Business history of Hires root beer

Root beer has been a common beverage in America since at least the eighteenth century. In 1875, Philadelphia pharmacist, Charles E. Hires began to experiment his new formula and finally produce Hires’ Root beer Household Extract, to be used for making root beer at home.

He sold it from a booth at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876 and he introduced it to drug store fountains.

At first packages of the dried roots, bark, and herbs were sold, and from 1893, both bottled beverage and in three-ounce bottles as a brewing extract.

The initial response to Hires Root Beer was so enthusiastic that Hires soon began nationwide distribution.

In 1890, the Charles E. Hires Company was incorporated for the large-scale manufacture and sale of Hires’ root beer, cough syrup and vegetable extracts and compounds.

Over the next few years, extensive advertising played a crucial role in the company’s expansion. For example, in a three month period in 1893, Hires spent more than $200,000 on newspaper ads, signs, trade cards, posters and other form of advertising.

Hires’s root beer, being nonalcoholic, was promoted as a health beverage. Advertising for the new product encouraged coal miners to switch from hard drinks to his root beer, which was advertised as ‘the National Temperance’ drink and ‘the Greatest Health Giving Beverage in the World’.

In 1962 Crush International bought Charles E. Hires Co. In 1980 Crush International, together with Hires Root Beer was sold to Procter and Gamble, who later sold it in 1989 to Cadbury Schweppes Americas Beverages, a subsidiary division of Cadbury Schweppes.
Business history of Hires root beer