Speer’s Standard Wine Bitters – Hudson NY Evening Register 1869

Speer’s Standard Wine Bitters

Speer’s vineyard and wine business started on a small scale, with the vineyard expanding until it was “the largest in the State, containing over five miles of driveways, and over five hundred miles of wire.” The business operated as two separate companies known as Speer’s New Jersey Wine company and Speer’s Vine Culture Company, with offices in Passaic, New Jersey and New York, New York. 

The advertisement above for Speer’s Standard Wine Bitters, yet again, caught my attention and sparked my interest as I was unfamiliar with this Bitters brand. As primarily a collector of embossed bitters bottles, it is interesting to go back and look at some of the early examples of labeled bitters. This brand alone had a 25.49% alcohol content which is quite potent. Basically there is an untold story within every bottle and behind every label, some easier to find than others. In this case I was just amazed with Alfred Speer and what he accomplished in his lifetime. Make sure you read about Alfred’s “Sidewalk in the Sky” further below.

Alfred Speer’s advertisement from the New York Lancet: With which is Incorporated the Archives of Gynecology, Obstetrics, and Pediatrics, Issue 1 – J.B. Flint, 1899

The Carlyn Ring and W. C. Ham listing in Bitters Bottles (S 158) and Bitters Bottle Supplement (S 165.5) is as follows:

S 158  Sample Speer’s Standard Wine Bitters Passaic, N.J.
Alfred Speer, Principal Offices, 243 Broadway, New York
3 1/2 x 1 1/4 (2)
Round, Aqua NSC

S 156.5 L…Speer’s Standard Wine Bitters, from after the first day of January 1868, every bottle of Speer’s Standard Wine Bitters will have my signature over the cork and on this additional label. (signed) Alfred Speer, Passaic, N.J.
12 x 2 3/4
Round, Green, DLTC, Applied mouth

Alfred Speer, President signature on every bottle – New Jersey Bottle Forum

Labeled Speer’s Wine Bitters; this in a fifth gallon size, bottled in an Ellenville Glass Works base-embossed spirits bottle. Dated January, 1868 on its secondary label, the bottle is in a medium amber with a hint of green. Unfortunately, the bitters was bottled at a time when many labels were printed on dark colored stock, this in a rich maroon, and it is difficult to read the details clearly. The bold word, Speer’s, sits atop a ribbon with the word, Standard in the top with folds draping down over a large three story buliding, the six folds each describing the contents, ‘Pure’ is the only word I think I can make out. Beneath the building is ___Street(?) Passaic N.J. Under the large Wine Bitters is ‘A Speer Passaic N.J.’ Finally, ‘Sale ____2_3 Broadway NY’. – James Becker

Speer’s Standard Wine Bitters Alcohol Strength – Cincinnati Lancet and Observer, Volume 35 – 1874

Speer’s Standard Wine Bitters advertisement – 1869 Gettysburg Compiler

Speer’s Standard Wine Bitters advertisement – Boston Daily Evening Transcript – July 9, 1868

Speer’s Wine amber quart and label detail – New Jersey Bottle Forum

Alfred Speer – Furniture Maker, Grape Grower and Inventor

Alfred Speer was born November 2, 1823 in New Jersey to a local family of Dutch ancestry. Typical of many young men of the early nineteenth century, Alfred obtained the usual grammar school education common to that period. As a teenager, he became apprenticed to a cabinetmaker in Newark, New Jersey while his inquisitive and inventive skills developed. During his apprenticeship, William NELSON stated that Alfred “made a camera, from descriptions he had read, and took some of the first daguerreotypes seen in Newark.” Completing his apprenticeship, he moved to Acquackanonk Township, now the present day Passaic, and established his own cabinet and furniture shop. He must have valued the furniture he made because a few pieces are mentioned in his will, one piece being described as “one mahogany bookcase, that I made in 1854 with ground glass doors, which I give and bequeath to my son, Colonel Morgan.”

Speer’s vineyard and wine business started on a small scale, with the vineyard expanding until it was “the largest in the State, containing over five miles of driveways, and over five hundred miles of wire.” The business operated as two separate companies known as Speer’s New Jersey Wine company and Speer’s Vine Culture Company, with offices in Passaic, New Jersey and New York, New York. One could go to the warehouse and purchase a bottle of “Speer’s Passaic Port Wine.” The companies included vineyards and vaults in Passaic, New Jersey and Los Angeles, California. (see below for source)

Read: ALFRED SPEER: PASSAIC VINTNER, PUBLISHER, AND INVENTOR

Labeled Climax Superior Vintage Brandy – The Speer Wine Co. – New Jersey Bottle Forum

Alfred Speer obituary – New York Times February 17, 1910

Alfred Speer’s Sidewalk in the Sky

Pictured above is a bold solution to a growing congestion problem on Broadway circa 1873. When Alfred Speer, a wine merchant and inventor from Passaic opened a store on Broadway near City Hall, he found pedestrians, delivery carts, and omnibus traffic all chaotically jockeying for position on the crowded thoroughfare. Although streetcar companies were allowed to lay rails north of 14th Street, pressure from local property owners and the omnibus operators, who held a monopoly on mass transit downtown, kept more efficient mass transit methods out. All Ways NY