Fizz Page 28

  The craft soda movement might yet prove to be a false dawn, but if the trend for craft beer is anything to go by, a new alternative soda boom may be in the works. None of that, of course, helps the giants of the soda world, who increasing resemble Gulliver, tied down by the miniature people of Lilliput, as changing consumer tastes, craft sodas, energy drinks, health campaigners, lawmakers, research studies, bottled water, falling sales, and new age beverages assail them.

  Soda has come a long way since Joseph Priestley first began experimenting with water over the fermenting beer vats in the English city of Leeds back in 1767. The sticky sugary fingerprints of the Age of Soda can be found all over the world. Soda spawned laws of physics, occupied the attentions of some of humanity’s greatest figures, and provided the tools for some of the first anesthetists. Their fizzy pleasures introduced us to new flavors, encouraged us to drink ice-cold beverages, made us smile, and even became part of our national identity. The soda business gave us the world’s most famous brand, the concept of coupons, the drive-in restaurant, and new approaches to advertising. It reshaped our shops and our streets, encouraged prohibition, covered up the moonshine, helped us become a throwaway society, and set Michael Jackson’s hair on fire. Soda even influenced geopolitics, priming US presidents, puncturing holes in the iron and bamboo curtains, and pumping money into underdeveloped nations when no one else would. And it also helped to make us fat.

  But even as the sales slide and the health criticism mounts, soda is far from dead. Soda is still—by a substantial margin—the most popular type of beverage in America. The soda giants have barely started tapping into the potentially enormous markets of India and China, where people still drink far less soda than the worldwide average. And then there’s the holy grail: a no-calorie, natural sweetener with no aftertaste. Sounds too good to be true? Maybe, but those in the soda business who are searching for this miracle sweetener are confident. The Dr Pepper Snapple Group, the US beverage company formed in 2008 after Cadbury Schweppes split its beverage and confectionery businesses, expects a breakthrough in the next few years. Al Carey, head of the beverage unit for the Americas at PepsiCo, told the Huffington Post: “I can’t say when it will be here, but it’s in the reasonable future.”

  What form this ultimate sweetener will take is unknown. It could be a single sweetener or a mix of several different sweeteners. It could also be a fusion of natural calorie-free sweeteners, natural sweetness enhancers such as the miracle fruit plant that makes sour taste sweet, and a small amount of sugar. “I think that’s the way the industry is going to go and I don’t think it is pie-in-the-sky at all,” says Jacobson. “A combination of a high potency sweetener and a sweetness enhancer, maybe with a little sugar, will—I think—yield good-tasting products with very few problems. If they do achieve this then the problems with soda would be greatly diminished.”

  Whatever the exact combination, there’s no doubt that the ultimate sweetener would be a game changer, shooting down both the cancer fears that still plague artificial sweeteners and the accusations that soda is fattening the nation. Soda might be on the ropes, but it’s far from dead, and its world-changing story may have only just begun. The Age of Soda might not be over yet.

  Acknowledgments

  As with any book there are many people whose help has been invaluable. First and foremost my partner Jay Priest for, well, just about everything. Not least acting as a human photocopier in various archives, driving ludicrous distances across America, and being willing to put up with me and a fridge filled with random sodas while I researched and wrote this book.

  Another big thanks goes to my tireless, go-getting agent Isabel Atherton of Creative Authors, without whom you wouldn’t be reading this now, and to Chicago Review Press for taking on the book and my editor Yuval Taylor and project editor Devon Freeny for their insights, suggestions, and patience.

  The research for this book would have been a lot harder without the staff at the various museums, libraries, and archives I found myself in while researching Fizz. A special thank-you goes to the staff at the Dr Pepper Museum in Waco, in particular Joy Summar-Smith, Mary Beth Tait, and Charlie Stanford (who deserves extra credit for his sterling work in tracking down much of the information I was looking for before I even got to Waco).

  Equally deserving of thanks are the staff at the Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library at Emory University for their help with my epic trawl through their Coca-Cola collections. I’m also much obliged to the staff at Lewes Library in East Sussex, the Mass Observation Archive team at the University of Sussex, and Marie Force of the Delta Air Transport Heritage Museum.

  Thanks also to: Bob and Ann McGarrah for their generous hospitality, recollections, and the Pepsi space cans; Colin Emmins for his pointers on British soda history; Amanda Rosseter and the archivists of the Coca-Cola Company; Caroline Mak and Antonio Ramos of Brooklyn Soda Works; John Risse for his insights on Robert Woodruff’s time at Coca-Cola; and Keith Blount for inventing Scrivener, which made the process of writing this book so much easier than my last. Further thank-yous go to Michael Jacobson, Eric Marcoux, C. J. Rapp, Neil Verlander, and Douglas Woodward for taking the time to be interviewed for this book.

  I’d also like to say thanks to Mark Pendergrast, author of For God, Country & Coca-Cola; Frederick Allen, author of Secret Formula; and Douglas Simmons, author of Schweppes: The First 200 Years. All three books were valuable sources of information, and Mark deserves an extra thank-you for helping to weed out Coke-related errors and myths.

  Finally, thanks to the A&W server who provided me and Jay with endless amusement on long, energy drink-fueled drives by greeting us with an enormous burp and, without skipping a beat, the words “What you having?”

  References

  Introduction: To the Stars

  “As more people explore outer space …” Barbara Reynolds, “Sodas, Food, Movies—It’s All Refreshment,” USA Today, August 7, 1984.

  “PepsiCo is strongly identified …” “It’s Pop Politics: Pepsi, Coke Battle Spills Over into NASA,” Ludington Daily News, July 13, 1985.

  “We’re not up there to run a taste test…” Roger Enrico and Jesse Kornbluth, The Other Guy Blinked: How Pepsi Won the Cola Wars (London: Bantam, 1986), 245.

  “On Earth, that’s not such a big deal…” Vickie Kloeris, “Eating on the ISS,” NASA Quest, May 1, 2001, http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/people/journals/space/kloeris/05-01-01.html.

  “have generally remained grossly ignorant” … Friedrich Hoffmann, New Experiments and Observations upon Mineral Waters (London: J. Osborn & T. Longman, 1731), 43.

  “We must here note and reject…” Ibid., 44.

  “No less preposterous …” Ibid., 12.

  Instead, he argued, physicians needed … Ibid., 84-88

  Priestley presented his findings … Joseph Priestley, Directions for Impregnating Water with Fixed Air (London: J. Johnson, 1772).

  1. The Beverage of Kings

  “Guts and all the nastiness …” Charles P. Moritz, Travels, Chiefly on Foot, Through Several Parts of England in 1782 (London: G.G. and J. Robinson, 1797), 138.

  Dr. John Watson … Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Lewes, UK: Vigo Essential Classics, 2011), iBooks ed.

  “aerated lemonade” … Sutcliffe & Co., print advertisement, York Herald and County Advertiser, March 14, 1807.

  2. Meet Me at the Soda Fountain

  “laying gunpowder, grain by grain …” Joseph Priestley, The Importance and Extent of Free Inquiry in Matters of Religion (London: J. Johnson, 1785), 40.

  “every enemy to civil and religious despotism” … Quoted in Joseph Priestley, An Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the Riots in Birmingham (London: J. Thompson, 1791), 129.

  “I cannot but feel better pleased …” Quoted in F. W. Gibbs, Joseph Priestley: Adventurer in Science and Champion of Truth (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1965), 204.

  “has a slight fetid smell…” Benjamin Rush, Experi
ments and Observations on the Mineral Waters of Philadelphia, Abington, and Bristol, in the Province of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: James Humphreys Jr., 1773), 6.

  “The water… cannot be confined …” Quoted in John J. Riley, A History of the American Soft Drink Industry: Bottled Carbonated Beverages, 1807-1957 (New York: Arno Press, 1958), 38-39.

  “brisk with carbonic acid gas” … Quoted in George P. Fisher, Life of Benjamin Silliman, M.D., LL.D. (New York: Charles Scribner and Company, 1866), 308.

  “made noonday in the streets” … Quoted in Fisher, Benjamin Silliman, 146.

  “quite impossible with my present means …” Quoted in Riley, American Soft Drink Industry, 48-49.

  “combine amusement with utility…” Quoted in Riley, American Soft Drink Industry, 50.

  “During the hot season …” Adlard Welby, A Visit to North America and the English Settlements in Illinois, with a Winter Residence at Philadelphia (London: J. Drury, 1821), 172.

  3. The Medicine Men

  “The whole of her practice…” Quoted in John Uri Lloyd, Life and Medical Discoveries of Samuel Thomson and a History of the Thomsonian Materia Medica (Cincinnati: The Lloyd Library of Botany, Pharmacy and Materia Medica, 1909), 12.

  “Java’s deadly trees”… Quoted in James Harvey Young, The Toadstool Millionaires: A Social History of Patent Medicines in America Before Federal Regulation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961), 47.

  “the fishermen of Newfoundland, Labrador…” “National Drinks: Queer Beverages Peculiar to Some Countries,” Canaseraga Times, November 11, 1887.

  all that remains of their efforts is a patent… Henry Smith and Hiram F. Snow, improved beverage, US Patent 56,458, filed May 31, 1866, and issued July 17, 1866.

  “For Heaven’s sake don’t call it herb tea” … Unattributed and undated history of Hires Root Beer, Dr Pepper Museum Collection, Dr Pepper Museum, Waco, TX.

  “I have had a taste of your root beer…” “The Story of My First Job: Charles E. Hires’ Experience,” Printers’ Ink Monthly, undated news clipping, Dr Pepper Museum Collection.

  “Sales increased slowly at first…” Quoted in John S. Grey, “The Advertising of Hires’ Rootbeer,” Printers’ Ink 24, no. 12 (September 21, 1898), Dr Pepper Museum Collection.

  “Business success is built upon two foundation rocks …” “Industrial Philadelphia: The Charles E. Hires Company,” unattributed and undated news clipping, Dr Pepper Museum Collection.

  “recover brain and nervous exhaustion …” Quoted in Frank N. Potter, The Moxie Mystique (Virginia Beach: Donning Company/Publishers, 1981), 1.

  “Behind us lay Atlanta …” William Tecumseh Sherman, Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman (New York: Library of America, 1990; orig. publ. 1886), 655.

  “There was a South of slavery…” Quoted in Norman Shavin and Bruce Galphin, Atlanta: Triumph of a People (Atlanta: Capricorn Corporation, 1982), 132.

  “I would rather have a life span of 10 years …” Quoted in Jerome J. Platt, Cocaine Addiction: Theory, Research and Treatment (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), 3.

  “the many worthless, so-called coca preparations” … Angelo Mariani, Coca and its Therapeutic Application, 3rd ed. (New York: J. N. Jaros, 1896), 52.

  “a feeling as though the body…” Quoted in Frederick Allen, Secret Formula: How Brilliant Marketing and Relentless Salesmanship Made Coca-Cola the Best-Known Product in the World (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), 22.

  “nerve trouble, dyspepsia …” Quoted in Mark Pendergrast, For God, Country & Coca-Cola: The Definitive History of the Great American Soft Drink and the Company That Makes It, 3rd ed. (New York: Basic Books, 2013), Kindle ed.

  “the black population would scarcely…” Quoted in Cambridge World History of Food, s.v. “The Kola Trade,” 2000, www.credoreference.com/entry/cupfood/the_kola_trade.

  “to avert, as far as practicable…” Quoted in World History of Food, s.v. “The Kola Trade.”

  “especially good for keeping …” Pure Water Co. Ltd., print advertisement, Illustrated London News, April 14, 1894.

  hot chocolate maker Cadbury … Cadbury advertisement, Illustrated London News, October 22, 1898.

  “The general condition has materially improved …” Quoted in Cambridge World History of Food, s.v. “Uses of Kola,” 2000, www.credoreference.com/entry/cupfood/uses_of_kola.

  The kola nut buzz… Details of the Coca-Cola formula from Pendergrast, For God, Country & Coca-Cola.

  “Coca-Cola. Delicious! Refreshing!…” Quoted in Allen, Secret Formula, 28.

  “You know how I suffer with headaches …” Asa Candler, letter to Warren Candler, April 10, 1888, Asa Griggs Candler Papers, Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University, Atlanta, GA.

  “a shot in the arm” … Quoted in Pendergrast, For God, Country & Coca-Cola.

  “a man would explode” … Quoted in Allen, Secret Formula, 45.

  “breakdown was not so much due to …” “Greenway Found a Deranged Man,” Richmond Times, July 25, 1902.

  “I am satisfied that many of the horrible crimes …” “Cocaine Sniffers: Use of the Drug Increasing Among Negroes of the South,” New-York Daily Tribune, June 21, 1903.

  4. A Snail in a Bottle

  “If ever you should visit the Smithsonian …” Quoted in Richard Swiderski, Poison Eaters: Snakes, Opium, Arsenic, and the Lethal Show (Boca Raton: Universal-Publishers, 2010), 234.

  “I recommend that a law …” Quoted in Young, The Toadstool Millionaires, 236.

  “be contented with water…” Quoted in E. J. Kahn Jr., The Big Drink: An Unofficial History of Coca-Cola (London: Max Reinhardt, 1960), 109.

  “In England, I have seen women …” Quoted in Clayton A. Coppin and Jack C. High, The Politics of Purity: Harvey Washington Wiley and the Origins of Federal Food Policy (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999), 148.

  “Anybody who says saccharin is injurious …” Harvey Wiley, The History of a Crime Against the Food Law (New York: Arno Press, 1976; orig. publ. 1929), 163.

  “It is remarkable what the fear…” Quoted in Allen, Secret Formula, 57.

  “Dr Pepper stands alone on the bridge …” Quoted in Harry E. Ellis, Dr Pepper: King of Beverages (Dallas: Dr Pepper Company, 1979), 144.

  “It’s a bully drink …” Quoted in Bob Stoddard, Pepsi-Cola: 100 Years (Los Angeles: General Publishing Group, 1997), 28.

  “a poisonous ingredient” … United States v. Forty Barrels and Twenty Kegs of Coca-Cola, US District Court, Eastern District of Tennessee, Southern Division, Chattanooga, court transcripts, March 13, 1911, US National Archives Online Public Access, http://research.archives.gov/search?expression=parent-id-lnk:279312.

  “a dirty undershirt” … Ibid.

  “not one indivisible atom …” Quoted in Allen, Secret Formula, 193.

  “I did not say anything to Mr Candler…” Quoted in Wilbur G. Kurtz Jr., “Joseph A. Biedenharn,” Coca-Cola Bottler, August 1944, Robert Winship Woodruff Papers, Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University, Atlanta, GA.

  “Those first salesmen …” “Fifty Fabulous Years of Overseas Growth for Coca-Cola, 1926-1976,” Refresher USA 8, no. 3 (1976), Coca-Cola Collection, Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University, Atlanta, GA.

  “the most perfectly designed package …” Quoted in “The Story Behind … Coca-Cola,” Changing Times: The Kiplinger Magazine, November 1959.

  5. The Bar Is Dead, Soda Is King!

  “The slums soon will be only…” Quoted in Anne Cooper Funderburg, Sundae Best: A History of Soda Fountains (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 2002), 123.

  “liquor stampedes”… Quoted in Michael A. Lerner, Dry Manhattan: Prohibition in New York City (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 43.

  “might have been dreamed up …” Quoted in Max Rudin, “Beer and America,” American Heritage, June-July 2002.

  “Since the country�
�s turned-prohibitin’…”% Quoted in Leah A. Zeldes, “Two Rivers: Drinking Green in Chicago This St. Patrick’s Day,” Dining Chicago, March 9, 2010.

  “In my neighborhood, if you went…” Quoted in Hank Bordowitz, Bad Moon Rising: The Unauthorized History of Creedence Clearwater Revival (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2007), 71.

  “the new American bar” … Quoted in Funderburg, Sundae Best, 103.

  “The bar is dead…” Ibid.

  “getting hilarious”… “Jake and Coca Cola Caused Several Arrests,” Cincinnati Press, March 8, 1929.

  “But Mr. Woodruff…” Quoted in Pendergrast, For God, Country & Coca-Cola.

  “I feel that to work …” Quoted in Allen, Secret Formula, 165.

  “The offering of a product…” Archie Lee, letter to Robert Woodruff, November 21, 1945, Robert Winship Woodruff Papers.

  Its impact was still… “Ad Age Advertising Century: Top 10 Slogans,” Advertising Age, March 29, 1999, http://adage.com/article/special-report-the-advertising-century/ad-age-advertising-century-top-10-slogans/140156.

  “hydra-headed menace …” Quoted in Constance L. Hays, Pop: Truth and Power at The Coca-Cola Company (London: Hutchinson, 2004), Kindle ed.

  “There has been a tremendous loss …”% Harrison Jones, memo to Robert Woodruff, August 22, 1932, Robert Winship Woodruff Papers.

  “In the last four years …” Harrison Jones, memo to Robert Woodruff, undated, Robert Winship Woodruff Papers.

  “He embodied all the features …” Quoted in Coca-Cola Company, “Haddon Sundblom,” undated biography, Coca-Cola Collection.