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The beginnings of Jan Becher - Karlovarska Becherovka, a.s. reach back almost two hundred years to the first decade of the nineteenth century. In 1807, Josef Becher, a pharmacist from Karlovy Vary, started selling bitters made according to his own original recipe. In 1841, over three decades later, Josef Becher passed on his budding business to his son and heir Johann. Johann started large-scale production, and accordingly it is his name associated with Becherovka right up to the present day. Over the next hundred years (until 1945) company management was passed down the generations of the Becher family. After the war the company was nationalized, and control of the company transferred to a board of management appointed by the state. A new director, Vaclav Lupinek, was appointed at the end of the fifties to take the company into liquidation. Lupinek, however, decided to save the company. The partial privatization of Jan Becher was carried out in 1997, the remaining shares held by the Czech government being due for transfer in early 2001. Chance seems to stand at the head of many a great historical event. One such piece of luck brought the Imperial Count Plettenberg-Mietingen on a visit to Karlovy Vary in 1805, bringing with him an eccentric English doctor by the name of Frobrig. It must have been coincidence that the count and his personal physician Frobrig put up at the House of the Three Skylarks, which, by another piece of fortune, belonged to our Josef Becher, Karlovy-Vary pharmacist. Becher and the easily bored Dr Frobig soon became close friends united by a common passion: inventing blends of herbs, aromatic oils, and alcohol. Taking his leave of Karlovy Vary a while later, Dr Frobig gave his companion a piece of paper. 'This preoccupied me somewhat,' said the Englishman with the cool composure his fellow countrymen are famous for, before disappearing from Josef Becher's sight for all eternity. There was an inkling of something truly inspired in Frobrig's blend of herbs and alcohol, and over the next two years Josef Becher went on to spend all his spare moments experimenting with the secret recipe. Then, in 1807, Josef Becher started selling cordial drops at his pharmacy according to his own recipe. Initially, his liqueur bore the names Carlsbad English Bitter, Carlsbad Bitter, English Bitter, and even the German name Original Karlsbader Becherbitter. In short, Karlovy Vary Becherovka had seen the light of the world. |
