Back in the 1960’s while growing up I remember my mother and father usually enjoyed a Manhattan or two during cocktail hour, so we always had a bottle of Angostura Bitters squirreled away in a cabinet below the kitchen counter. Little did I know that the history of those bitters dated back to the 1820’s and a German doctor named Johann Gottlieb Benjamin Siegert who at the time was serving as the surgeon general of a military hospital in Angostura, Venezuela.
It was around this time that he developed a tonic originally called “Amargo Aromatico,” or aromatic bitters that would later assume the name Angostura Bitters, a reference to the place where it originated.
The early history of Dr. Siegert and his bitters business was succinctly summarized in 1893 appellate court records in the case of “Carlos D. Siegert, Alfredo C. Siegert and Luis B. Siegert against Cornelius F. Abbott implead with Cornelius W. Abbott.”
The court found that in the year 1824 Dr. Johannes G. B. Siegert, then a resident of the city of Angostura, Venezuela, South America, prepared a cordial or liquor, and about 1830 he engaged at that city in the business of manufacturing and selling the preparation as an article of commerce. The evidence shows that from 1830 to 1864 he continued the manufacture and sale of the article as sole proprietor, and that from 1864 to 1870, when he died, he was engaged in partnership with his son, Carlos D, Siegert, in the manufacture and sale of the article. After the death of Dr. Siegert, his sons under the firm name of Dr. J.G.B. Siegert & Hijos, continued the manufacture and sale of the same article. This article was manufactured at the city of Angostura (renamed Ciudad Bolivar in 1846) until 1876, when the Siegert’s ceased to manufacture it at that place, and began to manufacture it at Port of Spain, in the island of Trinidad…
A publication entitled “Trinidad: Then and Now,” published in 1912, picks up the story from there.
In 1876 they admitted into partnership their younger brother, Luis and the business was continued under the same name and style.
In 1880 Carlos Siegert and his two brothers erected a large building exclusively for the manufacture of the Angostura Bitters. The building has since been enlarged, and now measures seventy yards front by eighty yards deep.
This late 1800’s view of their facility in Port of Spain appeared in the March 23, 1895 edition of a publication entitled “The Illustrated American.”
The 1876 move to Port of Spain put the company under British rule and in 1909 the business incocorporated in Britain. The announcement appeared in the November 23rd edition of London’s “Evening Standard.”
Angostura Bitters (Dr. J.G.B. Siegert and Sons) (Limited) has been organized for the purpose of acquiring as a going concern the undertaking of Dr. J.G.B. Siegert and Sons, sole proprietors and manufacturers of the well-known Angostura Bitters and other cordials….
The prospectus appeared in several British newspapers that day.
Today, the bitters are still produced in Trinidad and exported to well over 100 countries.
According to the memorial tablet located within the Siegert factory, distribution of the bitters during the first 30 or so years of its history was extremely limited.
…in 1824 Dr. Siegert prepared the bitters for his own use, and in 1830 a shipment was sent to Trinidad and to England, but that in 1853 their sale did not exceed twenty dozen bottles per annum.
As far as I can tell it was in the 1860’s that the reputation of their bitters became more wide-spread such that by the end of the decade it was available throughout much of the British Empire. This 1869 advertisement in “Street’s Indian and Colonial Mercantile Directory” listed what appears to be selling agencies in Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, Rangoon, Hong Kong, Alexandria, Melbourne and Adelaide.
By the 1860’s the bitters had also made its way to the United States where newspaper advertisements for it began appearing during the last half of the decade. One of the first ads I can find, touting it as a tonic for a wide range of afflictions, appeared in the October 31, 1866 edition of The New Orleans “Times-Picayune.”
March, 1868 announcements in the “Times Picayune” bragged that 50 cases had just arrived, suggesting that quantities in the U.S. during the late 1860’s were still quite limited.
At this point it appears that U.S. distribution was strictly dependent on local sales agents who dealt directly with the factory in Ciudad Bolivar. This began to change around 1870 when William H. Knoepfel was named the product’s “sole agent for the United States.” Located in New York City’s lower Manhattan, his address was initially listed as 16 Cedar Street, before later moving to 59 Liberty Street about 1874. His business card appeared in the 1872 -1873 N.Y.C directory’s Commercial Register.
It was Koepfel who submitted applications to trade mark the phrases: “J.G.B. Siegert’s Angostura Bitters,” and “Angostura Bitters” with the U.S Patent Office.
Certificates for both were issued on April 6, 1875
Sometime in the late 1870’s Koepfel passed away at which time George Wuppermann became the U.S. agent for the bitters.
According to Wuppermann’s March 17, 1890 testimony in an appellate court case: “Carlos D. Siegert, Alfredo C. Siegert and Luis B. Siegert against Cornelius F. Abbott impleaded with Cornelius W. Abbott,” Wuppermann had been involved in the Siegert business dating back to 1863 when he served as the bitters agent in Port of Spain prior to the business moving there.
I have been engaged with the business in selling these bitters since 1863; I was first a clerk in the house that had the general agency of the business at Port of Spain; then I became agent and remained so until I came to the United States, when I was appointed general agent of the United States in 1878.
While in Port of Spain he married Josephine Hancox who was the daughter of a wealthy New York City based ship captain and businessman named J. W. Hancox. Several internet sources suggest it was Hancox who underwrote Wupprmann’s move to New York. In fact, their initial business card that appeared in the 1879/188o Commercial Register supports this suggestion naming J.W. Hancox as the bitters agent and George Wupperman as manager and attorney.
Located at 51 Broadway, it wasn’t long before the Hancox name disappears such that by 1881 Wuppermann’s company, J.W. Wuppermann, was named in advertisements as “Successor to J. W. Hancox” and the “Sole Agent” in the United States for Angostura Bitters. (The initials J.W. were selected in honor of his wife Josephine Hancox Wuppermann.)
Wuppermann’s court testimony went on to document the sales growth of the bitters in the U.S. over the first ten years he served as its general agent.
…they are sold in the United States to a large extent; 13,000 cases were sold last year here in the United States (1889). The first year I had it there were 2,500 cases sold.
Not only were Angostura Bitters available in bottles, but by 1913, an advertisement in the February edition of “Apotheker Zeitung” made it clear that you could also get drinks flavored with them at your local soda fountain.
George Wuppermann headed up the business until he passed away in 1915. At that point, leadership was passed on to his wife Josephine, whose 1936 obituary regarded her as “the first of her sex to direct the affairs of a large business,” which at the time of her death exceeded $1,000,000.
It was Josephine who guided the business through the prohibition years in the U.S. when Angostura Bitters were openly sold under the Volstead Act. The reasoning behind this was enumerated in the parent company’s 10th annual stockholder meeting held in Britain and summarized in the March 18th edition of London’s “The Guardian.”
They were sometimes questioned by shareholders on the aspects of their business in view of the tendency towards anti-liquor legislation. He desired to explain that their product was not a beverage at all but a flavoring preparation in which the presence of alcohol was only incidental. This was the status consistently claimed for Angostura Bitters, and they were not aware that it had been seriously challenged, indeed, it had been formally recognized by the United States authorities in connection with recent prohibitory legislation.
1920’s advertisements in U.S. newspapers back this up. A series of 1927 ads in Connecticut’s “Hartford Courant” refer to the bitters as “Both a Tonic and a Flavoring”
The advertisements go on to say:
A Hundred Ways to Use ANGOSTURA
A tonic in your food makes everything delicious. Use it in salads, soups, sherbets, sandwiches, soufflés, icings, deserts, candies, cold meats sauces, vegetables, baked ham – the list is endless.
This May 25, 1925 Richmond “Times-Dispatch” advertisement even suggested it as an ingredient for a “delicious punch for your card party, dance and every other social event.”
In 1930 the Wuppermann’s took it a step further and introduced their own “Angostura Dry Ginger Ale.”
As you might expect, facts and figures included in a March 26, 1934 “Time Magazine”article suggested the alcohol based product did quite well during Prohibition.
The peak year for Angostura sales was also the peak year of the gin-bitters era – 1926 – when 32,000 cases were consumed. In 1932 the Wuppermann’s sold 14,000 cases in the U.S.., one-third of the world’s supply at an average profit of $2.92 per case
It was also during Josephine’s tenure as president that, according to an April 15, 1937 story in the “Hartford Courant,” the manufacture of Angostura Bitters began to, a least partially, take place in the United States.
The Angostura Wuppermann Corporation manufactures and sells Angostura Bitters under a license agreement with Angostura Bitters (Dr. J.G.B. Siegert)….
Angostura has been manufactured in Trinidad for the past 60 years and importations were made into the United States from 1858 until 1930 when, in order to save import duty, manufacture was started in this country.
That being said, Josephine’s 1936 obituary made it clear that the manufacturing process was completely out of her hands.
Held secret since it was originated 112 years ago, Dr. Alfredo Gallo Siegert, grandson of the inventor, guards the formula. Copies are locked in vaults in Trinidad and London to assure its perpetuation.
The “Time Magazine” article went on to describe the manufacturing process.
Once a year Mr. Siegert sails up from Trinidad with packages of drugs and herbs, and goes to a factory in Jersey City. There, behind a mouse-colored door, he mysteriously mixes his pungent brew. When he leaves at night he locks the door so no one can guess his secret. After three or four months he cleans up all trace of his work, locks the door and sails back to Trinidad. The Wuppermann’s get the brew, but the doctor takes the formula with him. Neither he nor the other two who possess it can pass the secret on unless the company approves. All the company knows is that, like many other brand of bitters, Angostura contains gentian and rum.
In 1933, the J.W. Wuppermann Angostura Bitters Agency became the Angostura-Wupperman corporation. By then, as the above story suggests, much of their operation had moved out of New York City to New Jersey. Later, just before Josephine’s death, her obituary stated that the operation moved to Norwalk Connecticut.
Recently Mrs. Wuppermann moved the Bitters corporation’s warehouses and offices from Jersey City to Norwalk, Connecticut, saying seven generations of her ancestors were born lived and worked in Connecticut and she wished to follow their precedent.
By the mid-1930’s, with Prohibition at an end, the bitters began appearing in liquor store advertisements and cocktail recipes published in newspapers across the country.
That being said, there are a lot of dashes in a bottle of bitters so it’s likely one might keep a bottle of bitters for months, if not years, before needing another. Faced with this fact the company explored other ways to sell their product.
One such way was in 1936 when they began encouraging meat packers to cure their meats with Angostura Bitters. The sales pitch of one west coast meat packer appeared in the August 6, 1936 edition of the “Los Angeles Evening Citizen News.”
For 125 years Angostura Bitters have been widely known as a stomachic. These bitters were a panacea for deficiency diseases and stomach disorders of all kinds and were a standby in many a stricken family.
Now these bitters are a part of an increasingly popular sausage. Cornelius Bros., Ltd., it is declared, were the first meat packers on the Pacific Coast to flavor-cure their sausage meats with Angostura Bitters. They are produced under the name of “Sun-Vite” and are proof in themselves that the flavoring of sausage meats with Angostura Bitters is one of the greatest advances in the history of the industry.
This type of bitters is no alien to many moderns, who by now realize that the action of the Angostura Bitters on sausage and luncheon meats tends to make them far more digestible.
Another meat packer ran this advertisement in the June 30, 1936 edition of the “Pittsburgh Press.
A July 18, 1837 item in the “Hartford Courant” points out that this effort was not limited to just meatpackers but included fisheries as well.
Angostura-Wuppermann Corporation has received an order for 5,000 gallons of bitters from the Pacific American Fisheries, Inc. It will be used in the preparation of 15,000,000 cans of salmon. And just for fun, that means about 20 drops of bitters per tin of salmon.
Also on the company’s radar were canning companies as evidenced by this January 2, 1938 story in the “Houston Chronicle”
Announcement was made here by Dr. Fernand Kabus, research specialist and representative of the Angostura-Wuppermann Company, that negotiations have been completed with three large canning plants in the valley to put out a new type of canned grapefruit juice flavored with Angostura bitters.
The deal is expected to develop a new market for valley fruit products and the bitters company will aid in expanding this market.
Dr Kabus announced that the Rio Grande Valley Citrus Exchange, the L. Maxey Company and the Lynn Citrus Groves have signed to put up grapefruit juice with bitters. The new beverage will be put up early in January.
This led to what a February 28, 1945 story in the New York “Daily News” called “Record Sales.”
Sales of the 120 year-old Angostura-Wuppermann Corp. were at an all-time high in 1944 in both dollar volume and gallonage and net income was the best since 1937, the annual report disclosed today.
Last year the firm sold 39,321 cases of bitters for $972,060, compared with 37, 383 cases and $932,467 in 1943…
In the 1950’s, with their licensing agreement set to run out in the early 1970’s, Douglas Bradley, then president of Angostura-Wuppermann, failed in an attempt to gain control of the parent company in Trinidad. The attempt was summarized in the August 21, 1958 edition of “The New York Times.”
The Trinidad Government was expected today to acquire control of Angostura Bitters, Ltd., originators of the beverage flavoring extract.
The government outbid Canadian businessman Douglas H. Bradley, who was trying to gain control. Mr. Bradley is president and director of the Angostura-Wuppermann Corporation, which holds a distributing franchise for the product. The franchise expires in 1971, without option for renewal.
Mr. Bradley gave assurance he had no intention of moving Trinidad’s most famous product to Bermuda, a move which would save the company $1,000,000 a year in taxes.
The government flatly rejected Mr. Bradley’s assurances, however, and was expected to acquire control since Mr. Bradley had declared he had made his last bid.
Sometime in the early 1960’s Angostura-Wuppermann moved its operation back to New York City in Elmhurst, Queens where, in 1968, it was acquired by Iroquois Industries. The announcement appeared in the January 30th edition of the “Hackensack Record.”
Iroquois Industries, Inc. a diversified, multi market company, has agreed to acquire all the assets of Angostura-Wuppermann Corporation which distributes Angostura aromatic bitters and manufactures instant breakfasts, food flavoring crystals, cooking preparations for the retail and institutional markets and other specialty food products, for an exchange of stock.
Terry J. Fox, Iroquois president, said acquisition of Angostura-Wuppermann would augment Iroquois’ present consumer products facility which includes both malt beverages and soft drinks…
Three years later the opening of Angostura-Wuppermann’s new world headquarters in Carteret, New Jersey was announced in the August 13, 1971 edition of “The Hackensack (N.J.) Record”
Financing for the new world headquarters of the Angostura-Wuppermann Co. has been completed by the Alexander Summer Mortgage Co…
The New York based firm, makers of Angostura Bitters, is moving from Queens, New York to the Carteret Industrial Center in Carteret.
The plant to be occupied will contain 50,000 square feet on 3.7 acres of land….Occupancy is scheduled for December.
This construction photo appeared in the October 1, 1971 edition of the Newark “Star-Ledger.
As far as I can tell distribution of the bitters in the U.S. remained with Angostura-Wuppermann (later shortened to A-W Brands) operating as a subsidiary of Iroquois Industries (later changed to Iroquois Brands) until 1978 when it was acquired by Angostura International.
(On a side note: the 1959 New York Times story indicated the Wuppermann firm’s franchise was up in 1971, not 1978, so its possible the licensing agreement between Angostura-Wuppermann and Angostura International was extended for several years. It’s also possible the Times got it wrong and the agreement actually expired in 1978, which would have been exactly 100 years after George Wuppermann established his presence in the U.S.)
Either way, an item in the April 26, 1987 edition of the “Asbury Park (N.J.) Press” picks up the story from there.
Despite the success of its bitters product in America, Angostura did not have distribution rights here until 1978 when it bought back the rights from A-W Brands, a Carteret firm.
Robert Hanson, who had been employed by A-W Brands as vice president of sales and marketing, came to Angostura International and helped the company establish a sales office in Elizabeth, N.J. before sales, production and distribution were established at the present 25,000 square foot facility in Rahway in 1981. “We’re new as an entity here in the United States. But we’re not new as a product,” Hanson says.
According to a July 28, 1982 story in Bridgewater N.J.’s “Courier-News,” not much had changed in the way of production over the last 50 years or so.
Angustora aromatic bitters is received in Rahway in bulk form from Trinidad, where it is mixed in cloak and dagger fashion utilizing herbs and spices from the Far East, Middle East and Caribbean.
The formula is so well guarded from snoops and potential competitors that the raw ingredients are delivered there in large bags identified only by number and relegated to what is known as “the secret room” to begin its esoteric journey to final production.
A lone worker in the room grates the ingredients and sorts them into bins. And when a batch is ready to undergo the next step, one of the holders of the formula measures out the amounts puts them into a hopper and sends them through a trap door into a percolator resembling a large coffee pot. Pure alcohol bubbles through the mixture for about 20 hours, then the concoction is stored in wooden casks for 90 days before it is ready to be shipped
As late as 1982 only five people were purported to have known the bitters’ formula. Four of the five, including one with the last name Siegert, were pictured in the December 20, 1982 edition of the “Miami Herald.”
The 1987 “Asbury Park Press” story went on to say that around that time about 16,800 16-ounce bottles of bitters were filled and packaged in a normal day’s run. In addition to their bitters a Bloody Mary Mix, Soy and Worcestershire Sauce, Grenadine and Lime Juice were also made and bottled in Rahway, all with a staff of only 16. That being said, at the time
45 different sales organizations represent Angostura across the nation selling to between 600 and 700 distributors
In 1991 the May 18th edition of the “Courier-News” announced that Angostura International was moving their operation to Cranford, New Jersey.
Angostura International Ltd., the 167 year old maker of bitters- the oldest continually imported food into the United States- has relocated its national headquarters from Rahway into a new office building here (Cranford N.J.)…
Robert Hanson who heads the American operations of Angostura said the firm wanted to retain its headquarters in Central New Jersey for the location’s convenience. Although only 10 employees work in Cranford, it uses a variety of suppliers and services in the New York area.
The privately held firm’s principal product is its Angostura Bitters, a liquid blend of herbs and spices that accounts for about 60 percent of its business. The six other products include a low-sodium soy sauce and a Bloody Mary Drink mix.
Hanson said the product did not have an enormous volume of sales, but it did have a loyal following among users…
Today Mizkan Americas, Inc. owns the U.S. distribution rights to Angostura Bitters. Acquired from Angostura International in 2010, a January 11th press release made the announcement.
Mizkan Americas, Inc., a leading condiment manufacturer, today announced it has expanded its portfolio of high-quality, well-known brands with the exclusive distribution rights of ANGOSTURA (TM) bitters.
“This distribution broadens our product offerings into a new channel of trade, strengthening the Mizkan name across several categories,” said Craig Smith, President & CEO of Mizkan Americas.
Over the years I’ve managed to find two Angostura Bitters bottles, both blown in a three-piece mold with an applied mineral finish. They certainly match this description found in the records of a January 9, 1903 appellate court case entitled “A. Bauer v. Siegert et al.”
The bitters are put up in glass bottles of two sizes – whole and half bottles. These are of a peculiar form and of a dark greenish tint, with the name “Dr. J.G.B. Siegert & Hijos” blown on the shoulder and neck and also in the bottom of the bottle… The bottles are sealed with reddish-brown sealing wax.
George Wuppermann’s March 17, 1890 appellate court testimony further described the whole and half bottles.
by half bottles I mean the original bottles of the bitters, they don’t contain quite a pint…the other bottles are double the size, it is not an imperial quart…we call them whole bottles and half bottles…we sell 12 large bottles in a box and 24 small ones
…they are sold to a very small extent in large bottles; principal sale is in small bottles.
I suspect that the subject bottles are what Wupperman described as the half bottle but there’s a catch. The bottles only contain eight ounces and it wasn’t until about 1920 that the Angostura Bitters label began to exhibit the “8 Fl. Oz.” capacity. The capacity note is clearly visible on the bottle depicted in this 1927 “Hartford Courant” advertisement.
This leaves open two possibilities for dating the bottles. One is that George Wuppermann was exaggerating more than a little when he said “the half bottles don’t contain quite a pint.” In this case, the subject bottles were likely what he referred to as half bottles and could date back to the turn of the century, or even earlier. They certainly appear identical to the bottle pictured in this 1902 advertisement.
The second possibility is that the size of the bitters bottle was reduced to eight ounces around the start of Prohibition in 1920. This would date the subject bottles no earlier than the 1920’s. The fact that the subject bottles are crudely made has me leaning toward the first assumption.
According to a story in the May, 1919 edition of “The Spatula” by 1914 the bottles containing the bitters were actually manufactured in the United States and presumably shipped empty to Trinidad where they were filled and shipped back.
Over half a million glass bottles are required in Trinidad every year in connection with the manufacture and export of Angostura Bitters. Before the war these bottles were imported from Germany, but since 1914 they have been obtained from the United States, and great difficulty has been experienced in securing a sufficient supply of them to take care of the export trade in the bitters.
So, if they were American made, by 1920 I would expect a less crude method of manufacture, possibly even machine made (ABM), not a three-piece mold and applied lip.