I recently saw an episode of The Addams Family called "Morticia's Dilemma" (S02:E14), and at around 06:20 in the episode, there was a bottle that looked like the bottles of kanar drunk by Cardassians in Star Trek.
Does anybody know the history how the props department came up with the bottle for Star Trek? I'm wondering if I was just seeing things, or if the props department did indeed go scrounging for weird bottle props from old television shows and found that one.
The Kanar bottle seen in Quark's Bar, Grill, Gaming House and Holosuite Arcade is a fairly common design of spiral bottle. They were made in the 1960s (and indeed continue to be made today) by a variety of companies, mainly for the sale of Chianti wine.
That being said, although they were unable to track down the specific manufacturer, the claim on QuarksBarb.com is that the shorter bottle (with space for a plaque or label on the front) was more likely to have contained vinegar.
The spiral bottle used on the show was supposedly sold by D'Aquino Italian Importing Co for their Chianti.
This bottle shape is also used by firms which sell flavored vinegars and is available occasionally in gourmet stores and BigLots (and, I'm told, around Christmastime at Target).
The prop dept used many vinegar bottles and I believe this was a vinegar bottle, too.
The last one I bought was sold by Swiss American Co.
I contacted them and they said that they imported the bottle from Vitrocolor in Spain and had it filled locally.
Since the two shows don't share a common props department, it seems likely that their production people both went shopping at their local stores for "weird looking bottles" and came up with much the same answer both times, albeit decades apart.
