The use of lime juice as an antiscorbutic for British seamen has already been noted and the Merchant Shipping Act of 1867 made its provision on shipboard a legal requirement. Until then the method of preserving lime juice had been in a mixture with 15 percent alcohol, but in that year, Lauchlan Rose, a lime and lemon merchant of Leith in Scotland, patented a means of preserving the juice without alcohol. Noting the method of preserving light wines by burning sulfur candles in the casks, Rose prepared a sulfur dioxide solution by passing the gas from burning sulfur through water. When this solution was added to fruit juice, it prevented fermentation and other defects to which unpreserved juices were liable when stored, and Rose marketed the result as lime juice cordial. On shore, the temperance movement and the mixer trade soon found additional uses for the new product.
In the late nineteenth century, squash came onto the market, originally as a still, cloudy, ready-to-drink, juice-based product. In the early twentieth century, John Dixon, an Australian manufacturer, began to put up concentrated fruit drinks, and concentrated lemon squash was introduced into Britain just before World War I. After the war, orange squash followed, then pineapple and grapefruit. Of these, orange and lemon squash proved the most popular.
The origins of barley water as a product of the kitchen have been noted in the section “Cordials and Other Domestic Drinks.” The Victorians valued barley water as a drink for the sickroom and also as a temperance beverage, but it was still made at home from commercially available patent barley and, by then, often sweetened and flavored with lemon peel. It was not until the 1930s that bottled lemon barley water was successfully marketed as a concentrated soft drink to which the consumer merely added water. Orange barley water was introduced soon after.
In the 1950s, comminuted citrus drinks were introduced among the concentrates and swiftly rivaled squash in popularity. They were sold as whole fruit drinks, their flavor derived not from the juice alone but also from the natural oils extracted from the peel as the whole fruit was broken down by the process of comminution to provide the base for the drink. Thus, fruit juice became an increasingly important ingredient in soft-drink manufacture. Citrus juices were extensively used: principally orange juice from the United States, Israel, and later Brazil, among other sources, but also lemon juice, traditionally from Italy (or, more specifically, Sicily), and lime and grapefruit juices. Among the temperate fruits, apple juice provided a basis for nonalcoholic ciders.
By the 1890s, an unfermented drink made from cranberry juice was being sold on the streets of St. Petersburg, but this may have been freshly expressed and unpreserved. In England, from the 1930s forward, concentrated black-currant juice drinks exploited the vitamin C available from indigenous sources. Fruit juices, as such, began to be packed for retail sale once ways were found of applying the principles of pasteurization to their preservation. Dr. Thomas B. Welch of New Jersey was said to have set the stage for. American fruit-juice processing in this way when, as early as 1869, he began producing an unfermented sacramental wine from grape juice. But it was not until the 1930s that technical advances enabled prepacked fruit juices, including tomato juice, to be retailed on a large scale. Beginning in the 1940s, concentrated and, then, frozen juices also became available.
The citrus juices, especially orange juice, supplied a growing world market during the twentieth century, particularly once the importance of vitamin C in the diet became appreciated. Pineapple from Hawaii, and later from the Philippines, led the rest of the tropical juices in popularity. Apple, pear, and grape were significant among temperate juices consumed as such, and those fruits yielding a more pulpy juice were marketed as fruit nectars. Originally sold in glass bottles or metal cans, fruit juices are now more frequently packed in aseptic cartons, which have also been used for fruit-juice drinks in many countries of the world.
The Coming of the Colas
Amid the plethora of proprietary and patent medicines of the late nineteenth century were tonics of all sorts: These were drinks often containing phosphate and claiming to improve the nervous system and combat lassitude. As soft drinks were themselves taken for refreshment, many of these tonics, designed for a similar purpose, came to be classed under the same heading, and some of the flavors they used were also to be found in drinks designed simply to refresh.
In late Victorian Britain, kola or kaola was a popular soft drink, its essential flavor having been derived from the African kola or cola nut. The nut was known to pharmacists as a source of caffeine, and kola champagne was advertised in London as a tonic and nerve stimulant. Also available was kola tonic, the kola ingredient of which was boldly advertised as “this wonderful food,” containing “more nutrient and more capacity for sustaining life than any other natural or prepared article” (Harrod’s 1895 Catalogue 1972).
Another tonic on the market was coca wine, its stimulant properties derived from the leaves of the coca shrub, which the natives of Peru and Bolivia had long been accustomed to chew as a stimulant, and of which cocaine was a derivative. It was an interest in coca wine that led Dr. J. S. Pemberton of Atlanta, Georgia, in 1886 to combine the coca and the cola in formulating his Coca-Cola, which he, too, marketed as a brain tonic. This is not to say that these were the only flavorings. Like many speciality drinks, then as now, its formulation was a unique blend of flavors closely guarded by successive proprietors.
The word cola itself remained generic, and as its popularity increased, so other proprietary cola-based drinks, such as Pepsi-Cola, incorporated it in their brand names. Indeed, it became an objective of the leading brands to distance themselves from their rivals by trademark registration and, if necessary, by litigation. Pemberton and his immediate successors sold their product as a syrup for the soda fountain, which was then still the major outlet for the products of the American soft-drink industry. Only later were the proprietors somewhat grudgingly persuaded to permit others to carbonate and bottle the beverage ready-to-drink.
The licensing of other manufacturers to produce a soft drink from concentrated syrup sold to them by the owner of the brand name set a pattern for the franchising system, which came not only to dominate the twentieth-century American soft-drink industry but, eventually, to promote such brands internationally. Nor was the franchise system confined to colas. The heavy cost of transporting water-based soft drinks in glass bottles was clear from the outset of the commercial industry. There were obvious advantages in carrying a concentrated flavoring rather than the finished product over long distances, provided the proprietor could establish and enforce his standards of quality control on the local bottler so as to maintain the consistency of the consumer’s drink and, thus, the product’s reputation. Furthermore, a national brand could be advertised much more extensively than a local product, the cost of such advertising being recouped as part of the charge made to the bottler for the concentrate supplied. The franchise system, therefore, offered an attractive option to any owner of a drink or range of drinks, whether in America or elsewhere, looking for a way to expand.
Thus, the Canada Dry Corporation of Toronto established its ginger ale and other products in the United States during the years of prohibition and thereafter in additional markets overseas. Seven-Up, an American lemon-and-lime carbonated drink, was similarly marketed, and the promoters of speciality drinks like Dr. Pepper, a cherry soda that began as a fountain syrup, used the same means to extend their sales of ready-to-drink products at home and abroad.
Franchisers of one brand could also become franchisees of another. In Britain, for example, the old-established firm of Schweppes not only sold its products via associated companies overseas but also linked with the Coca-Cola Corporation to form the production company of Coca-Cola and Schweppes Bottlers in the United Kingdom. But the international success of the franchise system presupposed the existence of a worldwide network of local soft-drink manufacturers available to take it up.
The countries of Europe and North. America that had seen the earliest growth of the carbonated soft-drink industry included those nations with the keenest interest in overseas trade. Thus, the techniques of soft-drink manufacture spread overseas along already established trade routes. In an age of imperialism, colonies tended to import from the parent country the machinery, packaging, and many of the ingredients necessary for soft-drink manufacture until such time as they might develop indigenous industries for supplying such essentials. The supply houses of the United States, increasingly important during the nineteenth century, were similarly adept at exporting to local bottlers in countries with which other. American merchants were already engaged in general trade.
The success of soft-drink manufacture in different countries depended on a variety of factors: a degree of general sophistication in the country concerned, the competition of other drinks within it, the level of income of its citizens, and their social attitudes to alcoholic and other drinks - even a hot, dry climate was known to encourage soft-drink sales!
The trading nations not only developed existing overseas markets but also fostered new ones. Japan, opened to the world in the second half of the nineteenth century, saw small-scale bottling of carbonated soft drinks by the 1890s, with British techniques, and indeed British equipment, predominating in the early years. After World War II, American franchised soft drinks came onto the Japanese market. Influenced, but by no means dominated, by international trends, Japanese soft-drink manufacturers became adept at introducing new types of drinks and packaging into an increasingly dynamic and sophisticated market.
By the time franchisers began to look overseas, there was - at least in the most promising countries for development - no lack of local bottlers available to take up the franchises. And although international brands competed with local products, they could also stimulate the growth of the local soft-drink market by promoting greater consumption. In some areas where local manufacture was less advanced, the importation of soft drinks could encourage a local industry to develop. For example, many Muslim countries of the Near and Middle East relied initially on a high proportion of imported drinks to meet the demands of a hot climate, a youthful population, and the religious restrictions on - or outright prohibition of - alcoholic drinks. Then, as wealth and demand grew, a sophisticated indigenous industry developed.
Despite the spread of international brands, patterns of soft-drink consumption still varied considerably from country to country, as idiosyncrasies of national palate and social custom determined the way in which a country’s total drink market was split among competing beverages. For example, in the Russian states, herbal beverages found a substantial market, with mint, nettle, coriander, and marjoram among the flavorings used. Equally, if not more, popular in Russia was kvass, a low-alcohol drink made from stale bread or cereals by the incomplete fermentation of alcohol and lactic acid. It remains to be seen what effect the international brands now being franchised in Russia will have on these traditional flavor preferences.
The Growing Market
Many soft drinks have been seen to owe their origins to notions of a healthy diet current at the time they first appeared, and many continued to remain popular by appealing especially to young people. But in the later twentieth century, other soft drinks were developed that reflected the desire for a healthful diet while also appealing to older people who might hitherto have thought they had outgrown the soft drinks of their youth. Low-calorie soft drinks, designed specifically for weight-conscious adults, arrived in the 1960s. These products used a new artificial sweetener, cyclamate, which blended successfully with saccharin to make a more palatable product. When, later in the decade, cyclamate was banned in many countries, saccharin-only low-calorie drinks proved less acceptable. But with the introduction of new intense sweeteners in the 1980s, the low-calorie market once again expanded.
Natural mineral waters retained their popularity over the years in many countries of continental Europe, but in the final quarter of the twentieth century, vigorous promotion, spearheaded by the Perrier brand, revived dormant markets elsewhere and developed new ones for both carbonated and still waters. Flavored, but still unsweetened, variants of such natural waters further extended their newfound popularity.
A belief in the healthful properties of natural products - and its obverse, a distaste for additives - led to the development of so-called new-age drinks, which are clear and lightly carbonated, with unusual fruit and herbal flavorings, either singly or in combination. They have no added coloring, no salt, no caffeine, and little or no added sugar. For a quite different health market, isotonic or sports drinks were produced, high in sucrose (or sometimes maltose) and designed to quickly replace the body fluids and salts excreted in vigorous exercise.
Alternative refreshment was also increasingly sought in iced tea, a water-based drink, often flavored with soft fruits and, sometimes, with herbs. In these ways the soft-drink industry has continued to innovate and expand in the 200 years of its commercial existence.
Soft Drink Packaging
A history of soft drinks - and certainly of carbonated soft drinks - could scarcely be considered complete without mention of its containers and closures, for if a carbonated soft drink is to be consumed as its manufacturer intended, it must be packed in a container capable of withstanding the pressure of the gas within and sealed with a closure that is not only effective when in place but also readily responsive to the purchaser’s efforts to open it. That these several requirements are obvious does not make them necessarily compatible!
The effective sealing of bottles presented problems from the very outset of commercial manufacture. For this purpose, bottles and jars of stoneware or of stout glass were stoppered with corks that needed to be tight or, better still, wired on to the container. Drinks subject to secondary fermentation, such as brewed ginger beer, were especially likely to burst the cork (hence ginger pop) and traditionally came to be packaged in stoneware containers.
Some early glass bottles were oval ended at the base so that they had to be stored on their sides, thus keeping the corks moist and expanded for better sealing. The bottles themselves were usually returnable when empty and were embossed with the bottler’s name to promote their safe return. The inconvenience to the customer of the oval-ended bottles - they were sometimes called drunken bottles precisely because they could not stand up - led to their gradual replacement by those with a conventional flat base. These came into use around 1870 but at first were still intended to be stored on their sides.
Early manufacturers despatched their goods in strong wicker baskets, but wooden crates strengthened with wire came to be preferred, particularly once the flat-bottomed bottles arrived. But the modest price of the drinks, relative to their total weight when bottled and crated, made transportation costs an increasingly significant proportion of the whole trading operation. Although the convenience of a flat-base bottle was undoubted, its implications for the drying out of the cork soon led to improvements in bottle sealing.
Beginning in the 1870s, returnable internal screw stoppers became available, made first of hard woods and later of ebonite. Another successful invention of the time was Hiram Codd’s bottle with the round glass “marble” stopper in the neck, which the pressure of carbonation kept sealed against the bottle mouth. In the last decade of the century, William Painter’s crown cork came to be used for sealing the smaller returnable bottles for mixer drinks. The effectiveness of all the new seals was much improved when fully automatic bottle production superseded hand-blown glass during the first years of the twentieth century.
The internal screw stopper could be opened manually by a sufficiently strong wrist. The Codd’s bottle, too, could be opened manually by depressing the marble in the neck, but wooden openers were available to supply any extra force needed. For the crown cork, a bottle opener was necessary and the closure was discarded after use. Returnable bottles and closures had also to be thoroughly washed before reuse, and the inspection of Codd’s bottles and stoneware jars after cleaning could cause particular problems for the bottler.
Returnable glass bottles in sizes seldom greater than a quart dominated the industry during the first half of the twentieth century and beyond. They usually bore paper labels, although some had their labeling information permanently embossed or fired onto the container. In the latter half of the century, packaging diversified considerably. Lighter, standardized returnable glass bottles no longer needed to bear their owners’ embossed names but consequently became less distinguishable from the throwaway containers of most other bottled goods.
From the 1960s on, often in response to changes in retailing - in particular the growth of supermarkets - carbonated soft drinks were also packed in nonreturnable glass and in steel or, later, aluminum cans. The first cans required special openers, but the ring-pull end was later introduced for manual opening.
In the 1980s, soft-drink bottlers began to make blow-molded plastic containers of polyethylene terephthalate (abbreviated to PET) in sizes larger than the traditional capacities of glass bottles. Even for returnable bottles, the nonreturnable aluminum cap, rolled on to the external screw thread of the bottle neck, gained ground rapidly in the 1960s. Later, resealable closures became commonplace, particularly as bottle capacities increased.
As the second half of the century progressed, draft soft-drink equipment was more frequently introduced into catering establishments. Draft soft drinks were produced either by the premix method, whereby the drinks were carbonated and packed at the manufacturing plant and then taken to the retail outlet to be connected to the dispensing equipment on site, or by the postmix method, whereby the ingredients of the drink were loaded separately into the dispensing equipment, itself designed to mix them with water in preset proportions for dispensing as a finished, ready-to-drink beverage. By midcentury, coin-operated automatic vending machines also sold prepacked soft drinks, and there, too, in the years that followed, new versions were developed that dispensed carbonated drinks into cups by means of either the pre - or postmix method.
Laminated cartons were developed for the packaging of fruit juices and were also used for still soft drinks. This diversification of packaging was also significant in stimulating the growth of the industry in the late twentieth century by ensuring the availability of soft drinks in an ever-increasing number of retail outlets, so that they may now be said to be among the most widely sold manufactured products in the world.
Colin Emmins
World History
