# Vinegar Bitters  or Very Best - Walkers



## epgorge (Apr 29, 2007)

Here is a bottle I have had for some time and have no idea whether it is a vinegar bitters or a "very best", of Walkers. 

 Here is the bottom and only embossment on the bottle.
 Ep


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## epgorge (Apr 29, 2007)

the bottle, blurred as it is... I need to get a tripod next, I guess.


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## epgorge (Apr 29, 2007)

It stands abot 8.5 inches tall. It has an applied neck and what appears to be a tooled ringed lip. 

 It is dark in color almost a grey and its embossment, only on the bottom is 
 J. WALKER'S V.B.
 encircled around the bottom of the base.


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## GuntherHess (Apr 29, 2007)

It is vinegar bitters. It was a non-alcoholic bitters marketed as part of the temperance movement. There should be quite a bit of info out there on it if you want to research it.


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## epgorge (Apr 29, 2007)

Thanks GuntherHess..Now here is a statement if I have ever heard one...

 A letter from the commish to Hostetter and Smith, taken from toadstool milionaires.  Chapter nine  
http://www.quackwatch.org/13Hx/TM/09.html

 "They can talk about Shakespeare, but in my opinion old Hostetter -- and Ayer -- had more influence on the national life than any of 'em."-- Uncle Henry, in Collier's Weekly​TO draw the line nicely, and fix definitely where the medicine may end and the alcoholic beverage begin, is a task which has often perplexed and still greatly perplexes revenue officers, and especially where a preparation contains so large proportion of alcoholic spirits as yours does.-- Commissioner of Internal Revenue to 
 Hostetter & Smith, August 22, 1883 [1]​


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## LC (Apr 30, 2007)

I didn't know that VB was a non-alcoholic Bitters Matt, I thought they were all for the most part all alcohol. The Walker's was the first bitters I found when I started collecting thirty years or so ago.

http://www.freewebs.com/yesterdaystreasures/index.htm


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## CALDIGR2 (Apr 30, 2007)

Walker's VB was the brainchild of Joseph Walker, a doctor(?) who came to California during the rush of 1849, first to look for easy gold and then to ease into the medical profession. He initially worked in the area of Angel's, in Calaveras County. In 1866 he removed to Stockton and began bottling his "California Vegetable Renovating Bitters", which at first sold locally. It became popular so he went to Sacramento and convinced R.H. McDonald, who owned a wholesale drug manufacturing business, to produce the bitters in quantity. It was McDonald who first had the embossed bottles blown and began moving the product in fall of 1866. In 1867, Walker mover to San Francisco to begin promoting the bitters. His strong advertising campaign, pushing the non-alchololic idea, cause sales to soar.

 The Walker's VB bottles are everywhere and are extremely common. They do come in some WOW colors, that can range ft from clear flint glass to rich cornflower blue and every hue in between. Common aqua specimines go for less than $10, but the wilder greens and other colors will approach several hundred. Walker ended up with sales offices in Chicago and N.Y., hence the bottles being found all over the US.


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## GuntherHess (Apr 30, 2007)

> I didn't know that VB was a non-alcoholic Bitters Matt, I thought they were all for the most part all alcohol. The Walker's was the first bitters I found when I started collecting thirty years or so ago.


 
 Here is a nice page from odell's site...
http://www.bottlebooks.com/temperance/temperance.htm

 Even though VB was promoted as a temperance drink you can see from the analysis that it still contained 6% alcohol (but less than most others). The alcohol  may have been present as part of the extraction process for the herbs.  There is a nice ad for it at the bottom. It plainly states no alcohol. Dr Walker was a liar just like all the others peddling thier crap then and now. 

 One thing i always found interesting on walkers bottles was that you find them with really crude applied lips even though they were made at a time when most bottles had uniform tooled lips. it makes them look much older than they really are. I always wondered if he imported the bottles from a country that used older glass techniques. Reminds me of the bitterquelle bottles a little.


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## LC (Apr 30, 2007)

> bitterquelle bottles


 
 I have a Hunyadi Janos bitterquelle bottle that does not have a neck like the Walker VB, it has a regular looking blob top, a very crude and attractive looking bottle. I am sure there are all types of different tops on different bottles though. I thought I had found a really old bottle years ago when I found the Walker's V.B., but as you state, found out later it was not all as old as it look. 

http://www.freewebs.com/yesterdaystreasures/index.htm


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## GuntherHess (Apr 30, 2007)

I didnt mean to imply that bitterquelles looked like the walkers. I simply meant they both bottles exhibited an older technique of glass making than was typically being done in the USA at the time they were made. If I dug that Walkers in my photo and didnt know better I would date it at 1870s +/- 10yrs


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## LC (Apr 30, 2007)

Yes, I clearly understood what you posted Matt, I guess my post just came off wrong as to how I typed it.


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