Article 12

From Sleaford to Syracuse

Contributed by Steve Woods

Readers of Jonathan Smith’s article in newsletter 7 might be interested to learn of the US reception given to Lee and Green’s New World venture. On the 13th April 1900, the Syracuse Journal headed its report: “Under Two Flags: Syracuse Receives Her English Cousins And Starts A New Concern”.

It goes on: ‘Syracusans are to be treated to a new beverage which is of local decoction, and is made from both home and foreign products. Although it has been known to some who have had the important article, it will now be put on the market from the local branch located at 113 Raynor Avenue. The beverage in question is the world famous brewed ginger beer manufactured by Messrs Lee and Green, who have factories at Bourne, Sleaford, Spalding and Skegness, England. The foundation of the beer is the famous Sleaford water, which has poured forth in undiminished volume for centuries from the boiling spring at that place, and which has been increased in output by artesian wells, and the purity of whose waters is appreciated by all, and attested to by the best medical and expert authority of England. Although the firm manufacture many brands of aerated waters, such as seltzer, lithia, potass, etc, they are willing to stake all on the excellence of their brewed ginger beer, and stand or fall by it.’

The report proceeds (in the custom of the time) to enlist expert medical opinion on the health benefits of this famous beverage. It also suggests that the proprietors had been assiduous in their planning of the new undertaking. ‘Negotiations have been pending for some time regarding the advisability of starting a branch in this city, and the ground has been thoroughly gone over. One of the chief factors in deciding Messrs Lee and Green to locate here is the honey supply. The clover fields about here are productive of the most fertile growth, and the honey made from this clover is of a superior quality to that of the home fields in England…From its pure ingredients and natural method of fermentation, it may be drunk with impunity. The beer is put up in neat stone jugs, and is altogether a most excellent article, comprising both a necessity and a luxury, the latter at a very moderate cost.’ The article makes no mention of the Erie Canal, but it is possible that this waterway, connecting the Hudson River and Lake Erie, was also a factor in the choice of location.

At the risk of putting two and two together and getting XX11, does this Syracuse venture throw any light on our museum’s Lee and Green vessel, which is not a ‘neat stone jug’ but a bottle in the style of a Roman amphora? It may be of course that this otherwise puzzling bottle was designed to stand on a special base. But what it was clearly not designed for was conventional shelf storage alongside the familiar stone bottles. Was this a publicity exercise, a marketing homage to the Graeco-Roman origins of the European Syracuse? A trawl through the Gazette or the almanacs should produce an answer. Early ginger beer bottles are now pricey collector’s items, but SMT’s curio, at present on display in Navigation House, may well be unique.