In 1792, Joseph Casali established his eponymous distillery in Trieste, at a time when the port city was an important point of entry and exit within the Habsburg Empire. From the off, Casali oriented itself towards the exotic and the tropical, a peddler of rum for the Austro-Hungarian aristocracy. In 1811, prompted by war and a worsening economic situation in Trieste, Casali relocated his business to Vienna, opening a factory at Margartenstrasse 91 in what is today the city's fifth district. Interestingly, it was only once the company was procured by Adolf Beer in 1913 that Casali pivoted towards the products it is known for today: confectionary. Casali migrated southward to a new factory in Favoriten, the tenth district, in 1935, where they produced their Rum-Kokos -- orbs of chocolate lined on the inside with coconut, hiding a liquid centre made from rum and sugar cane -- and Schokobananen, which as the name rather gives away are banana-flavoured, banana-shaped, chocolate banana candies with a banana filling.
In 1938, after the Anschluss, Beer's business was Aryanised and relocated to another part of Vienna, after which time their facilities was badly damaged under aerial bombardment during the Second World War. As best as I can tell -- since this isn't really something the Casali company publicises, for obvious reasons -- the Beer family made it out of Austria, resettling in Venezuela where they established a new chocolate factory. As such, though the business was restored to them after the War, the Beers sold Casali in 1955 to Franz Andres, head of the rival confectioners Napoli, who created a single institution called, well, Casali-Napoli, a venture which was sold again (hang in there) in 1970 to Manner, makers of the Neapolitanerschnitte, the subject of last week's post. And the next post -- after the Sommerpause -- will pick up the story of Manner, which we last left in 1898, when the Neopolitanerschnitte was invented.
"Strudel, Sugar and Schlag" will return on August 31.
