South Australian Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1858 - 1889), Monday 23 December 1872, page 2


THE SOUTH AUSTRALIAN CORDIAL FACTORY.

Messrs. A. M. Bickford & Sons have de- nominated their cordial factory as above. It is situated in Waymouth street, and the premises, which are very complete and commodious, have

been erected by Messrs. King & Blyth, under the superintendence of Mr.D. Garlick, archi- tect. On Saturday we had an opportunity of visiting the Factory, and were exceedingly pleased to see that Messrs. Bickford had erected such substantial premises. The ground upon which the factory stands has about half an acre frontage to Waymouth-street, with an acre depth. The factory buildings, office, stables &c, are built on two sides of the yard, the remaining sides being occupied by large stone bottle racks, where the empty bottles are stored when purchased. These racks are capable of storing 4,000 dozen bottles. In tbe engine room of tbe factory—an apartment about 18 feet square - is a boiler of 3-horse-power, and all the cordials and tonics are boiled by steam in a silver copper tub, which is placed near tbe boiler. This tub - which holds 35 gallons of liquor—is a double tub, the outer one being made of copper, and the inner one of silver, the whole thing being the workmanship of Mr. Linde, of Rundle-street. The liqnor having been boiled—a process which usually occupies about 20 minutes—it is drawn off into hogsheads of 100 or 200 gallons capacity, where it is fined and made ready for bottling. Adjoining the engine-room is the empty bottle room, measuring 28 x 18, where the bottles are washed and placed on draining racks, which will hold 600 dozen bottles at a lime. Tbe bottling room is on the opposite side of the engine-room, and here the various manufactures of the establishment are bottled and prepared for sale. Labels and capsules are placed upon the bottles, which give an artistic appearance to them, and the bottles are packed in cases if necessary. Thence they are carried into the storeroom—a large apartment about 43 x 16, where the bottles await retail use, or the cases await export or wholesale orders. In this room also is stored a stock of crushed loaf sugar, which is used in all the liquors manufactured by Messrs. Bickford. In another portion of the factory we were shown a fermentiag cask for raspberries, the contents of which are used in the manufacture of raspberry vinegar and raspberry balm, for which articles the Messrs. Bickford have deservedly received seve-ral prizes. The factory is placed under the superintendence of Mr. Stephen Bickford, and several boys are employed in the various pro-cesses of cleansing bottles and bottling the liqueurs. The principle articles manufactured are limejuice cordial, raspberry vinegar, rasp-berry balm, peppermint, cloves, lemon, sarsapa-rilla, and a considerable quantity of excellent quinine wine is also made. We are pleased to learn that the demand for these cordials is largely extending, and that this fact has necessi-tated the erection of premises specially for the purpose of manufaetnring them. There is a large local demand, and, in addition to this, Messrs. Biekford export largely to the river districts of New South Wales, also to Western Australia and the Northern Territory.