Soft Drink History

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SOFT DRINKS

Their origins and history

Colin Emmins

Shire Publications Ltd

Spoilt for choice! Sam Earls refreshment stall, about 1900.


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CONTENTS

The distant scene .................................... 3

Sailors, scientists and

soda-water makers .............................. 8

Flavours and mixers ............................. 11The story up to date .............................. 19

Further reading ..................................... 32

Places to visit ........................................ 32

Copyright 1991 by Colin Emmins. Firstpublished 1991. Shire Album 269. ISBN0 7478 0125 8.

All rights reserved. No part of this publicationmay be reproduced or transmitted in any formor by any means, electronic or mechanical,including photocopy, recording, or any infor-mation storage and retrieval system, without per-mission in writing from the publishers, Shire

Publications Ltd, Cromwell House, ChurchStreet, Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire

HP17 9AJ, UK.

Printed in Great Britain by C. I. Thomas & Sons (Haverfordwest) Ltd, Press Buildings, MerlinsBridge, Haverfordwest, Dyfed SA61 1XF.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data: Emmins, Colin. Soft drinks: their origins andhistory. 1. Non-alcoholic drinks, history. I. Title. 641.26. ISBN 0-7478-0125-8.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSIllustrations are acknowledged as follows: A. G. Barr plc, page 27 (top left); Bass Museum ofBrewing, Burton upon Trent, pages 1, 10 (top), 18, 23, 26 and 28; Bath Industrial Heritage TrustLimited, pages 19 (bottom) and 32; Beamish the North of England Open Air Museum, page 21(bottom); Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museums, page 7; Dayla Soft Drinks (Southern) Limited,pages 15 (top), 22 and 29 (top right); courtesy of the Dickens House, London, page 11; EveningStandard Company Limited, page 27 (bottom); Greater London Photograph Library, page 15(bottom); Guildhall Library, London, page 13; History of Advertising Trust, page 16 (bottomright); Hulton-Deutsch Collection, page 5; Trustees of the Imperial War Museum, page 24;R. W. Malster, pages 21 (top right) and 20 (bottom); National Portrait Gallery, London, page 8(above); Newport Museum and Art Gallery Collections, page 21 (top left); Royal Pavilion, ArtGallery and Museums, Brighton, page 10 (bottom); Schweppes Limited, pages 9 (bottom), 12,

17 (top left) and 29 (top left); Benjamin Shaw and Sons Limited, pages 29 (bottom), 30 and 31(top); John Topham Picture Library, pages 2 and 19 (top); Tunbridge Wells Museum and ArtGallery, page 6; courtesy of the Board of Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum, cover andpage 14 (top); Victoria Art Gallery, Bath City Council, page 3; and Winchester Museum ServiceCollection, page 4.

Cover: A manservant buying lemonade for a little girl from two women at a stall c.1835.

Below: The aptly named Mr Philpott delivering aerated waters of his own manufacture, around1900.

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The four rivers of Eden were milk, water,wine and ale. Aerated waters only appearedafter the Fall, according to G. K.Chesterton. How far after he did not record.

Indeed it was not until the late eighteenthcentury that scientific developments en-abled artificially carbonated waters to beproduced and packed in commercial quan-tities. Nonetheless, three different sourcesof liquid refreshment were available well

before then as the precursors of modernsoft drinks. These were small beers, spaand spring waters and fruit-flavoureddrinks.

The human body has a persistent need totake in liquid and it is perfectly possible tosatisfy that need by drinking only purewater. But, even conceding the popularityof natural mineral waters, most people pre-fer to stimulate the palate with a variety offlavoured drinks.

In earlier times it could be dangerous todrink untreated water since it was so fre-quently contaminated. In the middle ages,

therefore, small beers were brewed for thepoor: the water boiled, flavoured with com-mon herbs or leaves nettles, dandelionsand the like and left to ferment before theliquor was drawn off for consumption. Thestrength of the resulting drink would usu-ally be low but then its purpose was not somuch to inebriate as to provide more whole-some refreshment than a suspect water sup-ply.

Nonetheless, references are frequentlydisparaging. Thus Shakespeares Jack Cadesaid: I will make it a felony to drink smallbeer; or Prince Hal: Doth it not showvilely in me to desire small beer? Butthese no doubt were serious drinkers.

Small beers might well be made at homefor family consumption. And when soldthey would be priced as modestly as poss-ible for those who could afford nothingstronger hence farthing ales.

Small beers and herbal brewing contin-ued into the eighteenth century at least,when Dr Tobias Smollett considered ...that

THE DISTANT SCENE

Taking the waters: the Pump Room, Bath, 1784; watercolour by Humphry Repton.

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although the Romans were keener on bath-

ing in the waters than imbibing them.In the seventeenth century curious chem-

ists sought to discover the composition ofvarious mineral waters by analysis. Theyalso found that the mineral salts could some-times be conveniently extracted and soldas such. By 1697, for example, DrNehemiah Grew had analysed the compo-sition of Epsom waters and patented hismethod of extracting their salts. Todaymagnesium sulphate is still popularly

known as Epsom salts although the Epsommineral waters have long ceased to play apart in its manufacture.

which is drank by the common people...inall the wine countries of France, is neitherso strong, nourishing, nor (in my opinion)so pleasant to the taste as the small beer ofEngland. He then rather spoilt the effectby adding that for the preservation of

health, and the exhilaration of the spirits,there is no beverage comparable to simplewater.

Thomas Thetcher, a contemporary ofSmollett, might well have agreed had helived. Instead his tombstone sadly records:

Here sleeps in peace a Hampshire Grena-dier,

Who caught his death by drinking coldsmall beer,

Soldiers be wise from his untimely fall

And when yere hot drink Strong or noneat all.

When exploring New Zealand in 1773Captain James Cook was brewing sprucebeer against the scurvy. From this longtradition came the last vestiges of herbalbrewing today such as dandelion and bur-dock and hop bitters.

Barley water was another drink from thedomestic kitchen. This simple concoctionof pearl barley and water was known at

least as early as 1320 and seems to havesurvived the centuries so modestly as toexcite little remark. Indeed, Thomas Fullerin the seventeenth century considered it aninvention which found out itself, with littlemore than the bare joining the ingredientstogether. In the next century Fanny Burneyreported that George III (Farmer George)refreshed himself with barley water as herode home from a hard days hunting, al-though his courtiers quite failed to share

his enthusiasm for such innocuous refresh-ment in the circumstances.

There is no beverage comparable to sim-ple water, said Dr Smollett, and in his dayspa and spring waters enjoyed a well estab-lished reputation. Spa waters, those con-taining curative mineral salts, were min-eral waters as strictly defined. Spring wa-ters were more likely to be valued for theexceptional purity of the source:

The Malvern water, says Dr John Wall,

Is famed for containing just nothing atall.

Spa waters were known in Roman times

Thomas Thetcher, the Hampshire grenadierand victim of drinking cold small beer, nowlies in Winchester Cathedral graveyard.

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Granny was still brewing her nettle beer at Heysham, Lancashire, in 1954 nettle drink to theexciseman!

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Spas developed as pleasure resorts as wellas curative centres. Samuel Pepys enjoyedthe social side of Epsom Spa as well asvaluing the effect of the waters and half acentury later Daniel Defoe found Epsompatronised more for social than medicinal

reasons. The development of Bath andother spa towns is well known. But manyof the old pleasure gardens of London Sadlers Wells not least among them ad-

joined springs where drinking the watersadded to their attractions.

Spring waters often based their repu-tation on the medieval holy wells. Intwelfth-century London Clerkenwell wasalready among the best known. In Tudortimes Malvern waters were bottled and

Some of them unto Kent; Some were toLondon sent: Others to Berwick went Opraise the Lord! In the next centuryTunbridge waters were bottled and corkedand taken back to London.

By 1700, however, local competition wasalso to be had, to judge from an advertise-ment in The Postman which announced:The Chalybeate Waters at Hampstead be-ing of the same nature and equal in virtuewith Tunbridge Wells and highly approved

by most of the eminent physicians of theCollege, as likewise by many of the gentrywho formerly used to drink TunbridgeWells waters, are by the direction of theTrustees of the Wells aforesaid, for the con-venience of those who yearly drink them inLondon, carefully bottled in flasks and sentto Mr Philps, Apothecary, at theEagle andChild, in Fleet Street every morning (forsale) at the rate of 3d per flask, and broughtto persons houses at 1d a flask more.

In 1684 Dr Thomas Guidot suggestedthat the water of Sadlers Wells might betaken with a few caraway comfits, someelecampane (a form of aromatic bitters) ora little angelica. He suggested that whitewine also should accompany the water andsmokers were recommended to take a pipeof tobacco after drinking. A little later DrPatrick Madan put forward similar propos-als for taking the Tunbridge waters. Whilenone of this suggests that the flavourings

were mixed directly in the waters them-selves, it certainly indicates an already per-ceived need for flavouring.

The third origin of soft drinks lay in thedevelopment of fruit-flavoured drinks. Alater development than either small beersor natural waters, they nonetheless precededthe commercial soft drinks industry by atleast a century. Indeed in Tudor times wefind references to water imperial, whichseems to have been a sweetened drink con-

taining cream of tartar and flavoured withlemons, and also to Manays Cryste, asweetened cordial for invalids which wasflavoured with rosewater, violets or cinna-mon.

At that time cordials were home-madedrinks highly flavoured, syrupy, with theconsistency of a liqueur to tempt the pal-ate of the invalid or to be brought out onspecial occasions. Often more potent thanofficially reckoned, they might if desired

be diluted to taste. They survive commer-cially today in essence-based peppermint,

Taking the waters: the springs at TunbridgeWells in 1664.

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Taking the waters: George III at Cheltenham in 1788.

ginger and clove cordials.It was not until the reign of Charles II

that fruit-flavoured drinks came into theirown, as refreshment houses began to pro-vide an alternative to taverns.

The earliest English reference to lemon-ade dates from the publication in 1663 of

The Parsons Wedding, described by afriend of Samuel Pepys as an obscene,loose play, which had been first performedsome years earlier. The drink seems tohave come to England from Italy via France.Such lemonade was made from freshlysqueezed lemons, sweetened with sugar orhoney and diluted with water to make astill soft drink. In this guise lemonade

continued through the years that followed,prepared, sold and consumed on thepremises rather than bottled to take away.

In the eighteenth century Dr SamuelJohnson was among those who enjoyedlemonade and Michael Kelly, the operasinger, recalled drinking iced lemonade

with a Neapolitan tavern meal in 1779.A natural companion dating from the

early eighteenth century was orangeade, forwhich it was found possible to use orangestoo bitter to be eaten as such. Orange juice,too, came in after the Restoration, Pepysnoting it with approval as a drink new tohim in the 1660s.

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Fruit juices also had a medicinal value. Thestory of lime juice being issued to the RoyalNavy to prevent scurvy and the subsequentnicknaming of British sailors as limeys

has been linked with Captain Cook, whomwe have already noted brewing spruce beeragainst the same wretched disease.

We now know that the secret of citrusjuices in preventing scurvy lies in their vit-amin C content. Their value was remarkedby Elizabethan seamen in the sixteenth cen-tury although the reason remained for long

unknown. In the mid eighteenth centuryJames Lind proved by experiment thatlemon juice cured the scurvy and Sir JosephBanks, when travelling with Captain Cook,

treated himself successfully by this means.But Cook himself was apparently unim-pressed. This was almost certainly becausethe Admiralty, experimenting with a vari-ety of possible cures, supplied citrus juiceto him in the form of a concentrated syrupproduced by boiling the juice, which wasthen preserved with sugar. Thus unwit-tingly the vital vitamin C would have beenboiled away in the effort to meet the practi-cal difficulty of keeping the juice whole-

some on a long voyage.It was not until the 1790s that the anti-scorbutic virtues of lemon juice were offi-cially recognised. Lime juice was found tokeep better and to be cheaper and in themid nineteenth century lime juice mixedwith grog (rum and sugared water) becameby law a part of the seamans diet, althoughit was subsequently found to be less richthan lemon juice as a source of the vitalvitamin.

Several scientists in the latter half of theeighteenth century interested themselves inthe nature of the gas which caused certainof the spa waters to effervesce. In the late1760s Dr Joseph Priestley, Unitarian min-ister and scientist, discovered a means ofartificially carbonating water, which hepublished in 1772 asDirections for Impreg-nating Water with Fixed Air. Later, DrJohn Mervyn Nooth developed an appar-atus for preparing small quantities of effer-

vescent waters and reported to that effectin the Philosophical Transactions of theRoyal Society in 1775.

Among the claims for fixed air was thatit might prove a remedy for scurvy andbottled soda-water was among the articlessalvaged from the wreck of the RoyalGeorge, which sank off Spithead in 1782.The French scientist Antoine Lavoisier lateridentified fixed air as carbon dioxide.

Once the means of carbonating water was

known, and the equipment for doing it wasdeveloped, the way was open for commer-cially manufactured soft drinks.

SAILORS, SCIENTISTS AND SODA-WATER MAKERS

Below: An early bottle of soda-water said tohave been salvaged from the Royal George,which sank off Spithead in 1782.

Above: Dr Joseph Priestley (1733-1804),dissenting minister and scientist, discovered

the means of artificially carbonating water.

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A Manchester apothecary, ThomasHenry, appears to have been the first makerof artificial mineral waters for sale to thepublic, sometime in the 1770s, by combin-ing appropriate mineral salts, carbon diox-ide gas and water. One of his successes

was the commercial manufacture of an ear-lier concoction, Bewleys Mephitic Julep,for which the recipe required 3 drams offossil alkali to each quart (1.1 litres) of wa-ter, and the maker was instructed to throwin streams of fixed air until all the alkalinetaste is destroyed. The mephitic julep wasstrictly medicinal and, according to Henry,effective against putrid fevers, scurvy,dysentry, bilious vomiting etc. Althoughin those days a julep was usually a sweet-

ened medicine, there is no suggestion thatHenrys drink contained sugar.

From the beginning a successful drinkdepended on retaining the gas in the liquidand Henry recommended that all bottles bevery closely corked and sealed. He alsoadvised that the patient should take from 4ounces (113 grams) at a time, drinking adraught of lemonade or water acidulated with vinegar, by which means the fixed air

will be extricated in the stomach. Againthere was no suggestion of incorporating

the lemonade into the mineral water.Towards the end of the 1770s Henry was

also making artificial Pyrmont and Seltzerwaters. His modest commercial activitiesencouraged other apothecaries to make upsoda-water as a sideline throughout the sub-sequent century.

Among the earliest soda-water makersas such were Jacob Schweppe and NicolasPaul, partners operating in Geneva beforemaking their separate ways to England.

Schweppe set up in London in 1792 mak-ing his artificial carbonated waters on whatcould be called a factory scale, and Paulwas operating commercially in London by1802. It is from this period that we canmore firmly date the commercial origins ofsoda-water, a term well established for theproduct by 1800.

By then soda-water had reached Dublin.There an early circular stated: Soda-water of single and double strength was

invented by A & R Thwaites & Co in theyear 1799 and introduced to the public bythe late Robert Perceval Esq MD, then

Early royal warrant for John Webbs soda-water, Brighton, 1821.

Press announcement as Schweppes beginproduction in Bristol, 1803.

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Professor of Chemistry, in his lectures inTrinity College, Dublin in 1800 since whichtime it has continued to receive the appro-bation of the medical faculty. From thesame period another Thwaites advertise-ment also noted Two shillings per dozen

allowed for returned bottles, and Schweppetoo provided for a returnable deposit.

The medicinal tone of soda-water con-tinued. Advertisements in the early nine-teenth century included the following: TheCheltenham salts, which you can procureof Mr Patheyrus, Chemist, of Bond Street,and of him alone, are to the full as effica-cious and conducive to health as the waterfrom the well. However, the Cheltenhamwaters were not universally admired:

Here lies I and my three daughters,Died from drinking the Cheltenham

waters;Had we but stuck to Epsom salts,We wouldnt be lying in these cold vaults.The artificial matching of spa waters

probably reached its zenith in Brighton inthe 1820s when Dr F. A. Struve MD openedhis Royal German Spa and enabled inva-lids to imbibe close imitations of theCarlsbad, Marienbad, Pyrmont, Ems, Selt-

zer, Spa and Kissingen waters, either indi-vidually or in glorious combination, with-out the fatigue of crossing the Channel.

The Royal German Spa, Brighton, about 1835.

Meanwhile, in verse, Lord Byron wasremarking hock and soda-water as a reviverafter a bout of decidedly stronger drinking.

Dr F. A. Struve in fashionable silhouette atthe Royal German Spa, Brighton, 1826.

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The origins of flavoured, artificially car-bonated waters remain obscure but it wasclearly some time before these early prod-ucts left the chemists shop to mingle with

the more frivolous lemonades in the refresh-ment houses of the town.

The need for flavouring has already beenremarked. Sam Wellers opinion of thewaters of Bath, in Charles Dickenss

Pickwick Papers, may be recalled: Ithought theyd a wery strong flavour owarm flat irons. And Mr Smaukers retortwas: That is the killybeate Mr Weller.Chalybeate waters killybeate to MrSmauker were indeed distinguished by

their iron salts.The earliest reference trade historians

have so far found to effervescent lemonadeis in 1833, in which event the unsweetenedsoda-waters would have been unchallengedfor over thirty years, which seems unlikely.

Ginger beer provides a link between thesoda-waters on the one hand and the fruit-flavoured drinks of the commercial manu-

FLAVOURS AND MIXERS

facturers on the other. It seems to have hadits origins among the home brews, althoughin Elizabethan times Barlows Discoveryof Virginia refers to the native Indians

drinking water sodden with ginger in it,and black cinnamon, and some times sas-safras, and divers other wholesome andmedicinable herbs and trees. However,the earliest known reference to ginger beeras such is in aPractical Treatise on Brew-ing published in 1809. By 1813 Leigh Huntwas referring to it as a drink evidently newto him and in the 1820s Charles Lamb men-tioned it among the staple fare of a subur-ban farmhouse putting up a few light re-

freshments for the passing trade.In 1819 the Morning Chronicle adver-

tised: Pitt & Cos Ginger Beer and SodaWater. The public are most respectfullyinformed that they may be supplied withany quantities of these elegant and refresh-ing beverages at the manufactories, 17Giltspur Street, London and 31 High Street,Lewes. The reputation attached to Pitt &Cos Ginger Beer and Soda Water rendersit unnecessary to make any comment on

their superiority and excellence over all oth-ers.

At about the same time ginger beer joinedthe various drinkables hawked on the streetsof London. Soon it was a common featureof any humble refreshment stall and amongthe items available for sale between the actsat the theatre.

The very close link later forged betweenginger beer and schoolboy taste prompts usto ask when it was that soft drinks became

particularly regarded as drinks for the young.It was not evidently in Georgian times. Af-ter dancing before George IV at Brighton,on being asked what refreshment she wouldlike, the twelve-year-old Lady Louisa Russellrequested ham sandwiches and a glass ofport wine negus.

In the 1830s the boys of Rugby Schoolwere still supplied with beer as part of theirstaple diet because the water was consideredunsafe for drinking. Or there was liquorice-

water: a half-pennyworth of liquorice andthe same amount of brown sugar, topped upwith water and shaken with vigour.

Ginger beer and soda-water accompany thestaple products of an oyster saloon; fromDickenss Sketches by Boz, 1836.

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ger beer as the most popular of Britishnon-intoxicating drinks and it was certainlywell regarded as a temperance beverage,but we can only guess whether the popu-larity was in inverse proportion to the non-intoxication. Nowadays manufacturers pro-

duce a more convenient and consistentand non-alcoholic drink from a base of

ginger-beer essence.The early commercially bottled lemon-

ades would have used a base of citric acid,described at the time as concrete acid oflemons, and essential oil of lemon with asugar syrup, the mixture being topped upwith water and impregnated with carbondioxide gas. Despite the many technicaldevelopments of the intervening years, the

lemonades of today are the recognisablesuccessors of the early products.

As these drinks developed during the firsthalf of the nineteenth century, soft drinksoutgrew their medicinal origins and theirprosperous but hitherto limited clienteleexpanded to include all ages and classes.The number of makers expanded accord-ingly. In London alone there were overfifty manufacturers by the 1840s where onlyten had been recorded two decades earlier.

This expansion reflected the gradual in-crease in leisure. It was no coincidence thatat the Great Exhibition of 1851 vast num-bers of people drank lemonade, ginger beer,Seltzer water and soda-water all supplied byMessrs Schweppes, who paid 5000 for theconcession. Wines, spirits, beer and intoxi-cating drinks were forbidden at the CrystalPalace, being evidently out of keeping withthe high purpose of its promoters. As aresult over a million bottles of soft drinks

were sold, representing almost half the com-panys production for that year.

But while Schweppes were an up-marketrange of products, soft drinks were also gain-ing ground at the other end of the socialscale. Costermongers were working the fairsand races with lemonade which they madeat home in stone barrels, and at the Londonmarkets a wide range of soft drinks was be-ing hawked or sold from stalls to refresh theshoppers. In 1851, according to Henry

Mayhew, the customers were chiefly thosewho have a penny to spare rather than thosewho have a penny to dine upon.

Well before the end of the nineteenth cen-tury, however, Jerome K. Jerome consid-ered that the hungry boys idea of a squaremeal would include a bottle of ginger beer.

And ginger beer drawn from the cask re-mained for many a memory of the halcyondays of summer long after it had disap-peared from the market.

An early recipe for ginger beer recom-mends boiling the ginger in water, addingsugar, lemon juice and honey, straining theresultant liquor, adding a little egg whiteand lemon oil and leaving to stand beforeboiling.

Brewed ginger beers could themselves

be alcoholic, whether or not the recipe be-gan, as one did, by taking a quart of brandy.By 1900 the trade press could describe gin-

Handbill announcing Schweppes contract tosupply refreshments to the Great Exhibition(the Crystal Palace), Hyde Park, London,1851.

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A costermonger with a barrow load of ginger beer, Clapham Common, London, 1877. On theright is an umbrella mender.

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Below: Inside a Victorian soft-drinks factory: filling egg-ended bottles with minimalmachinery.

Among the drinkables he noted were tea,coffee and cocoa, ginger beer, lemonade,Persian sherbet, and some highly colouredbeverages which have no specific name,but are introduced to the public as cool-ing drinks; hot elder cordial or wine; pep-

permint water...The nature of the drinks with no spe-

cific name can no longer even be guessed.Sherbets themselves were by origin coolfruit drinks from the East but the name be-came attached to effervescent drinks lat-terly made up from powders consistinglargely of bicarbonate of soda, tartaric acid,sugar and flavourings.

At Billingsgate Mayhew heard the hawk-ers cry Glass of nice peppermint, this cold

morning a hapenny a glass!, and atSmithfield Ginger beer, hapenny a glass!or Iced lemonade here! Iced raspberryade,as cold as ice, hapenny a glass, only ahapenny! Mayhew also noted that sev-eral sellers disposed of their ginger beer inplain glass bottles ... and the liquid wasdrank out of the bottle the moment the corkwas withdrawn, and so the necessity of aglass was obviated.

Above: A street seller of sherbet and water for a halfpenny, Cheapside, City of London, 1893.

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Cooling drinks! A sherbet seller in Greenwich Park in the 1890s.

At the Old Clothes Exchange Mayhewdescribed a gaudy-looking ginger beer,lemonade, raspberry and nectar fountain;a halfpenny a glass, a halfpenny a glass,sparkling lemonade! shouts the vendor asyou pass. The fountain and the glasses

glitter in the sun, the varnish of the wood-work shines, the lemonade really does spar-kle, and all looks clean except the owner.The largest vehicle of the species at Pet-ticoat Lane was of mahogany, the propri-etor reckoning to take between 7 and 8

A full load: Mr E. North (proprietor) and his staff outside Norths Soda Water Manufactory,Aylesbury, sometime before 1880.


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in old halfpennies (that is, 480 halfpenniesto the pound) on a fine Sunday morningbetween six and one oclock.

In the second half of the nineteenth cen-tury mixer drinks developed. By the 1860sbrandy and soda was the drink for gentle-

men and shandygaff

beer and ginger beermixed by the publican was available forheartier thirsts. Already in 1858 MrErasmus Bond had produced and patentedAn improved aerated liquid, known asQuinine Tonic Water, which was put onshow at the International Exhibition of 1862with a catalogue entry including a testi-monial from a Dr Hassall of Wimpole Streetreporting on his analysis of the product andhis belief in the benefits to be derived from

it.The origins of ginger ale are more ob-

scure but cannot pre-date the method ofproducing a clear extract of ginger, sincethe clarity of the drink is a key feature indistinguishing it from ginger beer. It seemslikely, therefore, that ginger ale was first

produced in the 1870s and its origins canbe traced with reasonable assurance to Bel-fast. Certainly by 1900 a trade advertise-ment was asking What go-ahead MineralWater Maker is there who has not at onetime or another longed for the day to come

when he would be able to turn out a GingerAle equal to the world-famous Belfast Gin-ger Ales? Nor was ginger ale scorned bythose who preferred their soft drinks un-adulterated. As a contemporary versifierput it: More mellow, more deliciousdraught, No temperance toper everquaffed.

At the end of the nineteenth century hockand Seltzer was still a fashionable mixer.Phil May, the cartoonist, was drawing his

Scotch and Polly, inspired by the populardrink of the day: Scotch whisky andApollinaris water from Germany. And inthe Caf Royal of the 1890s Oscar Wildewas enjoying whisky and soda whileBernard Shaw sipped his Apollinaris waterunadulterated.

Left: Phil May, leading cartoonist of the 1890s, illustrates a popular mixer: a large whisky anda small Polly Apollinaris water.

Right: The North Pole cannot be reached without lime juice. Roses lime-juice advertisementfollowing Dr Nansens polar expedition of 1895-6.

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BOTTLE-SEALING PROBLEMSEffective sealing of bottles presented

problems from the start. Because the prod-ucts had a tendency to effervesce, particu-larly if subject to secondary fermentation,the corks had to be tight or, better still,wired on to the container. Some early bot-tles were pointed at the base so that theyhad to be stored lying flat, keeping the corksmoist for better sealing.

Ginger beer was especially likely to burstthe cork and was bottled in stoneware con-tainers. London schoolgirls skipped to the

jingle of R. Whites ginger beer goes offpop; a penny on the bottle when you take itto the shop!

Once sealed, opening could be equallydifficult. Towards the end of the nineteenthcentury, the crown cork came into voguefor the smaller returnable bottle still popu-lar today for mixers. While tiger shootingwith the Maharajah of Cooch Behar in the1890s, Lord Frederick Hamilton remarkedthat the howdahs of the elephants were

stocked, inter alia, with bottles of lemon-ade, the openers of which were never for-gotten, clearly a hazard on less well

organ-ised excursions.By the end of the century Hiram Codds

celebrated bottle with the marble stopperin the neck provided perhaps the most in-genious closure ever applied to soft drinksor, as the saying went, to Codds wallop.

Left: Lemon squash frame, advertised by Mappin and Webb in 1890: an elegant addition to thetemperance dining table!

Right: Soft drinks containers: (back, left to right) Codds bottle with marble stopper; stoneginger-beer bottle (returnable, with fired-on price!); tin-topped siphon; (front) egg-ended bottlefor storing on its side, keeping the cork moist.

Seltzogenes: early equipment for makingcarbonated soft drinks at home.

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A bottling line for egg-ended bottles, about 1900.

Soda siphons date from the first half ofthe nineteenth century and even the mod-ern siphon closely follows the design ofthe late nineteenth century. Until the Sec-ond World War siphons were used for arange of mixer drinks and lemonades, not

solely for soda-water.Another ingenious container for domes-

tic use, also relying on the siphon principlefor dispensing its contents, was the gas-ogene, or seltzogene, still occasionally tobe seen (empty now) in old curiosity shops.

Filled bottles on an accumulator table awaiting hand-packing, about 1900.

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Early dispensing equipment for the fair and fete trade around 1895.

Left and right: Trade card and price list for J. B. Bowlers noted Bath waters between theworld wars.

inal equipment and impedimenta of a firmwhich appears never to have thrown any-thing away.

From this and other firms of the periodcomes a vast miscellany of exoticallynamed products, many of them for the

A glimpse of soft-drinks manufacturearound 1900 may today be seen in MrBowlers Business at the Bath IndustrialHeritage Centre, where J. B. Bowler andSons aerated water and cordial factory hasbeen lovingly reconstructed from the orig-

THE STORY UP TO DATE

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A Victorian centenarian testifies to the value of taking the waters.

Mineral-water deliverycart advertised assupplied to the tradearound 1890.

flourishing temperance movement: hore-hound beer, cherry ciderette, winter cheer,banana champagne, football stout andquaker pep, not forgetting orange cham-pagne, described in the Church Times asby many degrees the nicest of its kind.

In winter, even at a workhouse, Christ-mas dinner could include lemonade for thechildren.

On hot summer days grocers prepared

cooling drinks by diluting flavoured crys-tals lemonade and other powders torefresh their customers and primitive dis-pensing equipment was trundled out to fairsand fetes. Thus soft drinks moved furthertowards instant thirst quenching.

But the production of such bygone bev-erages was not entirely free from hazardand neither was their consumption, to judgefrom the following trade advertisement of

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Below: A musical advertisement from the hop-bitters trade around 1920.

Right: A statuesque young lady on a 1913postcard.

Above: A small firms plain andunsophisticated advertisement from a localtrade directory of 1905.

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An art nouveau show card from the early years of the twentieth century.

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1901: Caution!!Arsenic poisoning. Min-eral Water Makers are cautioned againstusing Acids made by treating calcinedbones with vitriol. Phospho-Citric Acid isguaranteed to be absolutely pure and freefrom all injurious matter.

Despite such perils the industry and itscustomers survived and prospered into thetwentieth century. Concentrated fruit drinksbegan to appear. Lime-juice cordial was

available well before the new century be-gan. Then an Australian company began

Loading the carts at Kops yard, Birmingham, around 1900.

Goodbye to the horse? An early steam wagon, precursor of the heavy goods vehicle.

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Basic equipment for filling soda-water bottles in a desert campaign of the First World War,1914-18.

A regimental soda-water factory in the First World War, 1914-18.

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to put up fruit squashes and concentratedlemon squash was introduced into Britain

just before the First World War. In ready-to-drink form, squash had come on to themarket by 1890 as a still, cloudy juice-based

drink. But the new concentrate graduallyannexed the name. After the war orangesquash followed, then pineapple and grape-fruit. It was in the 1930s that grapefruit asa flavour reached the peak of its popular-ity.

In the years before the Second WorldWar another popular product crossed theAtlantic: American cola drinks arrived onthe British market. As a soft drink, kolawith a k was well known in Scotland in the

late nineteenth century. In London kolachampagne was available in the 1890s andat about the same time kola tonic was ad-vertised as containing more nutrient andmore capacity for sustaining life than anyother natural or prepared article. The es-sential flavour of the drink was derived fromthe kola (or cola) nut, a symbol of hospital-ity among the Nigerians.

Meanwhile in the United States manu-facturers were beginning to market carbon-

ated coca drinks with the flavouring ex-tracted from the leaves of the Bolivian cocashrub, which the natives were accustomed

to chew as a stimulant. Then, in 1886, DrJ. S. Pemberton of Atlanta, Georgia, com-bined the coca and the cola into his cel-ebrated brain tonic. Available in Britainin the 1920s at a few soda fountains

Billy Bunter: thewell fed schoolboysenthusiasm for gingerbeer survives thepassing years.

On the beach: a 1930 trade advertisementfor soft-drinks bottles.

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Above: Thomas and Evans began to tradedirect to the homes of South Wales with theirCorona brand in the 1920s.

in Londons West End, its sales in bottleswere modest in the post-Depression 1930sbut its popularity took a firm hold once theAmerican troops arrived in the followingdecade, since when the growth of coladrinks has been assured.

But speciality drinks were by no meansall imported. Scotlands second nationaldrink, iron brew, was first made in the early

years of the twentieth century and Tizer,the invention of a Manchester man, wassuccessfully promoted as a childrens drinkin the 1930s and thereafter. Such drinkswere usually essence-based, combiningvarious fruit and other flavours to the manu-facturers own particular recipe.

In the First World War the Army hadtaken considerable pains to ensure the pro-duction of soda-water for the troops at thefront. The services also encouraged con-

sumption of the new concentrated drinks,more cheaply transported than when readyto drink.

Left: The Corona door-to-door salesmanbefore the Second World War.

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Above left: Scotlands other national drink: a regional favourite in the twentieth century.

In the Second World War the UnitedKingdom soft-drinks industry itself wassubjected to a unique experiment in con-trol. While many products were rationedand others like ice-cream were forbidden,the soft-drinks industry was rationalised:competition was in practical terms elimin-

ated, and a multitude of businesses com-pulsorily closed. The rest traded not undertheir pre-war names but as numbered pro-duction units, rationed for ingredients, pet-rol and almost all the other necessities forproduction and distribution, and selling atprices fixed by the authorities. Profits de-pended on the ingenuity of the manufac-turer in making the most efficient use ofwhat ingredients he could get, a proportionof those profits being shared with the mak-

ers who had been forced to close.After the war many of the closed busi-nesses never reopened. The traditional

Above right: An explanatory advertisement for the unbranded soft drinks sold during the SecondWorld War.

Right: Cartoon by Lee of the LondonEvening News at the ending of the SecondWorld War in 1945.

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The motor lorry enabled the go-ahead manufacturer to deliver further afield: an early vehicledelivering direct to the home.

A direct-supply delivery vehicle of the 1960s.

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Left: The anon-ymity of thisSecond World Warreturn-able SDI(soft drinksindustry) bottle issomewhat belied bythe brandedemboss-ment roundthe bottom.

Right: Show ma-terial for a localbottler in the1960s.

in popularity. Sold as whole-fruit drinks,their flavour was derived not only from the

juice but also from the natural oils extractedfrom the peel as the whole fruit was brokendown to provide the basis of the drink.

horse-drawn vehicle carrying a heavy butinexpensive load traded perforce only inits own locality. Now, speedier produc-tion, mechanised vehicles, lighter packag-ing, all would lead to an ever diminishingband of manufacturers producing a vastlyincreasing quantity.

Wartime conditions gave a further stimu-lus to concentrated drinks which was tocontinue into peacetime. Concentratedblackcurrant juice drinks exploited the vit-amin C available from indigenous sources.

In the 1950s comminuted citrus drinkswere introduced and soon rivalled squashes

A low-volume filler forconcentrated squashes

used during theSecond World Warand after.

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Returnable glassquart bottles beingdischarged from agiant Dawsonbottle washer inthe early 1960s.

Packaging, too, diversified, with non- re-turnable bottles and cans reflecting the su-permarket revolution in retailing. Return-able bottles became lighter and stan-dardised, ceasing to carry the ingenioustrade-marks and manufacturers names hith-erto embossed in the glass. Draught softdrinks were increasingly found in cater-ing outlets and vending machines reachedstill more customers. Plastics were adaptedfor carbonated soft drinks in the form of

polyethylene terephthalate or PETfor short. The market grew for still softdrinks in cartons, bringing squash back to

Another post-war success, bitter lemon,succeeded grapefruit in the flavour range,although popular also as a mixer drink.

Shandy, too, was a post-war success forit was only in the 1960s that Customs andExcise grudgingly allowed the name to beapplied to a pre-packed blend of lemonadeand beer of final proof-spirit content lowenough to be sold lawfully on unlicensedpremises.

Low-calorie soft drinks were also intro-

duced in the 1960s, stimulated by new arti-ficial sweeteners which made them morepalatable to weight-conscious drinkers.

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its ready-to-drink origins.Bottles became easier to open and to re-

seal with the aluminium cap rolled on tothe bottle neck. For cans the ring-pull alsomade opening easier.

The scope of soft-drinks packaging ex-tended to pure fruit juices first in smallglass bottles and later in cartons and tolow- and no-alcohol beers and wines. Spaand spring waters, after languishing for

close on two centuries, have also enjoyed aphenomenal expansion in Britain and tosome of them, too, flavours have beenadded.

Thus, from modest and diverse begin-nings, soft drinks are now perhaps the mostwidely sold products of today.

Above: Cases of soft-drinks cans stacked on to a lorry by hand from a fork-lift truck in the early1960s.

Below: PET plastic bottles were beingproduced by blow-moulding in the soft-drinksplant by the 1980s.

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FURTHER READINGDenbigh, Kathleen. A Hundred British Spas. Spa Publications, 1981.Hedges, A. A. C. Bottles and Bottle Collecting. Shire, 1975.Hoy, Ann. Coca-Cola: the First Hundred Years. The Coca-Cola Company, 1986.Searle, Muriel. Spas and Watering Places. Midas Books, 1977.

Simmons, Douglas A. Schweppes: the First 200 Years. Springwood Books, 1983.Turner, E. S. Taking the Cure. Michael Joseph, 1967.

PLACES TO VISITIntending visitors are advised to find out the opening times before making a special

journey.

Bass Museum of Brewing History, Horninglow Street, Burton upon Trent, StaffordshireDE14 1JZ. Telephone: 0283 45301. Archives also include artefacts and photographsfrom soft-drinks companies now incorporated within Bass plc. Special displays drawnfrom this material are mounted from time to time.

Bath Industrial Heritage Centre, Camden Works, Julian Road, Bath, Avon BA1 2RH.Telephone: 0225 318348. Incorporates Mr Bowlers Business, J. B. Bowlers min-eral-water factory reconstructed from the copious stock of original artefacts.

Birmingham Museum of Science and Industry, Newhall Street, Birmingham, West Mid-lands B3 1RZ. Telephone: 021-236 1022. Includes a display of past soft-drinks manu-facturing equipment.

Buckleys Museum of Shops, 90 High Street, Battle, East Sussex TN33 0AQ. Telephone:04246 4269. Includes stone and glass soft-drinks bottles (some still labelled) and showmaterial in displays of a general store, chemist shop and pub bar.

Museum of Advertising and Packaging (The Robert Opie Collection), Albert Warehouse,Gloucester Docks, Gloucester GL1 2EH. Telephone: 0452 302309. Includes a display

of bygone soft-drinks containers (some still labelled) and advertisements.

Many regional and local museums contain examples of soft-drinks bygones, particularlyglass and stoneware bottles, from past and present soft-drinks manufacturers in thelocality.

Old equipment on show at MrBowlers Business, Bath

Soft Drink History

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