Who knew the little 200ml bottle of Angostura aromatic bitters, with its comedy oversized label, had such a dramatic and tempestuous history, one full of freedom fighters, German botanists and naval legend?
There’s no other place to start than with Johann Gottlieb Benjamin Siegert, the inventor himself. As a young German medical student in the early 1810s, little could he have dreamt what fate had in store for him. In the space of just 10 years he would become a soldier, adventurer, freedom fighter, botanist, medicinal entrepreneur and have a surname so famous it was spoken about in rhapsodical and reverent whispers all over the sea-faring world.
He was born on 22nd November 1796 in a small village called Gross Walditz, then part of the powerful German-speaking kingdom of Prussia (today Lower Silesia in Poland). In his teens, he studied medicine in Berlin, but his learning was interrupted by military conscription. So, in 1815, aged just 19 years old, he was enlisted as a field doctor in mobile hospitals for the Prussian army at the Battle of Waterloo under the command of Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, the celebrated Field Marshall who helped defeat Napoleon alongside Wellington.
With a war medal now pinned to his lapel, Johann went back to his studies, finally qualifying and ending up in Hamburg in 1820, where serendipity intervened.
It was in the German port city that he met the expertly named Luis Ceferino López Méndez Núñez Mesa de Aguilar, a charming Venezuelan envoy sent to Europe to raise a South American patriotic army on behalf of the freedom fighter Simón Bolívar.
We’ll never know what prompted Johann to agree to travel to the other side of the world, whether salary, status or the promise of adventure, but he was quickly appointed regimental surgeon and found himself aboard a brig bound for the jungle city of Angostura on 25th February 1820.
At that time, Venezuela and Gran Columbia (which was a huge state comprising present day Colombia, Ecuador, Panama & northern Peru) were in the midst of a bloody war of independence against Spain. The idea was for Siegert to join the fight, contributing his battlefield experience as Surgeon General of the military hospital in the revolutionary’s main military headquarters.
After six months at sea, Johann finally docked in Angostura on 1st August 1820 (a city he would never leave again incidentally). It must have been quite a shock to the system for a European. Angostura is slap bang in the middle of the jungle, hot, humid and full of tropical diseases, located where the Orinoco River narrows and the first bridge across the river had been built (the name means ‘straights’ in Spanish). At the time, rather than the jungle paradise most European mercenaries were expecting, the city consisted of mud huts and mud barracks, with the rainforest constantly threatening to take it back.
Almost immediately, he fell ill with yellow fever, a dangerous and lethal disease even today. At the time, there was no cure, with the world’s best doctors often prescribing bloodletting, mercury dosing and the drinking of madeira wine (none of them worked but I know which sounded better!). Happily, he recovered but his brush with death almost certainly prompted him to start exploring native remedies, often based on pure superstition, and begin researching potential medicines and treatments for all the sick and wounded in the city that came to be known as ‘plague hell’.
As an aside, it is estimated that around 6,000 European mercenaries joined Bolívar in his wars of Independence, but only about 150 survived! Whether the fighting, the poor food or the rampant tropical diseases, they dropped like flies. This was the medical environment Johann found himself in charge of at the tender age of 24.
With the city’s hospital and pharmacy at his disposal, Johann went to work. By 1824, he had succeeded in synthesising a bitter but palatable herbal tonic from a collection of native plants that was proving effective against common stomach and intestinal complaints, like colic, diarrhoea and dysentery, that were afflicting the shiploads of sailors and colonists arriving from all over the world.
His reputation naturally grew, as did the fame of his amargos aromáticos (aromatic bitters) which were now being used as a cure-all, everything from tropical diseases to seasickness. Word soon spread port to port like wildfire, with reverent and relieved sailors pretty soon calling it amargos de Angostura, after the town it was made in, or amargos aromáticos del Dr. Siegert, after the inventor himself.
Its ingredients are still a closely guarded secret today, but it’s known the recipe has a base of the bitter gentian root – often used in traditional medicine to aid digestion – and it’s presumed other plants like the tonka bean, which again was used locally to treat stomach complaints. (It is also claimed he originally used the bark of the evergreen Angostura tree).
In his hospital laboratory, Johann would have macerated all the herbs, plants and spices together, mixed them with brandy or high-proof distilled spirit – the ABV is close to 50% – and began selling the bitter, herbal tonic in 1824.
British officers especially, who drank gin on long sea voyages (the sailors got a tot of rum while the officers preferred a tot of gin) were known to add the tonic to their daily ration, creating ‘pink gin’. And it wasn’t long before most ships had a bottle of Johann Siegert’s aromatic bitters on board – it quickly became an essential and supremely valued commodity everywhere it went.
In fact, it became so insanely popular that within around five years of creating the tonic, Johann gave up his job as a doctor and devoted himself entirely to the production of his ‘medicine’. Between 1830 and the 1850s, he began exporting it properly, rather than relying on passing sea trade, shipping it to the USA and England via Trinidad & Tobago, an English colony at the time. And it was around this time his sons started to join him, Carlos first, followed later by Alfredo and Luis, which added new impetus and energy into the business.
But just as the brand was getting well-established globally, winning medals and recognition in World Fairs in London in 1862 and Paris in 1867, Johann died on 13th September 1870 at the age of 74 in his adopted home of Angostura, Venezuela. Luckily, the business had solid foundations, so despite the emotional setback, the 1870s went on to become a particularly successful period for the Siegert family and their little bottle of Angostura bitters.
At the Vienna International Exposition in 1873, the brand won a Medal of Excellence (the Japanese soybean was first presented to the western world at the same exhibition), as well as at Santiago de Chile in 1875.
In 1876, it won a gold medal for Product Excellence at the World Trade Fair in Philadelphia, USA – and went on to exhibit all over the world, including Sydney in 1879, New Zealand in 1882 and Calcutta in 1884.
Serendipitously, the golden age of the cocktail was also beginning in earnest around this era, with recipes like the newly invented Manhattan calling for a splash of bitters. Jerry Thomas’s The Bar-Tender’s Guide or How to Mix Drinks was starting to sweep the world. Published in America in 1862, it was the first book to give detailed instructions for mixing cocktails. The earliest English version was William Terrington’s book called Cooling Cups and Dainty Drinks. First published in 1869, it documents a host of classic British and European mixed drinks – with the 1872 edition quoting: “The Americans have a few bitter liquors, of which Boker’s and Angostura are decidedly the best.”
Even the famous author and humourist Mark Twain – often referred to as ‘the father of American literature’ – was waxing lyrical about Angostura bitters. While in London promoting the publication of his first novel The Gilded Age, he developed a fondness for a new cocktail made with Scotch whisky, lemon, sugar and Angostura bitters (later to be called the Old Fashioned). In a letter home to his wife Olivia on 2nd January 1874, he said:
“Livy my darling, I want you to be sure & remember to have, in the bath-room, when I arrive, a bottle of Scotch whisky, a lemon, some crushed sugar, and a bottle of Angostura bitters. Ever since I have been in London I have taken in a wine glass what is called a cock-tail (made with these ingredients) before breakfast, before dinner and before going to bed... To it I attribute the fact that up to this day my digestion has been wonderful — simply perfect. It remains day after day and week after week as regular as a clock.”
Twain had first sipped the cocktail while aboard the RMS City of Chester, a transatlantic passenger steamship he came over to England on in 1873. It’s said he was introduced to it by the ship's surgeon who recommended it for its ‘digestive benefits’.
Back in Venezuela, an armed insurrection known as the Coro Revolution had broken out in 1874. It was the final bloody straw for the Siegert family, who had endured decades of uprisings, forcing them to flee the country in fear. In 1875, they moved their lives and their business to Trinidad, a Caribbean island just 11km off the coast of Venezuela. Under the new name J.G.B Siegert & Hijos, they started manufacturing their bitters in an abandoned monastery in Port of Spain, which remains their home today.
One of the ingenious things that sets Angostura apart from other types of bitters is the bottle’s iconic (or comedic) oversized label – which catches the eye on a million backbars for looking like the mistake it was. It’s said that before a well-known competition, one of the Siegert brothers had the job of ordering labels and another of ordering bottles – but they didn’t coordinate properly. Once the mistake was realised, they’d run out of time and couldn’t correct it, so they sent them as they were, ridiculously ill-fitting label and all. The legend goes that while they didn’t win the competition, one of the judges made a point of commending the brand on its unique label, so the brother’s decided to keep it.
Heading into the 20th century, Angostura bitters continued to flourish, thanks in part to the popularity of classic cocktails like the Daiquiri, the Martini, the Manhattan, the Old Fashioned, pink gin and the Champagne Cocktail. By 1904, Alfredo Siegert had become purveyor to the King of Prussia and in 1907 to King Alfonso XIII of Spain. Later, in 1912, the company supplied the newly crowned King George V too.
But troubling clouds were forming in the USA, one of their most profitable markets. The Temperance Movement, with its focus on curbing the consumption of alcohol completely, was gaining strong political support, ultimately leading to Prohibition in 1919 (the 18th Amendment was ratified on 16th January). But while traditional brewers and distillers suffered badly, sales of Angostura bitters remained surprisingly constant, despite cocktail culture nosediving. Bitters had been officially classified as ‘non-potable alcohol’ and the whole bitters category deemed not fit for drinking. The happy result was that it became socially acceptable (and indeed a cultural trend) for law abiding citizens to have a shot of 44.7% ABV Angostura bitters with breakfast or after dinner!
In fact, on Washington Island, a tiny sparsely populated island in Lake Michigan in Wisconsin, there’s a bar called Nelsen’s Hall Bitters Pub.
It has the honour of selling the most Angostura bitters in the world, an accolade it’s held since Prohibition days. In 1920, Tom Nelson, the original owner, was suddenly facing financial ruin but recognised the ‘non-potable’ loophole. Angostura bitters were officially a “stomach tonic for medicinal purposes” instead of alcohol, so a doctor’s prescription wasn’t even required – and it turned out most of the island suddenly had a stomach complaint. Today, as then, the bar doles out the bitters as a shot rather than a splash for all its patrons!
The Angostura aromatic bitters brand is still as relevant and popular today as it was a century and beyond ago. It proudly sits behind nearly every bar in the world, a must-have essential for the modern bartender.
With its secretive ingredients, it is also one of the world's longest held culinary mysteries. Local Caribbean stories swirl about the recipe only being known by five people at any time – one of whom is always the English monarch! Another tells that each of the five only have a portion of the recipe, so they must come together to make it. It’s said a copy of the formula is locked in a bank vault in Trinidad, another in a vault in London. More still say the ingredients arrive in Trinidad in unmarked containers, so no one will ever solve the mystery.
Whatever the truth, Angostura bitters has not only survived but thrived over the last 200-plus years, even reputed to now be the most widely distributed bar item in the world. That’s some journey for a product that was started as a medicinal side-hustle for a German-born doctor looking to cure wounded freedom fighters in the middle of the jungle!
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