My wife (German in nature) for literally several decades...had an appreciation of a particular carbonated water....from the Apollinaris Company in Germany. I'll readily state the fact....I'm not into mineral water or carbonated water, so this fascination doesn't stick to me.
Up until the last six months...she'd view weekly sales brochures and about three times a year, she'd find it discounted, and buy around ten 'kustens' of the stuff. To be honest, it's not cheap or reasonable....when not on discount.
If you asked most Germans about it....it's premium or deluxe type water, and most Germans would skip it because of this cost impact. If they did buy it....it was a special thing and if they dragged a bottle out of the basement for you to sip....they wanted to impress you with their upscale stuff.
Where you typically would find it? Fine restaurants or upper-class hotels.
So there's a history with Apollinaris. Up in the NW of Germany, there's this area which you'd suggest is wine territory. Around the 1850s....this guy bought up newer property in the region and wanted grow grapes. This endeavor was mostly a failure. He called in a science guy and discovered that there was too much C02 in the ground.
He then called for some wells to be dug and what he found....around 40 feet down....was mineral water which had a unique taste to it. So he decided to bottle it up, and market the stuff. In this period....1860s, 1870s....fair amount of VIP traveler traffic was going on and he had some sales campaign to suggest this was the water related to the patron saint of wine (Apollinaris). For some reason, it sold well.
As the company passed onto the next generation....things went and improved.
Before WW I.....the company was selling 40-million bottles a year, with most of it going beyond the German border.
In the late 1930s.....the water company got briefly taken over by the Nazis, and for a brief period....run by forced labor.
After the war, it came back to normal ownership and by the early 1990s....Schweppes folks (famous for chocolate) had taken it over. But around 2006....Coke entered the situation.
It's not clear what the long-term plan was with Coke and Apollinaris. Coke did get a newer brand-name started up....with Vio (a regular cheap on-the-go type of water), but around 2013....Apollinaris was told not to market it's premium stuff outside of Germany anymore (a fair amount of their market went away at that point). It was only to market within the country. So a lot of the supermarket and beverage shop sales was important. To be honest, Germans weren't that hyped up to buy premium water at 'thrilling high prices' so I think most sat and waited for special sales to occur.
Six months ago.....Coke cut off the grocery/beverage shop sales, so the water is only sold to hotels and restaurants now.
If you ever find the bottle of the stuff in your hotel room....on the side....their key slogan which goes back to the mid-1800s is written....'the Queen of table waters'.
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