Wright's Liquid Smoke

Wright's Liquid Smoke is a brand of liquid smoke in the United States. It was a pioneering product and established the commercial distribution era of pyroligneous acid under a new term, liquid smoke that subsumed it with its introduction by E.H. Wright in 1895. Among Wright’s innovations were the standardization of the product, marketing and distribution. Wright’s liquid smoke and its modern-day successors have always been the subject of controversy about what they are and how they are made. In 1913, Wright prevailed in a federal misbranding case. Case judge Van Valkenburg wrote:

The Government, in trying to show that this is not smoke produced by combustion, has shown that it is produced in exactly the same kind of way that is stated on that label. The fact is that they have produced something here which they say has something of the flavor and properties similar to the curative properties of smoke; they get it out of wood and they get it by distillation and it turns out to be a substance like, if not exactly identical with pyroligneous acid. Well, nobody could be deceived into thinking it was specifically what the indictment charges they are being deceived with. It is a thing which is produced in such a manner from the art and methods employed in it, that the application of the term “smoke” to it seems to me to be apt or applicable instead of deceptive, and it does not deceive in the sense this statute implies.

Historically, all pyroligneous acid products, Wright’s product, and many other condensates have been made as byproducts of charcoal manufacturing which was of greater value. Chemicals such as methanol, acetic acid and acetone have been isolated from these condensates and sold. But with the advent of lower cost fossil fuel sources, today the wood derived chemicals retain only small niches.

Wright's is owned by B&G Foods, a holding company of food businesses and brands.