Gordon Siegert, great great grandson of the founder of the legendary Angostura aromatic bitters, Johann GB Siegert, officially opened the new bitters bottling facility at the House of Angostura.This is the first time that the bitters bottling line has been separated from the rum bottling line with brand new state of the art equipment installed.The last upgrade, using second-hand equipment purchased from Jacksonville, took place 17 years ago.Employees all put down their tools and came over to the main building to witness the interfaith service and official cutting of the ribbon done by Ioan Lloyd, senior manager in charge of maintenance, Vidia Doodnath, former executive and director of Angostura, Robert Wong, CEO, and Gordon Siegert.
Gordon was the last Siegert to work with the company before resigning in 1990.This new line was built exclusively for bitters products and is located close to the bulk bitters manufacturing facility so that the product can be piped directly across to be bottled and packaged.The maintenance team felt they had the expertise and experience to construct and install the plant themselves and were able to save money for the company. The project was done in a reasonable timeframe, within budget and was mostly accident free.This facility has been designed to be self-sufficient with its own rinser, filler capper block unit, case former and case packer.It houses a tank room, packaging material warehouse, bottling line and finished goods warehouse with room for expansion as new products and sizes in the bitters family are developed.It is fully automated with at least 50 per cent more output than the previous bottling line.