Sam Brinks graduated from the University of Wisconsin: La Crosse in 2016, and now substitute teaches in districts across southwest Wisconsin. He has been an avid explorer of history since a young age, and is a great addition to any trivia team.

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Early Horlick’s Malted Milk containers, c. 1900.

OBJECT HISTORY: Horlick's Malted Milk

Invented in 1873 by British food manufacturer William Horlick, malted milk is made from wheat and malted barley extract mixed with reduced, dry whole milk.

Official letterhead of what was then known as the Horlick’s Food Company, 1895.

Horlick's Malted Milk Company

Founded in 1873, under the name “J & W Horlick Company,” the Horlick’s Malted Milk Company was the creation of brothers William and James Horlick. The company specialized in producing malted milk as a nutritional supplement in a variety of forms: from simple powdered malted milk, to special tablets called “diastoids” (after the diastatic enzymes that break starches down into sugar).

William Horlick, the father of malted milk, in Racine, Wisconsin, c. 1910. Photograph courtesy of the Wisconsin Historical Society, Image ID: 23698

The Father of Malted Milk

In 1875, William Horlick convinced his brother James, a chemist at a baby food company in England, to come to Chicago to help with a new product idea. William and James founded the J & W Horlick Company in Chicago.