Asbach ancient
| Asbach GmbH
|
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|---|---|
 |
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| legal form | GmbH |
| founding | 1892 |
| Seat | Rudesheim am Rhein , Germany |
| sales | EUR 18.4 million (2013) |
| Branch | spirits |
| Website | www.asbach.de |
Asbach Uralt is the brand name of the oldest German brandy , named after the company's founder Hugo Asbach , who founded an "Export Company for German Cognac" in Rüdesheim am Rhein in 1892 . After several company sales, Asbach GmbH is now a subsidiary of Semper idem Underberg AG .
history
Hugo Asbach was a distiller by trade and had lived for some time in France, where he learned how to make cognac . He then went into business for himself in Germany. His goal was to produce German cognac that is equivalent to French products. The products were initially marketed as "Rüdesheimer Cognac". The company was initially a family business before the wine merchant Albert Sturm became a partner in 1905. 1907 Asbach invented the term brandy as a German name for cognac and let him just as the name Asbach ancient as trademarks with the Patent Office Register, where ancient for long aging period the wine was. Asbach initially only used the term "brandy" in addition, since the term was still unknown to consumers, and spoke of "brandy-cognac".
Even before the First World War , advertisements referred to “old German cognac”, but after the war the Versailles Treaty expressly forbade German manufacturers from continuing to use the term cognac . This made brandy a general term in Germany. In 1923 it was included in the German wine law.
In an advertisement that appeared in Lustige Blätter on April 21, 1921 , Hugo Asbach commented on the final name change:
- “The French cognac industry may hope that this will eliminate competition from German distillers. This hope will disappoint. The pre-existing bias of the German consumer for everything foreign has given way to a better understanding of cognac as well. This will preserve the German economy worth millions that would otherwise go uselessly abroad. "
In 1924 Asbach invented the brandy praline with alcohol filling, which was primarily intended for female customers who otherwise would not drink brandy. However, the chocolates were soon accepted by men too. In addition to being perceived as a separate product, the Asbach praline was also seen as an advertisement for the brandy.
Hugo Asbach died in 1935, and his two sons Hermann and Rudolf and Franz Boltendahl took over management of the company.
In 1937 the advertising slogan Im Asbach-Uralt was invented, the spirit of wine , which is still used today.
In the course of the Second World War , Asbach production had to be stopped in 1943; it was not resumed until 1950.
In the 1950s, the company also advertised on television with the slogan “When so much good happens to you - it's worth an Asbach Uralt”, which also remained unchanged for decades.
In 1957 the Rüdesheimer coffee was invented, a coffee specialty with Asbach Uralt.
In the 1980s, sales fell, and in 1991 the family sold the company to the British company United Distillers , a subsidiary of the Diageo group.
In 1999 Asbach went 50 percent each to Underberg and the Dutch company Bols Royal, which belonged to Rémy Cointreau until 2006 . In March 2002 Underberg took over Asbach completely through an option on the 50 percent of the shares in Bols.
In 2001 5.4 million bottles of Asbach were sold in Germany alone. Current sales figures are not available.
Since 2002, Asbach Uralt has received the Most Trusted Brand award from readers of Reader's Digest every year in the spirits sector .
The brand Asbach ancient is so well known in Germany that the term “Asbach” is often used in everyday language in the form of a synonym for “ancient”. Since the end of 2011, the company has been trying to detach the Asbach brand from the associated attribute "ancient", but without changing the "Asbach Uralt" label on the label. In April 2020 Asbach Uralt underwent a relaunch of the longstanding figurehead and now comes with a more modern and contemporary design. In addition, the liquid was adjusted. The alcohol volume drops by two percentage points to 36 percent, which robs the Asbach Uralt of the protected designation “German brandy”, which requires an alcohol content of at least 38 percent.
documentation
Hessischer Rundfunk (radio television, film by Simone Jung)
Web links
- Asbach Uralt website
- Early documents and newspaper articles on the Asbach Uralt in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
Individual evidence
- ↑ 2014 annual financial statements in the electronic Federal Gazette , at www.bundesanzeiger.de , accessed on November 21, 2015
- ↑ Michael Weisser: Advertisements from the turn of the century. Hanover 1981, p. 294
- ↑ The traditional Asbach brand no longer wants to be ancient - welt, August 8, 2011
- ↑ Editor: News: Asbach Uralt is relaunched. January 22, 2019, accessed on June 9, 2020 (German).
- ↑ The Asbach-Uralt-Geschichte - Der Geist von Rüdesheim on YouTube, 44:25 min., From the series: Stories from Hessen . Retrieved July 17, 2018