Mr William Glendenning, the creator of the once famous ‘Beevinalt’, spent a very long time researching the concept of combining Beef and wine together to make a ‘Wonderful Tonic’. I can imagine you are pulling the same disgusted face I did when I read of this… lovely beverage.
William Glendenning’s creation was made possible with his life-long experience in the wine trade as well as a deep study of the chemical value of foods. William perfected a process of combining a special type of Alto Douro port with beef jelly and malt extract and called it Beevinalt.
Why Would Anyone Drink This?
I know what you are thinking… Not for me thank you, but thankfully it was mostly aimed at the less fortunate to drink as it was said to help with epilepsy in children, anaemia and patients convalescent from severe illness. A doctor quoted:
I have much pleasure in testifying to the highly gratifying results obtained by the use of your Beer and Malt Wine. Having recommended it in my practice for some time now, I can safely assert that it is a highly nutritious and excellent combination – most useful in many cases of wasting disease and exhaustion. I can confidently recommend it to the medical profession”
The Competition of Beef Wine
As a result of the raving reviews for Beevinalt, cheap alternatives were popping up all over the country to try and get a cut of the trend. The major winning feature of Beevinalt was that they used high quality ingredients and only the best wines.
Now, how did Beevinalt make sure it was the leader in the market and continuted to grow? The best move that the company made was to appoint Mr Friend as Glendenning’s Manager and Agent for Scotland. Mr Friend had been associated with the company for around 17 years and knew the market very well.
At first, Mr Friend has a premises on Commercial Street in Dundee, but because of the growth of the company, the premises were moved to Glasgow.
The secret to the growth of the company was to have a personal touch with their customers. Mr Friend would contact EVERY customer regularly to check up on them and use that as a way to get more orders in, in a non-pushy way!
What do you think this drink would taste like? What would the consistency have been? I don’t imagine they would have masked the taste very much to make it more pleasurable to drink back then…
To read other stories from the past, check out our other articles here
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