This is part three of a three-part deep dive series into the early history of soft drinks in the United States. In part one, I covered Coca-Cola and its namesake ingredient, the Coca Leaf, or cocaine. In part two, I discussed the many early Coca-Cola imitators and Coke’s battle to destroy them. In this part of the series, I share some of the history of drugs in other early sodas besides just Coca-Cola.
As I stated in the last part, Coca-Cola did not invent the idea of putting drugs into a soda pop. No, indeed. The soft drink was, at first, more of a means of making the drugs go down better than creating a refreshing beverage. That some of the earliest soda pop formulations were tasty and refreshing was simply the cherry on top.
In those days, soft drinks were not sold in bottles but mixed by at the sofa fountain of a pharmacy. So, in other words, early soda fountains were nothing more than a way to deliver “medicinal” chemicals to customers in a palatable (and refreshing) form.
Early sodas tended to taste more medicinal but this was owed to the fact that distilled herbs or root extracts in alcohol were preferred and these procedures tended to produce a medicinal taste.
Fruit syrups that could be stored were harder to produce as when fruits were “extracted” a jelly-like substance tended to form. Fruit syrups would require a fresh syrup to be made every day.
Over time, this too changed as new manufacturing methods were adopted and a much wider array of flavors became available. The taste of the sodas became the main focus. Yet some other familiar sodas of today contained weird stuff as well. If you thought cocaine is shocking, how about some lithium in your soda?
What exists today as 7up started out as Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda. The advertising slogan? Take the ‘ouch’ out of grouch!
It still contained lithium up until 1950. It just so happens that a daily dose of 7up, back in the day, may have slowed the progression of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). Go figure. It was obviously marketed as a mixer for the questionable hootches that were sold during prohibition, and no doubt the lithium was not only supposed to prevent or cure hangovers, but give the drinker the perception of protection from what could very well be poison.
Carbonated “Soda” Water
It was all thanks to soda water, which was itself considered a health drink during the 1820’s and 30’s, as they were supposed to mimic the healthful natural mineral waters from springs.
Carbonic acid gas had been discovered as early as 1520 but it was not until 1867 that Joseph Priestly of Birmingham, England, managed to make the first drinkable carbonated water.
Bottled carbonated water began being sold by Jacob Schweppe of Switzerland, a company that still markets soda waters, Ginger Ale, and others today.
Ginger and lemon were among the first flavorings to be added to the soda water, and Lemon’s Superior Sparkling Ginger Ale was the first soft drink to be trademarked in the United States, in 1871.
Ginger Ale was the most popular marketed drink for many years, even prior to Coca Cola and other soft drinks. Vernors Ginger Ale lays claim to being the oldest soft drink in the United States, having been invented in 1865, but this claim seems fairly sketchy and although Vernors is probably a bit older than Coca-Cola or Dr Pepper, it’s near impossible to say what soft drink is truly the oldest.
Some sources claim that soft drinks were invented much, much earlier, in the 1600’s such as the lemonade drinks sold by Compagnie de Limonadiers of Paris in 1676.
These non-carbonated lemon drinks could only be called ‘soft-drinks’ however, if they were marketed as an alternative to hard liquors, which is what the term “soft” means in soft drink.
Ginger was one of the first roots used to flavor soda water, long before the cola root, or, for the bold, gentian, like in Moxie, all of which were meant to make this health tonic taste better. Soon, however, the soda fountains became a social destination and the soda’s themselves found their way into bottles.
Close on the heels of Coca-Cola’s success was Dr. Pepper, which had actually been sold a full year earlier than Coke; and Hires Root Beer, among others. 1Morgenson, Gretchen. The Capitalist’s Bible: The Essential Guide to Free Markets—and Why They Matter to You. New York: Collins Business, 2009. 2Hays, Constance L. The Real Thing: Truth and Power at the Coca-Cola Company. New York: Random House, 2005 3Bodden, Valerie. The Story of Coca-Cola. Mankato, MN: Creative Education, 2009. 4Dean, Norman L. The Man behind the Bottle: The Origin and History of the Classic Contour Coca-Cola Bottle as Told by the Son of Its Creator. [Bloomington, IN]: Xlibris, 2010. 5Doweiko, Harold E. Concepts of Chemical Dependency. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole, 2012. 6Spillane, Joseph. Cocaine: From Medical Marvel to Modern Menace in the United States, 1884-1920. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP, 2000. 7Abrams, Ann U. Formula for Fortune How Asa Candler Discovered Coca-cola and Turned It into the Wealth His Children Enjoyed. Iuniverse, 2012 8Young, Andrew T. and Levy, Daniel, Explicit Evidence on an Implicit Contract (June 21, 2010). Emory Law and Economics Research Paper No. 4-05; Bar Ilan Univ. Pub Law Working Paper No. 8-05. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=739984 or https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.739984 9The Northwestern druggist: A progressive journal for retail druggists, Volume 14. January, 1913. <web link> 10Foster, Robert John. Coca-globalization: Following Soft Drinks from New York to New Guinea. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.