Geneva

October 23

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (October 23, 1775).

“BEST geneva, made and distilled from rye.”

When John Felthausen wanted the public to know about the “BEST geneva [or genever], made and distilled from rye,” that he produced, he placed an advertisement in the October 23, 1775, edition of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury.  He declared that he distilled his spirits “in the same manner as Holland geneva is made,” assuring prospective customers of the quality and taste.  To entice readers to purchase his genever, Felthausen reported that “some gentlemen have advertised in this paper to encourage that business” because “there is not any person at present, that distills liquor from grain in this government” or colony.  In answer to colonizers who expressed a desire for someone to take responsibility for distilling genever and other spirits in New York, Felthausen suggested that they had a responsibility to support his business now that he accepted their charge to launch such an enterprise.

Yet Felthausen did not address solely those who had written of their desire to see genever produced locally.  Instead, he proclaimed that he “hoped every friend to his country” would buy his genever, “especially at those times when we ought to give a preference to our own manufactures.”  The distiller made a “Buy American” argument, confident that prospective customers knew all about the Continental Association, a nonimportation agreement devised by the First Continental Congress in response to the Coercive Acts.  The Continental Association also called on colonizers to promote “Agriculture, Arts, and the Manufactures of this Country” as alternatives to imported goods.  Throughout the colonies, supporters of the American cause mobilized around the choices that they made in the marketplace.  Many became even more determined to so after the battles at Lexington and Concord.  Entrepreneurs like Felthausen encouraged consumers to practice politics when they made purchases, presenting their decisions as civic duties for “every friend to his country.”

January 29

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Jan 29 - 1:29:1768 New-London Gazette
New-London Gazette (January 29, 1768).

“Choice GENEVA.”

John Armbruester placed an advertisement in the January 29, 1768, edition of the New-London Gazette to inform residents of Norwich and the surrounding area that he distilled and sold Geneva. Advertisers regularly promoted Geneva in eighteenth-century newspapers, either on its own, as Armbruester did, or along with an array of other spirits. Colonists certainly knew what they were being offered, but the name Geneva has largely fallen out of use today. What was Geneva?

The Oxford English Dictionary provides some clarification in its entries for gin and genever. Dutch distillers first produced a variation of gin in the late sixteenth century. This aromatic drink, flavored with juniper berries and a variety of herbs and spices, was known in Dutch as genever, but in English as Dutch gin or Hollands gin (shortened from Hollands geneva). In the middle of the eighteenth century, distillers in London produced a “less coarse, more subtly flavoured gin” that became known as London gin. That variation became the most usual form of the drink. Today consumers enjoy (London) gin in mixed drinks and cocktails, whereas genever (or jenever) is usually drunk neat.

Gin was just gaining in popularity in England at the time Armbruester distilled and sold his Geneva in Connecticut. Either he had not yet learned the process for making gin rather than genever or the demand for gin had not yet increased so significantly that he determined producing it would yield greater revenues. Whatever his reasons, the advertisement made it clear that he did indeed distill genever rather than gin. He favorably compared his “Choice GENEVA” to “that brought from Holland” rather than any produced in London, noting that “This GENEVA is esteemed by good Judges, to be equal.” In his competition with transatlantic rivals, Armbruester assured local consumers that his product was not inferior to any genever they could import from the region where it had originally been distilled two centuries earlier.