Face Jugs - No one is 100% sure of the origination story of southern American face jugs, but two stories in particular seem to capture some of the mystique surrounding these oddly humorous creations. The first is the idea that face jugs originated in the piedmont region of North Carolina and Georgia and that these were the original childproof caps—put a scary face on the jug to keep the kids out of the contents. We figure the folks of Appalachia kept their moonshine in face jugs long before mason jars became popular.

The second story has to do with devil jugs, or face jugs with devil horns. The theory is that these scary jugs originated in slave communities. When someone in the community died, a devil jug was made and placed on the grave for one year. If the jug broke sometime during that year, it meant the deceased’s soul was wrestling with the devil. Personally I enjoy the way I can capture human nature both good and bad in a few pounds of clay.