Yard Dawgs. Tickets are available now and can be purchased by calling 309-676-1040.
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