This principally Western distributed Wild Cherry Tonic was named for Dr. Valentine Mott of New York City, a famous physician and surgeon that practiced medicine from the 1830's through the 1860's.
Mott invented several "open secret" formula's and remedies that he left for anyone to use and sometime in the late 1870's A.H. Powers, a Sacramento California liquor merchant, introduced the Dr. Mott's Wild Cherry Tonic in an embossed sixth size square bottle . The bottle was embossed DR. MOTT'S WILD CHERRY TONIC A.H.POWERS & CO.
Powers only pushed the Mott's tonic for possibly a couple of years and sold the rights to the product to the Spruance Stanley Company.
Spruance Stanley continued to use the Powers bottle with the A.H. Powers slugged out of the glass and replaced with SPRUANCE STANLEY & CO.
Both the Power's and Spruance Stanley examples come with an applied top and the characteristic 2 rivet marks (or dots) on the lower portion of the panel to the right of the embossing. (pictured at left) The Louis Taussig product bottle also comes with the rivet marks in the same place on the same panel suggesting it quite possibly was blown in the same mold.
The Powers and Spruance Stanley examples of the Wild Cherry Tonic are considered "rare" but the Spruance Stanley bottle seemed to be the more difficult of the two examples to put in my collection. If you are looking for a nice pairing of western square sixth's the Powers and Spruance are a fine addition to a western collection.
The A.H. Powers bottle
The Spruance Stanley example
An advertisement for the pioneer liquor house of Wilcox & Powers listing them as sole agents for Dr. Mott's Wild Cherry Tonic
name was changed to A.H. Powers & Co.
name was changed to A.H. Powers & Co.
