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

spokes, and the girls rinsed bottles on them (40-50,000 per day) prior to filling which was
accomplished in the next section (Apollinaris Brunnen 1976:6-8).
The water was pumped by steam power to the gallery where fifty men and boys filled and
corked each bottle, “one man filling and corking while another wired” on twenty-one bottling
machines. The remaining men carried bottles. On average the men filled 40,000 bottles each
day (Apollinaris Brunnen 1976:8-9).
The effervescence caused by the “carbonic acid gas” was strong and was produced
without “admixture or foreign agent.” The gas escaping from the spring itself was so strong that
the gates were kept locked to avoid accidental inhalation. The English journalist described the
water as “clear as crystal, soft as velvet, and effervescent as champagne . . . not only of the
highest purity, but preserves its sparkling freshness longer than any artificially aerated water”
(Apollinaris Brunnen 1976;9-12).
The bottles were packed in “huge oblong boxes on wheels, in each of which 4000 pints or
3000 quart bottles were already packed away” on “a dozen waggons (sic).” These were taken to
Remagen on the Rhine River where they went to England or other destinations outside Germany.
In 1875, one million bottles were shipped within Germany with an equal number to Holland.
England, the company’s largest customer, received six million bottles. The journalist quipped
that “on the whole, the Ahr valley profits largely by the badness of our drinking water
(Apollinaris Brunnen 1976:13-14).
Kreuzberg died in 1876, and his heirs reformed the company naming it Aktiengesellschaft
Apollinaris-Brunnen, vorm (Anonymous [1993]:110-111). In 1897, Frederick Gordon of
England purchased both the English and German businesses, although the firm returned to
German hands in 1956 when the Dortmunder Union Brauerei gained a controlling share of the
stock. The company, by then know as Apollinaris Brunnen, merged with Schweppes GmbH in
1991, and Cadbury Schweppes acquired the voting share of the stock in 2002 (Munsey 2002:10,
14).
A poster ca. 1899 advertises “A Whiskey and a Small ‘Polly’” (Munsey 2002:11),
suggesting that Apollinaris water was used as a chaser for alcoholic drinks. The nickname
“Polly” was apparently in use by that time but faded into obscurity later. A photo of an unnamed
bar in El Paso shows posters from Apollinaris featuring “Pretty Polly,” a race horse sponsored by
the company, as well as bar ads for Lemp Beer and White Rock water (Figure 5-30 & 5-31).
94