Budweiser: The Rise of America's Iconic Beer

Budweiser, one of the most iconic American beers, has a storied history that dates back to the 19th century. The brand was introduced in 1876 by Adolphus Busch and his friend Carl Conrad in St. Louis, Missouri. Inspired by a trip to Bohemia, they aimed to create a “Bohemian-style” lager that would appeal to American tastes. Busch’s visit to Europe exposed him to various brewing techniques, and he was particularly impressed by the pale lagers popular in Bohemia, known for their refreshing qualities and drinkability. These qualities were distinct from the darker, heavier ales that were common in the United States at the time. Busch saw an opportunity to introduce a lighter beer that would be more suited to American preferences, especially considering the climate and the emerging culture of leisure and dining out.

Adolphus Busch, a German immigrant, joined his father-in-law’s brewing business, which was later renamed Anheuser-Busch Brewing Association in 1879. Before Budweiser’s introduction, American beer drinkers primarily consumed heavy, dark ales. However, the hot St. Louis summers called for a lighter, more refreshing beer. Busch’s experience in the brewing industry, combined with his keen understanding of American consumer preferences, allowed him to perfect a recipe that would resonate with a broad audience. Budweiser’s smooth, crisp lager quickly gained popularity, not just in St. Louis but across the United States. This success was further fueled by Busch’s embrace of pasteurization and refrigerated railcars, which ensured that Budweiser could be shipped across the country while maintaining its quality and taste.

Budweiser’s success can be attributed to its consistent quality and innovative marketing strategies. The brand adopted the slogan “The King of Beers,” a nod to its ambition and quality. Over the years, Budweiser has been involved in several trademark disputes with the Czech brewery Budweiser Budvar over the use of the name "Budweiser." These disputes highlight the global recognition and value of the Budweiser brand. Despite these challenges, the brand has successfully maintained its identity and market position.

Today, Budweiser is a global brand, available in over 80 countries. Despite changes in ownership and market dynamics, Budweiser has remained true to its original recipe and brewing methods, maintaining its position as a beloved American beer. The brand's ability to adapt while staying true to its roots has ensured its continued success and iconic status in the beer industry.
Budweiser: The Rise of America's Iconic Beer

Stella Artois History

Founded in 1366 in the medieval town of Leuven, Belgium, just 16 miles east of Brussels, Stella Artois initially operated with the name Den Hoorn Brewery. The brewery's inception dates back to 1366 when it first began brewing beer, and its development was significantly shaped by the presence of students following the establishment of the University of Leuven in 1425. Flourishing due to the substandard quality of available drinking water, Brouwerij Den Hoorn thrived.

In June 1708, brewer Sebastian Artois achieved his master diploma from Den Hoorn Brewery. Nine years later, he took ownership of the brewery and subsequently rebranded it as Stella Artois. The name "Stella," meaning "star" in Latin, commemorates the occasion, and a star emblem has graced Stella Artois bottles ever since.

Sebastian Artois distinguished himself as an innovator, introducing various new beer styles and ultimately inspiring Artois brewmasters to craft a golden lager influenced by German and Czech Pils.

Not until 1926 did the brewery attain global recognition with a limited-edition Christmas beer, named after the Christmas star. From that moment onward, Stella Artois exclusively produces this Christmas star-inspired beer.
Stella Artois History

History of Canada Dry Ginger Ale

It all started with ginger beer, which originated in England in the 1800s. Eventually the popularity spread across the pond and Americans were also enjoying this refreshing beverage. John McLaughlin (1866-1914), a Canadian pharmacist, invented the modern Canada Dry version of Ginger Ale in 1907.

John James McLaughlin, was an 1885 graduate, with a gold medal, of the University of Toronto College of Pharmacy. He was trained as both a pharmacist and a chemist. Like so many pharmacists of the late 19th and the early 20th century.

McLaughlin was interested in flavored soda waters. McLaughlin began making his own soda drink recipes and created McLaughlin Belfast Style Ginger Ale in 1890.He experimented with various mixtures that were added to his carbonated soda water made from a mixture of baking soda, vinegar and water.

His early flavors were cream soda, ginger beer, sarsaparilla and lemon sour. McLaughlin’s company also made and imported mineral waters, carbonated beverages, syrups, creams, cordials, extracts, fountain fruits, ice-cream machinery, and soda fountain supplies.

After years of experimenting, McLaughlin perfected his formula for Canada Dry in 1904. After visiting Europe to study its beverage industry, on September 27th 1890 McLaughlin established J.J. McLaughlin Limited Manufacturing Chemists in Toronto.The company manufactured and sold soda fountain products and equipment to drugstores in Ontario and western Canada, including lines of distilled waters and fruit juices.

Despite competition – there were about 12 producers in the city in 1891 – the business grew enough to warrant a move to larger premises, at Queen and Victoria streets.

In 1900 he produced a beverage that was dark in color with a strong ginger flavor and called it “

McLaughlin Belfast Style Ginger Ale.”

In 1905: Jack McLaughlin changed the name for the last time and began to market his pale and dry ginger ale as “Canada Dry Pale Ginger Ale.” It gained popularity very quickly and McLaughlin had to open a plant in Manhattan to provide for his customers in New York. Thus beginning the massive expansion of his company.

To facilitate expansion, McLaughlin opened shops to manufacture the metal, wooden, and marble equipment needed to carbonate, blend, and serve soft drinks in drugstores, restaurants, and department stores and to make other soda parlour essentials such as ice-cream. Canada Dry was sold to P.D. Saylor and Associates in December 1923 for $1 million. Merged into the newly formed Norton Simon Inc. in 1968, it was sold to the Dr Pepper Company in 1982.
History of Canada Dry Ginger Ale

The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf

The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf brand is a leading global roaster and retailer of specialty coffees and teas. Herb Hyman and his wife, Mona, founded The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in 1963 after making several trips to her native Sweden

He fell in love with the European styles of coffee, which were far better quality than what was sold in the U.S. at the time. Herb Hyman was once dubbed as "the grandfather of specialty coffee in the US.

The first store in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles was opened in 1963, where founder Herb Hyman began importing and roasting coffee. The store sold bags of gourmet beans by the pound that were roasted daily in the store.

Growing into a chain, in 1987, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf founded the frozen coffee craze by introducing The Original Ice Blended® drink, using a hot chocolate powder and a special way of brewing a cold coffee extract that Hyman invented.

Then in 1998, the brand debuted its uniquely delicious Chai Tea Latte—an exclusive, handcrafted beverage made with premium tea and proprietary ingredients.

In 1970s Herb Hyman moved roasting facility to Camarillo and began to establish direct relationships with coffee growers. In 1996, the Hymans sold the Asian franchise rights to Singaporean brothers Victor Sassoon and Sunny Sassoon.

In 1998, the Sassoons, along with longtime friend Severin Wunderman, purchased the parent company, International Coffee & Tea LLC, from the Hymans, and took it global. On July 24, 2019, Jollibee Foods Corporation purchased The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf for $650 million.
The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf

Barq's Brothers Bottling Company

Edward Charles Edmond Barq was born in New Orleans in 1871. When he was only two years old, his father, who was French, died. After his father's death, Edward's mother returned to France, where Edward  learned the art of flavour chemistry.

The Barq's Brothers Bottling Company was founded in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana in 1890, by Edward and his older brother, Gaston. The Barq Brothers bottled carbonated water and various flavours. The most popular initially was their orange flavoured called “Orangine,” which won a gold medal at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago.

Edward and Gaston bottled soft drinks in New Orleans until Gaston’s death about 1892. Barq Sr. moved to Biloxi, Mississippi, in 1897. The following year he opened the Biloxi Artesian Bottling Works. 1898 is often given as the debut year for what was later to be known as “Barq’s root beer.”

The first franchise came in 1934 in Mobile, Alabama. Three years later sixty-two bottling plants churned out Barq’s in twenty-two states. Barq’s was acquired by a larger company, Coca-Cola in 1995 for $91 million.
Barq's Brothers Bottling Company

Barq's Root Beer

Edward Charles Edmond Barq bought the Biloxi Artesian Bottling Works on Keller Avenue in Biloxi in 1897 and invented Barq's root beer in 1898.

After experimenting with soda flavors using backyard tubs, Barq created the sharp tasting recipe that many enjoy today in the form of a Root Beer Float. Barq began bottling and selling his soft drink he named after himself in 1898.

Barq's was the iconic root beer of the Mississippi Gulf Coast and the greater South and eventually was marketed in cities from New Jersey to Hawaii.

Although root beer was never as popular as the cola products, Barq’s nevertheless spread throughout the United States and branched out with flavors such as Grape, Moon-Glo, Imitation Strawberry, and red creme soda.

By day Barq and his wife sold the drinks, and then spent the rest of their time mixing the formula for them and refilling glass bottles. But first the bottles had to be sterilized and then each process had to be created in large pots in the couple's backyard. In 1936, Barq's operation was moved from Keller Avenue to a larger plant at 604 Lameuse Street, also in Biloxi. Demonstrating the product's appeal, by the 1950s, there were more than two hundred Barq plants across the United States.

Barq’s added Bubble Up, franchised through the Bubble Up Corporation of Peoria, Illinois, in 1955 and prepared for an even greater expansion.

In 1976, New Orleanians John Oudt and John Koerner bought Barq’s and moved the company’s headquarters to New Orleans. The company was sold to Coca-Cola in 1995 for $91 million.
Barq's Root Beer

Business history of Heineken

The brewery that would later become Heineken N.V was founded in 1592 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. De Hooiberg (The Haystack) brewery was purchased by Gerard Adriaan Heineken the age 22, who dedicated his life to provide the best beer quality on the market. Adriaan Heineken produced the first beer under the Heineken brand name in 1863.

Nine years later Heineken’s Bierbrouwerij Maatschappij N.V was founded, which today known as Heineken.

On October 1, 1914, Henry Pierre Heineken became a director of HBM, and three years later he was appointed chairman, Henry Pierre Heineken, who held doctorate in chemistry, managed the company from 1917 to 1940 an continued his involvement with the company until 1951.

The company grew steadily and in 1931 they embarked upon their first international operation, joint venture with Malaysia Breweries Limited in Singapore. The brand prospered, penetrating export markets including the United States - where it was the first foreign beer to be allowed an import license at the end of Prohibition in 1933.
Business history of Heineken

Douwe Egberts

This international company is organized along two divisions: coffee and grocery, and household and personal care products.

Douwe Egberts was founded in 1753 by Egbert Douwes and his wife Akke Thysses. They began selling coffee, tea, and tobacco their small shop, De Witte Os (The White Ox), in Joure, a small village of the Dutch province Friesland.

Originally Egbert Douwes only sold his product locally. However his son, Douwe Egberts who entered the business around 1780, built up a national reputation by supplying coffee and tea to shop owners throughout the country, spreading the fame of the Douwe Egberts brand.

Friesland was soon too small for the company’s activities and it started new production in Utrecht in 1919.

Gradually, the company grew to become the Dutch market leader for coffee. Douwe Egberts internationalized in 1927 opening production and distribution activities in Germany. By the 1950s, the company was responsible for over 59 percent of coffee exported from the Netherlands.

During the 1980’s the product range is broadened into household products realized mainly through acquisitions. Since 1978 there has been a joint venture with the US American based Sarah Lee. However brand names are strong and can be put to good use. In 2002, Douwe Egberts again went to the stock market under its own, slightly embellished, name, as De Master Blenders 1753.
Douwe Egberts

Bass Brewery

The Bass Brewery, founded in 1777 by William Bass in Burton-on-Trent, the historical home of pale ale. There the company brews its famous Draught Bass and Worthington White Shielded, a noted bottle conditioned ale.

The brewery saw remarkable growth in it early years with ale sent to Russian in1784 and to North American by 1799.

The company’s flagship Draught Bass is cask –conditioned, a practice followed by many of Britain’s ale brewers and the odd American microbrewery.

International fame came under William’s grandson Michael Thomas Bass II, who was senior partner in Bass, Ratcliff and Gretton for half a century.

In the mid 1870s, the c0mpany was briefly the largest brewer in the world, with an output close to 1.5 million hectoliters (39.6 million US gallons) from three breweries in Burton on Trent, backed by a network of agencies and stores.

By 1888, the Bass brewery complex covered 145 acres of land and employed more than 2500workers, with output approaching the million barrel mark. In the 1960s Bass continued to grow, emerging with the UK’s largest brewery following acquisition of Charrington United Breweries, brewers of Carling.
Bass Brewery

Apollinaris spring water

In 1852, Georg Kreuzberg, a vintner from Ahrweiler in Germany, bought a vineyard at an auction for 15 thaler but found the vines would not grow there.

On investigation, he found the soil had an exceptionally high concentration of carbonate. Literally wanting to get to the bottom of things, he dug down fifty feet and discovered an underground spring of naturally carbonated mineral water. In 1853, he started selling spring water in earthenware bottles.

The water from the Apollinaris Spring (named after St. Apollinaris by Kreuzberg) was shortly thereafter termed the “Queen of Table Waters’, when a London ship owner arranged exclusive exports rights from Kreuzberg.

In 1873 the Apollinaris Company Ltd was set up in Westminster London, and the brand became internationally well known.

The Apollinaris water sold largely not only in England, but in America, Europe, India and in the British colonies.

By 1900, over 27 million bottles of Apollinaris were sold, of which over 25 million were exported.

In 1991, Apollinaris and drinks firm Schweppes of Germany merged but then in 2002 the whole company was bought out by the British company Cadbury Schweppes. In 2006 Coca-Cola bought Apollinaris spring water from Cadbury-Schweppes.
Apollinaris spring water

Arbuckle Brothers

Arbuckle was the product of two Arbuckle brothers, wholesale grocers of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who conceived the idea of shipping coffee already roasted. In 1860, Arbuckle entered the wholesale grocery business McDonald and Arbuckle, begun by his brother Charles, his uncle Duncan McDonald and his friend William Roseburg.

The uncle and friend left the business and John and Charles assumed charge. The Arbuckle Brothers coffee company packaged Yuban for wealthy urban people and Ariosa for rural markets and poor urban ones.

In 1864 Jabez Burns invented the self emptying roaster. The brothers John and Charles Arbuckle, bought a Burns machine and began to sell pre-roasted coffee in one-pound paper bags.

Arbuckle Brothers owned patent for machine capable of measuring a pound of roasted coffee, putting it in a paper bag, and sealing it.

By 1868, John Arbuckle’s formula for a tasty roasted coffee and his keen business expertise had revolutionized the coffee industry.

A good cup of coffee meant daily roasting until 1868, when Arbuckle perfected a glutinous mixture made of Irish moss, gelatin, isin-glass, white sugar and eggs for preserving the freshness of roast coffee.

Because Arbuckle’s coffee could be packaged and shipped, it was popular with campers and Westerners.

To persuade consumers to purchase his brand, Arbuckle hired an army of agents to write orders. The coffee was published with colored folksy handbills, trading cards and coupons redeemed for premium.

Arbuckle Brothers main coffee brand, Ariosa was wildly successful. In 1871, Arbuckle, opened a branch in New York.

In the 1880s, the company established branches in Kansas City, Missouri and Chicago. Customers could clip Arbuckle Brother’s coupons and redeem them for everything from guns to jewelry.

Arbuckle Brothers became the leading coffee provider to the West by creating fresh, easy to use coffee products with strong brand recognition. The 1873 trademark for the brand that Arbuckle targeted in the West, Ariosa, featured a flying angle.

Toward the end of the century Arbuckle’s included a stick of peppermint candy in each package and in 1893, collector’s trading cards featuring animal, cities of the word, US states and recipes.

In the Roaring Twenties, Prohibition advanced coffee as a nonalcoholic alternative and coffeehouses proliferated in American cities. Those brands that advertised widely did well, but Arbuckle Brothers refused to amount a national campaign and went into decline.

In 1937, the General Foods Corporation acquired a number of Arbuckle Brothers brand names, including Yuban, which had been served only to dinner guests by John Arbuckle.
Arbuckle Brothers 

History of Tropicana Products Inc.

Tropicana was founded in 1947 in Bradenton, Florida as a processor of fresh fruit segment by Anthony Talamo Rossi. It was founded with goal of bringing Floridians the kind of orange juice found in Rossi’s home country of Italy.

Anthony T, Rossi immigrated to the United States from Sicily when he was 21. He settled in Palmetto and began packing fruit gift boxes under the name Manatee River Packing Company.

He began packaging and selling fresh fruit to department stores, hotels and restaurants throughout the United States. As the business grew, the company moved to East Bradenton and became Fruit Industries, supplying the ingredients for among other things, the salads at New York’s famed Waldorf Astoria Hotel.

Rossi began producing frozen concentrate orange juice in 1952 and branded them Tropicana Pure Premium. The line is so successful that i8n 1957 Rossi renames the company Tropical Products, Inc.

In 1954 Tropicana engineer developed flash pasteurization, a process that preserved the fresh taste of the juice. The process uses a lower temperature than regular pasteurization, but heats the liquid for a longer period of time.

In 1978 founder Rossi retired and the company was sold to Beatrice.

Beatrice paid $490 million on July 11, 1978 to acquire Tropicana. The company was later acquired by PepsiCo in 1998.
History of Tropicana Products Inc.

Perkins Products Company of Hasting

Edwin Elijah Perkins (1889-1961) and his wife Kathryn ‘Kitty’ shoemaker moved to the Hastings from Hendley in 1920 to expand the Perkins Products Company.

The firm manufactured and sold more than 125 household products through direct sales

In 1920 Perkins marketed his first soft drinks concentrate, Fruit Smack, a syrup that consumers mixed with water and sugar to produce a sweet beverage.

In April 1922, the Perkins Products Company opened for business at 508 West First Street.

In 1927 the first Kool-Aid packets sold through the mail for ten cents apiece. Kool-Aid, the powdered drink mix known to generations of children was invented by Perkins.

As the sales of Kool-Aid increased, Perkins phased out his other products and concentrated on marketing Kool-Aid. Rather than just sell it by mail, the company began an aggressive campaign to sell Kool-Aid though grocery strobes. By 1929, Kool-Aid was sold through the United States.

The company moved to Chicago in 1931 and in 1953 Perkins sold his company to General Foods Corporation, which added root beer and lemon flavors.
Perkins Products Company of Hasting

Charles G. Guth and Pepsi Cola Company

In 1902 Caleb Bradham incorporated the Pepsi-Cola Company and started a manufacturing operation.

The company was certified bankrupt on 1923. It wasn't until a successful candy manufacturer, Charles G. Guth, appeared on the scene that the future of Pepsi-Cola was assured.

Guth was president of Loft Incorporated, a large chain of candy stores and soda fountains along the eastern seaboard. At the time Charles Guth became Loft’ president, Guth and his family owned Grace Company, which made syrups for soft drinks in a plant in Baltimore, Maryland. Coca-Cola Company supplied Loft with cola syrup.

Loft operated over 130 soda fountains in the greater New York area. Guth believed that with that kind of volume, Loft deserved better pricing. Coca-Cola believed that Guth had no choice but to buy their syrup, and refused to offer any discount.

He saw Pepsi-Cola as an opportunity to discontinue an unsatisfactory business relationship with the Coca-Cola Company, and at the same time to add an attractive drawing card to Loft's soda fountains.

Guth entered into an agreement with Roy Megargel to acquire the trademark of Pepsi and its formula and form Pepsi-Cola Corporation.

With just handful of bottles in 1934, the number grew to 315 Pepsi-Cola bottlers in 1939.

He later was sued by his partner and claimed that Guth had misused corporate assets and that his Pepsi stock should be handed over to Loft.

Loft filed a suit in a Delaware state court against Guth, Grace and Pepsi, seeking their Pepsi stock and accounting. After nearly three years of legal procedures, the court ruled that Guth, Pepsi-Cola holding belonged to Loft. Loft became a Loft subsidiary and Walter Mack was chosen to be Pepsi’s new President and Guth continuing as general manager.

After five owners and 15 unprofitable years, Pepsi-Cola was once again a thriving national brand.
Charles G. Guth and Pepsi Cola Company

Dom Pérignon (wine)

A wine originally associated with dissipation and hedonism was now believed to have been invented by a monk.

Dom Perignon (1639-1715) was identified as the originator of the technique that put the frothiness in champagne.

Dom Perignon was the first to understand that what champagne producers now refer to as a liqueur de tirage had to be added to the still wine to be certain that the essential second fermentation process would take place.

The most famous modern Champagne, Dom Perignon, was named by the Moet family in 1936, when they introduced the region’s first luxury brand.

The Moets claimed that they uncovered Perignon’s memoirs containing the secret recipe for winemaking.

Established in 1743, Moet and Chandon is today the largest producer of Champagne in the world.  It was Robert-Jean de Vogue who persuaded his fellow Moet directors to relaunch an unused marque called Dom Perignon, which had actually been bought from Mercier in 1930.

The first shipments arrived in London in 1935 and in New York the following year.
Dom Pérignon (wine)

Business history of 7UP

Charles Leiper Grigg spent more than two years experimenting and perfecting his new drink all in search for lemon-flavored drinks before finalizing on Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda.

Manufactured by Grigg’s Howdy Corporation, this soft drink appeared for sale in the fall of 1929 in St. Louis, Missouri, just two weeks before the great stock market crash. Shortly after its launched Grigg change the name to 7UP.

The drink was originally marketed as a hangover cure due to the inclusion of lithium citrate. It was release just a few years before the Wall Street crash of 1929.

It successfully promoted itself as a hangover cure, running a ‘7UP for hangovers’ campaign that pitched the drink as capable the effects, of overdrinking, over-smoking, under-drinking, mental lassitude, overwork, overeating and over worry.

7UP in can

The lithium citrate was abandoned in the drink in 1950, as lithium was found to cause side effects such as dizziness, nausea and thyroid problems.

In 1933 syrup sales topped 174,000gallons shooting up to 2,074,000 gallons a year by 1936, after Grigg’s post-Prohibition decision to start promotion his soda as a mixer that ‘tames whiskey’ and ‘glorifies gin’.

In the 1940s, 7-UP had successfully moved to the number three sales among soft drinks; only Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola outranked it.

In 1978, the drink was acquired by Philip Morris.

In 1979, a new advertising company campaign for the lemon-lime flavored 7UP shifted its ‘America’s Turning 7UP’ campaign to focus on a rational reason to buy product. Research had shown that consumers perceived colas as containing unhealthy ingredients.

In 1986 Philip Morris sold 7UP’s international operations to Pepsi and two years later offloaded the US business to Dr Pepper.  The merger between 7Up and Dr. Pepper Company, creating the world’s third largest soft drink company behind Coca-Cola and Pepsi.

Dr Pepper and 7UP later were purchased by Cadbury Schweppes in 1995.
Business history of 7UP

Business history of Horlicks

Originally developed as a nutritional supplement for infants and people with bad digestion, malted milk changed how Americans ate.

Horlicks the malted beverage was invented by two English brother James and William Horlick, inhabitants of Ruardean west of Cinderford.

James Horlick, an English pharmacist who had worked in England, came to United States in 1875 at the urging of his brother, William Horlick who wished to manufacture a Liebig-type infant food.

The two brothers team up to start a company in 1873 in the Town of Mt. Pleasant just northwest of Racine.

The Malted Milk was patented in 1883, first intended as an infant food under the name ‘diastoid’: it was later renamed ‘Horlicks’ and a large factory was built for its English production at Slough between 1906 and 1908.

James and William Horlick created the idea and formula for malted milk in Racine, Wisconsin in the late 19 century. It was to be an easily digested powdered baby formula high in protein and carbohydrates.

William was granted a U.S patented for the first malted malt drink powder that could be mixed with hot water. The beverage was said to promote sleep when drunk at bedtime.

The drink has become famous in United Kingdom, India and South East Asia such as Philippines and Malaysia.

The firm was sold to Horlicks Limited of England in 1946. Later it was acquired by the Beecham Group in 1969 and is currently a GlaxoSmithKline brand.

The Horlicks brand was re-launched in 2002, with the tag ‘Nourishment for Internal resistance’.
Business history of Horlicks

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

The history of Cadbury Schweppes

In 1783, in Geneva, Switzerland, Jacob Schweppes independently developed a process of adding carbonation into mineral water and Schweppes was born.

Schweppes, originally over decades very strong in Belgium and France might have originated from cultural need of more Latin and southern countries for cold refreshing drinks as a substitute for heat.

In 1794, Richard Cadbury, a prominent Quaker, moved from the West Country in Britain to Birmingham.

A number of years later, in the United Kingdom in 1824, his son, John Cadbury began selling tea coffee, hops, mustard and a new sideline – coca and drinking chocolate, which John prepared himself using a mortar and a pestle.

These sales were bolstered by his increasing sales of coca and chocolate. In the 1860s, when George Cadbury and his brother Richard inherited the from their father, Cadbury Brothers was small, struggling family business. By 1900, it was the largest British chocolate maker, with an annual turnover of £1 million.

In 1969 Cadbury and Schweppes agreed to merge. Each company was strong in its market, Schweppes was well regarded for its carbonated soft drinks and mixers while Cadbury was mainly known for its chocolate products. Hence, the merger in 1969 was of giants on the carbonated soft drink (CSD) and confectionary (Cadbury) market reflecting their primary lines of business.

Today, Cadbury Schweppes has the largest share of the global confectionary market and a strong regional presence with carbonated soft drinks in North America.

Cadbury-Schweppes has established a formidable presence in the US market by dint of acquisition after acquisition.

In 1995, it had bought the company Dr Pepper/7Up and acquired the confectionary from Adams in 2002.

Outside of the carbonated soft drinks market Cadbury Schweppes acquired Snapple beverages in 2000. In 2005, Cadbury Schweppes has over $11 billion revenue and a stock market valuation over $21 billion.

In 2004, Cadbury Schweppes had a combined 14.4 percent share of the carbonated soft drinks market in the United States.

 In 2008 the two companies split, each becoming a separate corporation. The company’s beverages remained with Schweppes while the chocolate and candy remained with Cadbury.

The history of Cadbury Schweppes

Pepsi Cola Formula

Pepsi-Cola is one of the drinks that trace its root back to the corner drugstore. The formula of Pepsi Cola was created by Caleb D. Bradham, a pharmacist of New Bern in summer of 1893.

Bradham poured a sample of his mixture into a beaker and gave it to his assistant to taste it. Then he saw his assistant’s face light up upon tasting it, Bradham knew he had created a winner. His favorite was ‘Brad’s Drink’.

It was a unique combination of sugar, water, vanilla, caramel, lime juice, phosphoric acid, alcohol and oil (lemon, orange, cinnamon, nutmeg, coriander, and petit grain).

Bradham believed that his new drink aided digestion similar to the way the pepsin enzyme does. However, Pepsi never contained pepsin. Cola represent the refreshing and invigorating qualities of the drinks.

The name ‘Brad’s Drink didn’t convey the nature of the beverage and he decided to rename it ‘Pepsi-Cola’ in 1898 after pepsin and cola nuts used in the recipe.

In 1898, Caleb Bradham bought the trade name Pep Cola for $100 from a competitor from Newark.

Pepsi didn’t contain any harmful ingredients. Some of Pepsi’s competitors used narcotics and other dangerous substance in their formulas.

Cocaine and glycerin that were originally there in Pepsi that was present in Pepsi has been removed.
Pepsi Cola Formula