Knickerbocker and Merkel Knockwurst

Illustration of a brown sausage with white text across the bottom on a background with blue on the right and left and yellow down the middle with black and red text

In 1959, Knickerbocker Beer and Merkel meat products launched a wide-spread advertising campaign co-promoting their products that included radio, television, and prints ads. Knickerbocker beer was considered to be the most popular beer in America in the early 20th century and was produced by the Jacob Ruppert & Company Brewery located in the Yorkville neighborhood of Manhattan, in New York City. The Ruppert Brewery went out of business in 1965, and though the Knickerbocker brand was acquired by another brewery, it was discontinued in the 1970s. The Merkel Company was a New York-based packer of pork products. Merkel also went out of business in the mid-1960s following the discovery that the company had incorporated horse meat into some of their products. In 1966, Norman Lokietz, former president of the Merkel Company, plead guilty to conspiracy to sell misbranded and mislabeled foods.