Apollinaris (water)

American ad for the water, along the wall of a baseball stadium, circa 1914.

The spring was discovered by chance in 1852 in Georg Kreuzberg’s vineyard, in Bad Neuenahr, Germany. He named it after St Apollinaris of Ravenna, a patron saint of wine. The red triangle symbol and the slogan "The Queen of Table Waters" were adopted as trademarks in 1895. By 1913 the company was producing 40 million bottles a year, 90% of which were exported worldwide.

Since the mid-1930s and until 1945, the Apollinaris company was controlled by the Amt III ('third office'), a division of the SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt' Amtsgruppe W in charge of the food industry in Nazi Germany. Along with other mineral waters—Sudetenquell and Mattoni—Apollinaris was bottled at the Rheinglassfabrik bottling plant, also controlled by the SS.

Today the source and the brand of Apollinaris belong to Coca-Cola, which acquired it from the multinational Cadbury-Schweppes in 2006.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Apollinaris co-organised (with the Torck factories of Deinze, Belgium) the commercial beach games "Les Rois du Volant/De Koningen der Baan" on the Belgian coast.[1]

In Anthony Trollope's The Prime Minister (1876), the character of the Duke of Omnium dines simply on "a beefsteak and a potato, with a glass of sherry and Apollinaris water".

Spenser Theyre-Smith's short play A Case for Eviction (1883) features the comically increasing demands of an unseen houseguest, Major O'Golly, who at one point is said by the uneducated servant Mary to have requested "Polly Nary water" with his whiskey.

In William Dean Howells's The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885), the Laphams attend a dinner party at the Coreys. After dinner, the men remain in the dining room smoking cigars, and one of the guests "reached him a bottle of Apollinaris," filling a glass for Silas. "He drank a glass, and then went on smoking."[2]

The Susan Coolidge book "Clover" (1888), part of the Katy Series, mentions the water during a private train journey to Colorado: ""The car seems paved with bottles of Apollinaris and with lemons," wrote Katy to her father....Just as surely as it grows warm and dusty, and we begin to remember that we are thirsty, a tinkle is heard, and Bayard appears with a tray,--iced lemonade, if you please, made with Apollinaris water with strawberries floating on top! What do you think of that at thirty miles an hour?""[3]

In Act I of Bernard Shaw's play Widowers' Houses (1892), the English tourist Sartorius is shocked that there is a church in Germany called Apollinaris, thinking they have named it after the mineral water.

In What Maisie Knew by Henry James (1897) (chapter 19), Maisie and her stepfather, in a coffee-room at lunch-time, partake of cold beef and apollinaris.[4]

The Edward Noyes Westcott book David Harum (1898) portrays a dithering, semi-invalid character, Julius Carling. Faced with decisions about what to drink, he considers Apollinaris water. On one occasion he decides to have it, but one of his caregivers, Miss Blake, for devious reasons of her own has ordered champagne instead:

When he went in to dinner the Carlings and Miss Blake had been at table some minutes. There had been the usual controversy about what Mr. Carling would drink with his dinner, and he had decided upon Apollinaris water. But Miss Blake, with an idea of her own, had given an order for champagne, and was exhibiting some consternation, real or assumed, at the fact of having a whole bottle brought in with the cork extracted—a customary trick at sea.

"I hope you will help me out," she said to John as he bowed and seated himself. "'Some one has blundered,' and here is a whole bottle of champagne which must be drunk to save it. Are you prepared to help turn my, or somebody's, blunder into hospitality?"[5]

The Jerome K. Jerome novel, Three Men on the Bummel (1900) contains a description of the product: “There is Apollinaris water which, I believe, with a little lemon squeezed into it, is practically harmless."

Short story author O. Henry references Apollinaris in different stories including "The Social Triangle" (1907), "The Lost Blend" (1907) and "The Unprofitable Servant" (1912).

The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1912) includes, in Chapter 9, the passage: "We supped and camped at the very edge of the cliff, quenching our thirst with two bottles of Apollinaris, which were in one of the cases."

The water receives a brief mention in the short story "Counterparts" by James Joyce, included in his collection Dubliners (1914): "Farrington stood a drink all round. Weathers said he would take a small Irish and Apollinaris. Farrington, who had definite notions of what was what, asked the boys would they have an Apollinaris too."

José Maria de Eça de Queirós The Capital (1925) includes the following passage: "Then he became very affable with Arthur; offered him of his Apollinaris water to mix with the wine, gave him news about the little dog: it had arrived perfectly well, it was the joy of the girls! A darling!"

In E. F. Benson's novel Lucia's Progress (1935), the character Lucia discovers a fragment of glass marked with the letters "Apol", and concludes that the remains of a Roman temple lie beneath her garden. She subsequently finds the rest of the bottle, which supplies the full inscription "Apollinaris", and promptly ceases her excavations.

In the Ealing Studios film comedy My Learned Friend (1943), bumbling barrister Mr. Babbington (Claude Hulbert) orders a 'Baby Polly' in a disreputable 'café' in Stepney.

In France, Comedie "A Monkey in Winter" (1962, Henri Verneuil). In a bar scene, some fellows drinking together, set around a table, try to remember the name of a poet, whose verses a former friend of theirs (reputed pretentious) use to always quote. They only remember that this name sounded like a "mineral water name". They finally all agree on Apollinaris. (The real name is in fact Apollinaire, famous early 20th century French poet, who is indeed quoted in the movie by the main character.)

In the UK and Ireland, Apollinaris was sold in small bottles, which were marketed as "The Baby 'Polly". The poem "Sun and Fun" by Sir John Betjeman, published in 1954, includes the stanza:

I pulled aside the thick magenta curtains
– So Regency, so Regency, my dear –
And a host of little spiders
Ran a race across the ciders
To a box of baby 'pollies by the beer.

In the film American Psycho (2000), Patrick Bateman, played by Christian Bale, offers Detective Kimball (Willem Dafoe) a bottle of Apollinaris, which he politely tries to refuse. Bateman insists, also offering a lime.

During World War I, rival manufacturer Perrier ran an advertisement urging people to drink their French water, rather than that of their German rival.

The German language documentary Hitlers Todesbrigaden (2010), made by Andreas Novak, includes a reenacted scene in which Apollinaris bottles appear prominently on a serving tray brought to Nazi officers.

• Mineral water
• Perrier
• Badoit
• Evian
• Farris
• Gerolsteiner Brunnen
• Panna
• San Pellegrino
• Ramlösa
• Spa

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Ward, Artemas (1911). The Grocer's Encyclopedia. Missing or empty |title= (help)