Hires Root Beer is a
soft drinkA soft drink is a non-alcoholic beverage that typically contains water , a sweetener, and a flavoring agent...
which is currently marketed by
Dr Pepper Snapple GroupDr Pepper Snapple Group Inc. is an American soft drink company, based in Plano, Texas.It was spun off from Britain's Cadbury Schweppes, on May 5, 2008, with trading in its shares starting on May 7, 2008...
. The manufacturer considers it the longest continuously made soft drink in the United States; however,
Vernor'sVernors ginger ale is America's oldest surviving soft drink. It was created in 1866 by James Vernor, a Detroit pharmacist.- History :Although Vernors is the oldest surviving ginger ale sold in the United States, there were a number of brands of ginger ale and ginger beer sold in commerce prior to...
ginger ale (currently also owned by Dr Pepper Snapple Group) is even older dating back to 1866.
History
Hires Root Beer was created by
PhiladelphiaPhiladelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
pharmacistPharmacists are allied health professionals who practice in pharmacy, the field of health sciences focusing on safe and effective medication use...
Charles Elmer HiresCharles Elmer Hires was an early promoter of commercially prepared root beer. He was a pharmacist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania who formulated the eponymous Hires Root Beer beverage on May 16, 1866....
. Hires first tasted
root beerRoot beer is a carbonated, sweetened beverage, originally made using the root of a sassafras plant as the primary flavor. Root beer, popularized in North America, comes in two forms: alcoholic and soft drink. The historical root beer was analogous to small beer in that the process provided a drink...
, a traditional American beverage dating back to the colonial era, while on his honeymoon in 1875. By 1876, Hires had developed his own recipe, and he was marketing 25-cent packets of powder which each yielded five gallons of root beer. At Philadelphia's
Centennial ExpositionThe Centennial International Exhibition of 1876, the first official World's Fair in the United States, was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from May 10 to November 10, 1876, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia. It was officially...
in 1876, he cultivated new customers by giving away free glasses of root beer. Hires marketed it as a solid concentrate of sixteen wild roots and berries. It claimed to purify the blood and make rosy cheeks. In 1884, he began producing a liquid extract and a syrup for use in
soda fountainA soda fountain is a device that dispenses carbonated drinks. They can be found in restaurants, concession stands and other locations such as convenience stores...
s, and was soon shipping root beer in kegs and producing a special fountain dispenser called the "Hires Automatic Munimaker." In 1890, the Charles E. Hires company was incorporated and began supplying Hires root beer in small bottles.
But Hires's choice of name for his product caused a problem: the word "beer" drew the wrath of the
temperance movementA temperance movement is a social movement urging reduced use of alcoholic beverages. Temperance movements may criticize excessive alcohol use, promote complete abstinence , or pressure the government to enact anti-alcohol legislation or complete prohibition of alcohol.-Temperance movement by...
. He had his root beer tested by a laboratory, and trumpeted their conclusion that a glass of his root beer contained less alcohol than a loaf of bread.
Hires Root Beer was promoted as "The Temperance Drink" and "the Greatest Health-Giving Beverage in the World." Hires advertised aggressively, believing "doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark.
You know what you are doing, but nobody
ELSE does."
One of the major ingredients of root beer was
sassafrasSassafras is a genus of three extant and one extinct species of deciduous trees in the family Lauraceae, native to eastern North America and eastern Asia.-Overview:...
oil, a plant root extract used in beverages for its flavor and presumed medicinal properties. The medicinal properties of root beer are emphasized in the advertising slogan, "Join Health and Cheer/Drink Hires Rootbeer." Ironically, the U.S.
Food and Drug AdministrationThe Food and Drug Administration is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, one of the United States federal executive departments...
banned sassafras oil in 1960 because it contains the carcinogen and liver-damaging chemical safrol. However, a process was later discovered by which the harmful chemical could be removed from sassafras oil while preserving the flavor.
Hires Root Beer kits, available in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Canada from the early 1900s through the 1980s allowed consumers to mix an extract with water, sugar and yeast to brew their own root beer. However, most consumption was of pre-bottled root beer.
Consolidated Foods bought the company from the Hires family in 1960, only to sell Hires two years later to Crush International.
Procter & GambleProcter & Gamble is a Fortune 500 American multinational corporation headquartered in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio and manufactures a wide range of consumer goods....
bought Crush in 1980, and sold it to
Cadbury SchweppesCadbury is a confectionery company owned by Kraft Foods and is the industry's second-largest globally after Mars, Incorporated. Headquartered in Uxbridge, London, United Kingdom, the company operates in more than 50 countries worldwide....
in 1989. Cadbury spun off its soft drinks arm in 2008, and the beverage company renamed itself Dr Pepper Snapple Group that year.
In Canada, the Hires brand is no longer sold by Dr Pepper Snapple Group. Retailers and vending machines have replaced it with
PepsiPepsi is a carbonated soft drink that is produced and manufactured by PepsiCo...
owned
Mug Root BeerMug Root Beer is a brand name of root beer made by the Pepsi company.Mug was first produced by the Belfast Beverage Company in San Francisco, California during the early 1950s. Its name was changed to Mug Old Fashioned Root Beer. In the late 1960s, Sugar Free Mug was introduced...
since the 1990s.
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