Jigger Johnson

MAINE — They say that he could catch a bobcat with his bare hands. His name was Albert “Jigger” Johnson, and though the stories told about him are larger than life, he was a real person who worked the woods of Maine and New Hampshire in the late 1800s — an authentic New England lumberjack. Those tall tales about Johnson inspired Hermon-based Devil’s Half Acre Distillery to name its flagship gin after the man, as well as after Fan Jones, the legendary Bangor brothel keeper. …He was the archetypal lumberjack character, when that was what Maine was all about,” said Larry Murphy, one of the co-founders of the distillery. “We figured Paul Bunyan would have been way too hokey. Jigger Johnson was the real deal.”