Excerpts
from Chuck Lyons
The H.G. Hotchkiss International Prize Medal
Essential Oil Company has been processing and bottling peppermint oil
at the same location—on the edge of the Erie Canal in Lyons, Wayne
County—since 1839.
At one
time, company founder, H.G. Hotchkiss, was called the "Peppermint
King," his great-granddaughter Anne says. The company he founded in
this Upstate New York village was, at one time, responsible for about
one half of the annual production of peppermint oil in the United
States. The herb was grown extensively in fields around Lyons, and
the canallers claimed that they could tell when they were approaching
the village by the smell of peppermint in the air.
Lyons, with
a population today of about four thousand people, was then, "virtually
the peppermint capital of America," says Anne Hotchkiss.
Today, the
company’s essential peppermint oil is used almost exclusively as a
flavoring for candy, liqueurs, pharmaceutical products and dental
supplies. An old Hotchkiss slogan claims that, "a single
twenty-one-ounce bottle of the company’s oil will flavor a ton of
candy."
"But there
are still a few people," Anne Hotchkiss says, "who use peppermint oil
as a home remedy.... They say they couldn't get through the winter
without it."
The
essential oil is distilled from the harvested herb with the initial
distillation done near the harvesting site. (The herb must be
distilled within three days of being picked.) The oil is then shipped
to Lyons, where it is further purified and bottled. As a rule of
thumb, one acre of peppermint will produce fifty pounds of oil.
