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A Sports Dispute Started the Cuban Missile Crisis and Other Odd Facts

Khalid Elhassan October 28, 2019 31 min

34. Jagermeister Was Named After Hermann Goering

The famous (or infamous, depending on one’s outlook) Jagermeister has achieved a semi-iconic status as a staple of college frat parties and ski lodge bashes. The flagship product of German liquor company Mast-Jagermeister, many might know that the drink’s name means “Hunt Master”, but far fewer know that it was named after Hitler’s second in command, Herman Goering.

The company traces its roots to the small town of Wolfenbuttel in Lower Saxony, where one Wilhelm Mast founded a wine vinegar business in 1878. In 1934, his son Curt was working in his father’s struggling enterprise, when he came up with a new concoction of traditional herbal liqueurs that had been used medicinally for centuries. That took the enterprise in a new direction, and in the process created Jagermeister as we know it today.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.