It probably says something about me that I associate the forthcoming 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo on Sunday 18 June with alcohol more than anything else. I don’t think I’m alone though; British children are no longer taught about the Napoleonic wars at school, but the great names from the conflict are familiar to us from the labels on bottles. For drink marketers, Napoleon is the gift that keeps on giving.
First of all there’s Napoleon cognac: not a brand but a legally defined type of brandy, equivalent to an XO. The story goes that Napoleon was a great cognac drinker and had it sent to him when he was off conquering Europe. The Courvoisier bottle is known as the Josephine in homage to the shape of the Empress’s neck. Napoleon’s maritime nemesis, Nelson, also does sterling work flogging booze. After losing his life at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, his body was pickled in rum and sent back to England. Afterwards rum was known in the Royal Navy as Nelson’s Blood.
There are now a few different brands with Nelson on the label, including one featuring a hirsute one-eyed sailor who looks more like Barry Gibb in his 70s pomp. While stationed in Sicily, Nelson became friends with a merchant called John Woodhouse and picked up a taste for Woodhouse’s wine, marsala. Until the 1920s, the Woodhouse firm marketed a wine called Bronte Nelson.
When Woodhouse learned of Wellington’s victory in 1815, he set aside a solera of the finest wine for VIPs, which he christened Waterloo. The merchants of Oporto had even better reason to honour Wellington, as he had ejected the French from their city in 1809. The 1815 port vintage, a notably good one, was christened the Waterloo vintage. I am sure that much port was spuriously labelled Waterloo vintage to capitalise on the Duke’s fame.
This year, to tie in with the anniversary, Fonseca have just launched a Waterloo Edition finest reserve, which is one of the most delicious budget ports on the market. I am sure the Duke would approve. The prize for most shamelessly playing both sides goes to Hidalgo sherry, who market a Wellington palo cortado and a Napoleon amontillado. Javier Hidalgo, the current head of the firm, told me recently how the Hidalgo family hedged their bets during the Peninsular war and sold sherry to both sides.
Finally, spare a thought for poor Field Marshal von Blücher, commander of the Prussians, whose intervention late in the day at Waterloo proved so decisive. He doesn’t have any drinks named after him, though he is, like Wellington, immortalised in an item of footwear: the blucher shoe.
• Henry Jeffreys’ first book, Empire of Booze, will be published by Unbound in 2016; @henrygjeffreys
- This article was corrected on 15 June 2015. In an earlier version, the subheading said Nelson and Napoleon had fought at Waterloo, when of course it was Wellington who commanded the seventh coalition army against Napoleon.
