While perusing my mother's liquor cabinet this past Passover, I found, deep in the back, four bottles of mixer dating from the late '60's to early '70's. I've tried to search around to give a more precise date, but I can't find any good information on the bottles' history.
They are Holland House brand cocktail mixers for Whiskey Sour (two from different bottle eras), Daiquiri and Old Fashioned and they were manufactured in Woodside, Queens, which is where she lived when she purchased them. In essence, she was a locavore. One bottle still has the price of $1.69. Today,it sells for $4.49 and the photo on the bottle hasn't changed much.
According to this article, Holland House was possibly named after the hotel where a sour drink called the Widow's Kiss, was invented, the Holland House Hotel in New York in 1895.
And whose confidently sour mouth could have inspired the complex kick in the pants known as the Widow's Kiss, a pleasantly tongue-curling mix of Calvados, Benedictine, Chartreuse, lemon and Angostura bitters dreamed up in 1895 by George Kappeler of New York's Holland House Hotel?
The Holland House Hotel was on Fifth Avenue and 30th Street and still stands. It's an office building and in the ground floor has a Valley National Bank.
And whose confidently sour mouth could have inspired the complex kick in the pants known as the Widow's Kiss, a pleasantly tongue-curling mix of Calvados, Benedictine, Chartreuse, lemon and Angostura bitters dreamed up in 1895 by George Kappeler of New York's Holland House Hotel?
The Holland House Hotel was on Fifth Avenue and 30th Street and still stands. It's an office building and in the ground floor has a Valley National Bank.
George Kappeler wrote a book about drink mixes in 1895 with a lot of weird ingredients. You can buy it for $29.95 here.
The first reference I find to Holland House drink mixes is in a 1949 ad in the Pittsburgh Press announcing how easy it is to make a cocktail now. The address is 126 W 22nd St. and it sold for 75 cents. By 1958 the address in the ads had changed to Woodside and was selling for 85 cents in Wisconsin.
8 comments:
SO, I have to ask, did you drink it?? What a find!
It's funny that it never once crossed my mind to drink it until you wrote that!
And Hey! Do not forget to spare for us! Coming down there to you, do we mind drinking free wine, guys? :p
Kelly
Jill...Under similar circumstances, I find myself in possession of 3 similar bottles...two of which are unopened...did you ever find someone interested in them?
Nobody interested, just biding their time in my morher's liquor cabinet
Holland House Products Inc. California 1938
Corporation number:176575
Below is the path of the Company Holland House from 1932 to 1938 and 76 shares of House Products Inc. California purchased by my Grandfather, Rhae Foust in 1938;
Holland House Sales 1932 New York and Holland House Brands 1937 New Jersey were the Parent Company!
Holland House Products 1938 was the spinoff Subsidiary!
The shares of Holland House Products were sold at No Par Value at $10.00 per share.
My Grandfather purchased 76 out of 2500 shares of Capital stock August 5,1938.
This was a great amount of money in 1938, especially during the second Great Depression.
These shares have been passed down for three generations now and I would like to Value them.
In 1940 David W. Sheinker, (Owner of Holland House) goes to work for National Distillers and retains his Company.
Sheinker suspends FDIC Tax payments on Holland House Products California in 1940.
This subsidiary was open for two years, from 1938 to 1940.
At the closure of the 1940 Holland House in California, the Shareholder shares had to or should have reverted to the Parent Company, Holland House Brands, (New Jersey) in 1940, and upon sale of Holland House Brands to National Distillers in 1966.
I am unable to locate the Transfer Agent or Depository
responsible for the Transfer of all shareholder shares.
No Holland House Products Inc. shares were escheated to the State of California, it leads me to believe these shares are archived on microfiche, or in a DTC clearing house.
My Google search engine for the Transfer Agent/Depository only goes back as far as 1979, showing Morgan Guaranty as the Transfer Agent for the National Distillers/Cadbury Schweppes acquisition.
I am sincerely hoping you may be able to provide me with:
1. Who the Transfer Agent or Depository was in 1938/1940 and
2. Who the Transfer Agent or Depository was in 1966.
3. Are you in possession on these shares.
Note:
In March of 2017, an Intern from JPMorgan Trust,(Newark Delaware) called me saying he had found Wells Fargo to be the Transfer Agent. I have contacted Wells Fargo Share owner Services and they have denied that claim. JPMorgan Trust is unable to validate the interns claim as the Intern has since moved on. Although, I believe through research and discovery, the likely Transfer Agent:Depository was Morgan Guaranty.
Thank you for your help in ascertaining these family shares of Holland House,
Dana Foust
951)970-6499
Dana shut the whole thing down.
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