Delikatessenhaus Rüdiger

Delikatessenhaus Rüdiger was a long-established merchant and delicatessen business in Buxtehude, Lower Saxony. The Swinegel Köm bottle carries the date 1873, and records in the Lower Saxony State Archives independently document Hermann Rüdiger, Kaufmann in Buxtehude, in that same year. The archival material records several financial transactions involving Rüdiger, confirming that he was already active as a merchant in the town in 1873.

The business is documented more formally in 1911, when the Deutscher Reichsanzeiger recorded the firm Hermann Rüdiger in Buxtehude’s commercial register, with Hermann Rüdiger identified as its merchant proprietor. A surviving historical postcard also identifies a Hermann Rüdiger Geschäft on Buxtehude’s Ostfleth, providing a visual record of the business in the old town.

By the time of the Swinegel Köm bottling, the business was operating as Delikatessenhaus Rüdiger at Breite Straße 6 in Buxtehude. The available records identify Rüdiger as a merchant and delicatessen business rather than as a distillery, and no evidence has yet been found that the company operated its own spirits production.