POPULESS The McLaughlin Copper Flask

Named after the 1918 McLaughlin Six Special Buick. It was advertised as “Canada’s Standard Car” and often used for family road trips, but in the Albertan municipality of Crowsnest Pass the McLaughlin was associated with rum-running and murder. The Mclaughlin Six Specials were Buicks that could outrun just about anything else on the road, and anyone who owned one was eyed with suspicion. Alberta’s most famous bootlegger, Emilio Picariello, used a fleet of McLaughlin Six Specials (known as whisky sixes) to transport illicit liquor from British Columbia into Alberta and Montana during Prohibition.