Celebrated Crown Stomach Bitters – F. Chevalier Sole Agent

17 January 2016

Here is a nice connection with whiskey and bitters bottles submitted by FOHBC Treasurer, Gary Beatty. I worked on the pictures a little bit to work with the post. The caption for the stained glass window above, “[Fig: 8] Stained glass OLD CASTLE WHISKEY sign from F. Chevalier & Co. (San Francisco, California 1885-1915)” – Ken Schwartz collection.

Ferd, here are a few photographs of the “CELEBRATED CROWN BITTERS.” In the January-February issue of BOTTLES and EXTRAS there was a great article on Ken Schwartz Whiskey collection. Below the stained glass sign for “Old Castle Whiskey” was the name of the company, F. Chevalier & CO. I have a rare bitters I purchased from a Port Angeles Washington dealer a couple of years ago. It is the “CELEBRATED CROWN BITTERS, F. CHEVALIER & CO. SOLE AGENTS. Bill Ham has it in his Bitters Bottles Supplement as C93 and listed as rare? I believe it is extremely rare. I have only seen one other? It is in a red amber, like the western Lash’s Bitters (see below). Sorry I could not get better pictures. You will have to look close to see Celebrated Crown Bitters and F. Chevalier Sole Agent embossings.

Best Regards. Gary Beatty

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The Carlyn Ring and W.C. Ham listing in Bitters Bottles Supplement is as follows:

C 93  CELEBRATED CROWN BITTERS

CELEBRATED / CROWN BITTERS // f // F. CHEVALIER & CO. / SOLE AGENTS // f //
8 7/8 x 2 3/4 (6 7/8) 3/8
Square, Amber, LTC, Applied mouth and Tooled lip, 2 sp, Rare
There are three rivet marks down the center between the embossed lines on both sides.
F. Chevalier & Co., San Francisco, California

Read: Fortune Chevalier and the Picture Castles 1890-1919

History of the New California – Its Resources and People, Volume II

The Lewis Publishing Company – 1905, Edited by Leigh H. Irvine

The F. Chevalier Company, of San Francisco, which is now one of the most complete wholesale liquor houses in the west, is likewise one of the oldest firms of the kind on the Pacific coast, and it has a history of as long-coninued and successful existence as can be instanced by almost any commercial enterprise in California.

The firm of F. Chevalier and Co. was founded in Placerville, California, by the late Fortune Chevalier, in the year 1857. The business was shortly afterward moved to Sacramento and there carried on till 1870, when the increasing importance of the house and its expanding operations necessitated its removal to San Francisco. In 1872 their celebrated Castle whiskies were protected by a trade-mark deposited in the United States patent office at Washington, and since then re-registered and filed for record, and from that date the firm, by progressive methods and honorable dealings, has steadily widened its scope of usefulness and added to its resources.

The firm now occupies the centrally located and spacious quarters at Nos. 9, 11, 13 and 15 Beale street, San Francisco, and has traveling representatives covering the entire Pacific coast, besides resident agents at various centers throughout the eastern states. Much attention has also been devoted by this progressive house to the manufacture of a full line of cordials, liquors, cremes, syrups, essences, fruit juices and other delicacies in demand in the up-to-date saloon and cafe of the period, so that, although primarily whiskey merchants, the F. Chevalier Co. have also succeeded in making their establishment a complete liquor house, where every liquor liable to be required by the dealer may be found in stock, representatibe of the finest types and at rates equal to those of even any house making a specialty of such articles.

The company also owns the picturesquely situated Chateau Chevalier vineyards, near St. Helena in the foothills of Napa county, California, and which are planted out with the best varieties of vines, from which are produced the Chateau Chevalier wines, well known and appreciated locally as well as in the eastern states.

The F. CHEVALIER CO. CASTLE WHISKEY SAN FRANCISCO, two different variants. Tooled tops. – American Bottle Auctions

L37 Lash’s Kidney & Liver Bitters – Meyer Collection