Bottles on the Border: The History and Bottles of the Soft Drink ...

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Apollinaris Water
Apollinaris Co. Limited
Apollinaris water was a naturally sparkling mineral water bottled in Bad Neuenahr,
Germany. The water was imported to England by the Apollinaris Company, Ltd., of London
then exported to the United Stares. Although Apollinaris water was apparently discontinued in
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El Paso with the termination of Houck & Dieter, it is again available in the late 20 and early 21
centuries at El Paso grocery stores in one-liter (33.8-ounce) bottles, still using paper labels. The
current bottles are imported directly from Germany.
Georg Kreuzberg of Ahrweiler, Germany, a wine producer, obtained a vineyard near Bad
Neuenahr at auction for 15 talers in 1822. The reason for the low price became obvious when the
soil failed to produce healthy vines. Suspecting that mineral inclusions were the problem
Kreuzberg drilled wells that generated highly carbonated water. Because a wayside shrine to St.
Apollinaris was located nearby, he named the spring after the saint (Anonymous [1993]:110). St.
Apollinaris was a bishop during the second century and was accorded his status for intervening
with Roman Emporer Marcus Aurelius in favor of the Christians. Although persecutions
continued until Constantine later declared Christianity the state religion, it was tempered after the
letter from Apollinaris to the emperor.
Kreuzberg formed a company, CommandirGesellschaft Georg Kreuzberg & Cie., in 1853
for the sale of the spring water, known as Apollinaris Water. The water was originally bottled in
ceramic containers. He leased the Heppinger Spring, and other nearby mineral spring in 1870 and
purchased the property it was on in 1885. In 1873, Kreuzberg also founded the Apollinaris
Company Limited in London for distribution of the water outside Germany, opening a world
market through the London office (Anonymous [1993]:110).
An unidentified English journalist traveling through the Ahr Valley in 1877 left an
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account of the Apollinaris Company as it existed in the late 19 century. He identified St.
Apollinaris as the patron saint of wine. In his description, the first building a visitor encountered
was the bottle washing department “where Lieschens and Lottchens with looped-up petticoats
and kerchief-covered heads were clustered round an apparatus not unlike a huge cart-wheel,
revolving horizontally in the centre of a tank.” Jets of water shot up from each of the twenty-four
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