The Drunken Botanist: The Plants that Create the World's Great Drinks (45 page)

ANGOSTURA

Angostura trifoliata

rutaceae (rue family)

T
he manufacturers of Angostura bitters spent decades in court defending their right to the product's name—all the while refusing to say whether it was actually made from the bark of the angostura tree. The late-nineteenth-and early twentieth-century battle set legal precedents around the world at a time when trademark law was still a very new idea.

First, let's address the tree itself: the angostura tree has almost as many names as the bitters that have claimed it as an ingredient. Alexander von Humboldt, a German explorer and botanist, described the tree during an expedition to Latin America that lasted from 1799 to 1804. He wanted to call it
Bonplandia trifoliata,
after botanist Aimé Bonpland who accompanied him on the journey. It has also appeared in botanical literature as
Galipea trifoliata, Galipea officinalis, Cusparia trifoliata,
and
Cusparia febrifuga.
The shrublike tree grows wild around the city of Angostura, Argentina (now called Ciudad Bolívar). It produces dark green leaves arranged in groups of three (this is where it gets the name
trifoliata
), and fruit split into five segments—a bit like citrus fruit, which are also in the rue family—each of which contains one or two large seeds.

While botanists debated its name, pharmacists debated its medicinal qualities. Alexander von Humboldt wrote that an infusion of the bark was used as a “strengthening remedy” among Indians in Venezuela and that monks were sending it back to Europe in hopes that it could be used to fight fever and dysentery. Throughout the nineteenth century, the bark was described in pharmaceutical literature as a tonic and stimulant that could treat fevers and a variety of digestive ailments. Recipes for angostura bitters, a combination of angostura bark, quinine, and spices soaked in rum, were easy to find in medical journals of the day.

The brand we know as Angostura began, the company claims, in 1820, when German physician Johannes G. B. Siegert arrived in a city in Venezuela called Angostura. He created a kind of medicinal bitters using local plants, which was sold under the name Aromatic Bitters, listing the place of manufacture as Angostura, Venezuela. In 1846, the name of the city was changed to Ciudad Bolívar in honor of independence leader Simón Bolívar. In 1870, the doctor died, and the sons later moved the company to Trinidad, seeking political stability. Still the “Aromatic Bitters” label bore the name of Dr. Siegert of Angostura, with the company's new location.

By this time, European nations and the United States were starting to pass trademark laws, and the Siegert brothers wanted in on the action. In 1878, they brought suit in the British courts against a competitor selling Angostura bitters, claiming that their own bitters were widely known as Angostura bitters, even though they were not made in Angostura and the words
Angostura bitters
had not actually appeared on their label until
after
their competitor had started using the name.

The competitor—a man named Dr. Teodoro Meinhard—employed a brilliant defense. He stated that his bitters were called Angostura bitters because they contained angostura bark. While the manufacturer of a brand of bitters would normally keep the ingredients secret, the law stated that no one could trademark a name that simply reflected the contents of the product. Anyone can call their products by a name like orange juice, chocolate bars, or leather shoes; those names simply and plainly state what the item is. Meinhard wasn't trying to claim the name Angostura bitters for his exclusive use—he was just trying to keep the Siegerts from doing so. His strategy was partially successful: while the judge ruled that his use of the name Angostura bitters was a clear attempt to defraud customers into buying his product rather than Siegert family version, the ruling also stated that the term
Angostura bitters
did not deserve full protection under English law.

The lawsuits continued in the United States. In 1884 a series of legal actions between the Siegert brothers and C. W. Abbott & Co. began for much the same reason. Abbott also claimed that angostura bark was a key ingredient in his bitters, which gave him protection under the law. Once again, the Siegerts remained silent on their own formula, claiming that the name came from the city, not the tree. This time, things did not go so well for the Siegerts.

The judge ruled that no one can claim a monopoly on the name of a city, even if that city's name had been changed decades ago. And no one could trademark the name of an ingredient or another term that simply describes what the product is. Besides, the judge pointed out, the Siegerts weren't using the term
Angostura bitters
at all until
their competitors did so. They had been calling their product Aromatic Bitters; it was only the general public that had taken to calling them Angostura bitters.

Continuing his examination of the evidence, the judge chided the Siegerts because their label still read “Prepared by Dr. Siegert” even though the doctor was deceased. The Siegerts lost their case and Abbott continued to sell Angostura bitters. In subsequent rulings, judges found even more to dislike about the Siegerts' case, including their unsubstantiated claim that the bitters had medicinal purposes. Their luck ran out in Germany as well, where their application for a trademark was denied by a judge who flatly stated that angostura bark was used in the preparation of angostura bitters, and as such the name could not be trademarked.

It was not until 1903 that judges finally began ruling in favor of the Siegerts and granting them the exclusive right to the name Angostura bitters. The Abbott company, commenting not just on its own case but on other similar cases that were now being decided in favor of the Siegerts, issued a statement that expressed its frustration: “Our bitters are made out of Angostura bark. This is the point in our case. And the court did not pass upon it.”

In February 1905, the United States updated its trademark laws. It took only three months for the Siegert brothers to file their application under the new law. The application claimed that “the trade mark has been continuously used by us and by our predecessors in business for about the last 74 years past,” and that “no other person, firm, corporation or association” had the right to use the trademark. It was approved.

Today the label remains more or less unchanged from the original patent application, with a few exceptions. By 1952, the company had filed an updated label design omitting medical claims and a suggestion that bitters be served to children, and a new phrase had been added: “Does Not Contain Angostura Bark.”

 

So was angostura bark ever an ingredient in Dr. Siegert's recipe or only in those of his competitors? The Siegerts managed to get
through thirty years of litigation without revealing their secret formula in any published court record. They did claim that their bitters would treat stomachaches and fevers—the very maladies angostura bark was supposed to treat. (They also said that the bitters should not be used “in the manufacture of cocktails” but added that they should be dashed into a wine glass and topped with rum, wine, or any other spirit, and taken “before breakfast or dinner, or at any other hour of the day, if you should feel inclined,” which sounds rather like a cocktail. They also recommended applying them to “new rum” to improve the taste.)

Another strange clue as to the original ingredients comes in the form of an advertisement placed in a theater magazine by the Siegert company in 1889. The ad claims that Dr. Siegert met Alexander von Humboldt in Venezuela in 1839 and prescribed his bitters to the explorer when he became sick. There was just one problem with this story: von Humboldt was in Berlin in 1839. He had, in fact, become sick in Venezuela during his 1799 to 1804 expedition and had been treated with angostura bark—the one ingredient that the company now claims not to use in its bitters.

It's hard to believe that a medicinal bitters, invented in Angostura, Argentina, that claims to treat fever and stomach problems, would not contain a well-known plant that grew in the area and was already used for those very problems. The use of angostura bark in pharmaceutical preparations is well documented in the nineteenth century. In fact, the realization that angostura bark was sometimes adulterated with the poisonous bark of the strychnine tree led to widespread warnings to druggists to be on the alert when compounding their own angostura bitters. Obviously, the bark was widely used at one point. Why would Dr. Siegert have omitted it from his formula?

The new trademark laws passed at the end of that century made one thing clear: anyone who made bitters with angostura bark would be legally entitled to call their product angostura bitters because it was a plain statement of the nature of the product. The only way to trademark the name would be to make the case about something other than the ingredients—and that's what the Siegert brothers did.

If their formula once contained angostura bark, when did they drop the ingredient? It's possible that Dr. Siegert realized early on that the bark could be mistaken for strychnine bark and decided to steer clear of it. Or if he did use it, perhaps the recipe changed when the company moved to Trinidad, or after the Siegerts' legal conundrum became apparent.

Or, as astute readers might have already wondered, perhaps the formula never changed. After all, the label on the bottle today only says that the product does not contain angostura
bark.
No mention is made of another legally recognized ingredient, angostura extract, or of the tree's trunk, leaves, roots, flowers, or seeds.