Shown here is just a portion of a label-under-glass Gold Dust Whiskey “back of the bar bottle” that has been termed “The Holy Grail” of Western whiskey bottles. Some speculate this bottle may be one of a kind while knowing that at one time others certainly did exist. The Van Bergens whose San Francisco liquor house issued the “Grail” circa 1880 would be stunned at the current value of a bottle that originally was given away. If one were found it might well sell for five figures at auction.
The Van Bergens were among the earliest pioneers in liquor sales in San Francisco. John Van Bergen, who had immigrated from Hanover, Germany, as a youth in the 1830s, and settled initially in New York, is recorded surfacing in San Francisco in 1851 selling liquor and other merchandise. When a partner quit, John is said to have returned briefly to New York but returned to San Francisco the following year to open a wholesale liquor business he called “John Van Bergen & Co.”
Joining John on the West Coast was Nicholas Van Bergen, shown here. He was born in Hanover in August 1821, likely a younger brother. From a passport document we know that at the age of 17 Nicholas arrived in New York from Germany in the summer of 1838 aboard the steamship Isabella out of Bremerhaven. Over the next decade, he established himself as a New York grocer and married. His bride was Rebecca, also from Hanover and six years his junior. Their first three children would be born in New York. Five more would follow.
When John beckoned in 1856, Nicholas responded, bringing Rebecca and his young family across the continent to San Francisco. Future events indicated that he would find the environment there more cordial than his brother. By 1867 John was recorded in local business directories as having returned to live in Germany, presumably leaving management of the liquor business to Nicholas. The latter soon found lifelong friends among leading citizens of San Francisco and gained a reputation as a canny businessman.
Nicholas pursued a marketing strategy somewhat different from his competition. Rather than blending his own proprietary brands of whiskey, he bought the rights to established brands and sold them. An initial key purchase in 1868 was the entire wholesale wine and liquor business of Taylor & Bendel, a specialty grocery, that owned the rights to “Dr. Hufeland’s Swiss Stomach Bitters,” a popular remedy that subsequently became property of the Van Bergens.
Shown above in quart size with a detail of the label is the nostrum attributed to Dr. Christoph Wilhelm Friedrich Hufeland (1762 -1836), a man famous as the most eminent physician of his time in Germany and the author of numerous scientific works. The bitters were advertised as “unsurpassed for acting surely but gently on secretions of the kidneys, bowels, stomach and liver.” I am doubtful that the Herr Doktor had anything to do with this highly alcoholic tonic except the appropriation of his name.
The bitters seemingly were a success for the Van Bergens and encouraged a move to acquire a brand of whiskey called “Gold Dust.” The brand had come from Kentucky, the name of a Morgan-Arabian trotter. A nationally famous horse after winning just three races, it is shown here in a Currier & Ives print. Barkhouse Brothers, distillers of Louisville, who trademarked the name in January 1872, sold it in amber glass bottles embossed with a horse.
Seeing the brand as a natural for the San Francisco drinking public, the Van Bergens contracted with the Barkhouses to become the sole distributor for the bourbon on the West Coast. Shown here is a “Gold Dust” bottle that includes the Van Bergen name as “agent.” The brand proved so successful in California l that in 1880 they purchased all rights to the name and became sole proprietors. They used the same bottles style as the Barkhouse Brothers peening out the old name and adding their own.
As shown right those glass containers came in both amber and aqua. A number of variations exist in both colors, some more rare than others, sparking considerable interest in the collectors of Western whiskeys. All are considered rare and fetch fancy prices when upon rare occasion they come up for sale. Several years ago an aqua Gold Dust whiskey bottle sold for $38,000, a record.
As a result, the highly elusive Van Bergen Gold Dust back-of-the bar bottle that opens this post is speculated to be even more valuable and the “Holy Grail.” Some have seen it as “one of a kind” but the economics of creating a label under glass bottle would indicate that more were made by Nicholas Van Bergen, whose name was attached. John Van Bergen in 1874 had sold his share of the company to his younger brother who, with a partner, wasted no time in changing the name to N. Van Bergen & Company, a name that also graced shot glasses advertising Gold Dust whiskey.
Not all of the Van Bergens’ selections may have proved profitable. During the 1870s the company also gain the rights to Old Woodburn Whiskey, shown here. This was a brand of the Cook & Bernheimer Company of New York City who trademarked the name in 1870. [See my post on this firm, Nov. 7, 2016]. The bottle is considered one of the most desirable of Western whiskeys since only three specimens, one shown here, are known. Because the bottle is so rare some assume the brand did not do well on the West Coast and was produced by Van Bergens for just one or two years.
The mid-1870s were a period of several changes for the Van Bergens. Not only was the liquor house now under the major ownership of Nicholas, he was joined in the business by his eldest son, John W. Van Bergen, destined to make his own mark as a San Francisco businessman. Born in New York in May, 1853, John W. had come to California with his parents as a toddler. Educated in local schools, he had begun his career working as a clerk for Rogers, Meyer & Company, a San Francisco mercantile house. Only after Nicholas acceded to the head of the liquor business did John W. join the company. With him came another employee, Fritz Habernicht, who had married his younger sister. A brother, Charles T. Van Bergen also joined the staff as a clerk.
Heading into the 1880s the focus of the business expanded to include imported wines and liquors. As he aged, Nicholas increasingly turned over the business to John W. and spent time recreating with other San Francisco “pioneers.” In an article memorializing Van Bergen and others, the San Francisco Call reported how one friend and Nicholas met daily to chat: “Both had rounded out their allotted span of life and for an hour each day used to tell each other how this faculty was failing and the other was affected.” Nicholas died on November 10, 1898 at the age of 77. He was buried in Cypress Lawn Memorial Park in Colma, California, just outside San Francisco.
Shown above in a caricature from the 1912 book, “Men Who Made San Francisco,” John W. Van Bergen carried on the liquor house his uncle and father had founded 32 years earlier. He also was a director in San Francisco financial institutions, among them the First National Bank and German Savings and Loan Society. John W. was active politically as a California Republican and hailed as “one of the leading citizens of San Francisco.” With John W.’s death in 1916 at age 64, the N. Bergen Company came to an end, disappearing from city directories, along with Gold Dust Whiskey.
Diggers in California seem regularly to unearth Van Bergen bottles. Others have been found squirreled away in attics and basements. Each new find sends a tremor of anticipation through the collector community. Convinced as I am that the Gold Dust back-of-the-bar bottle was not “one of a kind,” I await news that a second or perhaps more examples of the Van Bergen's “Holy Grail” have surfaced and are for sale.
Note: This post has been drawn from a wide range of sources, as have been the images shown. In addition to the references provided in the text, the genealogy and city directories available from ancestry.com were particularly valuable, as were information and images from the Western Whiskey Gazette website and the FOHBC Virtual Bottle Museum. My appreciation to both.
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