Apollinaris (water) facts for kids
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| Country | Germany/USA |
|---|---|
| Produced by | Coca-Cola |
| Source | Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler |
| Type | sparkling |
| pH | 5.8 |
| Calcium (Ca) | 90 |
| Chloride (Cl) | 130 |
| Bicarbonate (HCO3) | 1800 |
| Fluoride (F) | 0.7 |
| Magnesium (Mg) | 120 |
| Nitrate (NO3) | 1.6 |
| Potassium (K) | 30 |
| Sodium (Na) | 470 |
| Sulfate (SO4) | 100 |
| TDS | 1600 |
| Website | apollinaris-gmbh.de |
| All concentrations in milligrams per liter (mg/L); pH without units | |
Apollinaris is a naturally sparkling mineral water from a spring in Bad Neuenahr, Germany. Discovered in 1852, it was popularised in England and on the Continent and became the leading table-water of its time until about World War II. There are many references to it in high and popular culture. Today the brand is owned by Coca-Cola.
History
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The spring was discovered by chance in 1852 in Georg Kreuzberg's vineyard, in Bad Neuenahr, Germany. He named it after St Apollinaris of Ravenna, a patron saint of wine. The water was drawn from a rocky source at a depth of 50 feet (15 m).
In 1872 Ernest Hart, editor of the British Medical Journal, dined with George Smith (a partner in the publishing firm Smith, Elder & Co.) and recommended Apollinaris to Smith. in 1873 or 1874 Edward Steinkopff, a business partner of Smith, formed a subsidiary English company to sell the water in Britain . The Apollinaris Company Ltd. had offices at 4, Stratford Place, London.
Steinkopff was chairman of the company during the period of its development, with Julius Prince as managing director. Apollinaris soon attained an unparalleled position, becoming the leading natural table-water in the world. Smith later founded the Dictionary of National Biography, and Steinkopff bought the St James's Gazette.
It was Otto von Bismarck's favourite mineral water. The poet Guillaume Apollinaire considered Apollinaris to be "his" mineral water, and once challenged the novelist Max Daireaux to a duel for ridiculing him over his choice.
The red triangle symbol and the slogan "The Queen of Table Waters" were adopted as British trademarks in 1895. Steinkopff and his co-partners sold the business in 1897 to the hotelier Frederick Gordon for nearly £2,000,000, (very approximately £260 million in 2020) receiving £1,500,000 (£200m) himself. Julius Prince continued as managing director into the 20th century. One of the later directors of Apollinaris was George Alexander 'Pop' Hill, Mission chief of Special Operation Executive in Moscow during WWII.
By 1913 the company was producing 40 million bottles a year, 90% of which were exported worldwide.
From the mid-1930s to 1945, the Apollinaris company in Germany was controlled by the Amt III ("third office"), a division of the SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt Amtsgruppe W in charge of the food industry in Nazi Germany. Along with other mineral waters—Sudetenquell and Mattoni—Apollinaris was bottled at the Rheinahr Glasfabrik bottling plant between Sinzig and Niederbreisig. also controlled by the Allgemeine SS. The factory, founded in 1907 as a European subsidiary of the Owens Bottle Machine Company founded by the inventor Michael Joseph Owens, is now owned by Veba-Glas AG.
Today the source and the brand of Apollinaris belong to Coca-Cola, which acquired it from the multinational Cadbury-Schweppes in 2006.
Sports sponsorship
In the 1950s and 1960s, Apollinaris co-organised (with the Torck factories of Deinze, Belgium) the commercial beach games "Les Rois du Volant/De Koningen der Baan" on the Belgian coast.
