Charles Elmer Hires invented root beer

Hires Root Beer was introduced in 1876, it is considered the longest continuously made soft drink in the United States. Charles E. Hires was born in Elsinboro, Pennsylvania on August 19, 1851. 

Charles E. Hires originally developed his root beer as a medicinal syrup or tonic, while still living on his father’s farm in Stow Creek Township.

By 1867, Hires was working at a wholesale drug house while attending night classes at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and the Jefferson Medical College. He then headed to the town of Bridgeton, Pennsylvania, where he helped operate a local pharmacy in partnership with two other men. The venture was short-lived, however, and Hires soon moved back to Philadelphia.

By age twenty-one he had saved enough money to open his own drugstore in Philadelphia. Three years later he sold the drugstore to found what would become a prosperous business wholesaling drugs and botanical products.

At that time, shortly after the Civil War, there was a tremendous demand for any product with medicinal virtues. Some of the medicinal cure claims include tuberculosis, bronchitis, asthma, catarrh, pleurisy, Quincy, whopping cough, and diphtheria.

In 1875, Charles Hires was married in Roadstown, and spent his honeymoon on a New Jersey farm. Their hostess served the prim young couple an herb tea brewed from made up of sixteen wild roots and berries, including, pipsissewa, spikenard, juniper wintergreen, sarsaparilla, and hops that she had foraged. Charles persuaded his hostess to part with her recipe for root tea. Smitten with the drink’s flavor, Hires returned to Philadelphia with its recipe in his pocket.

Charles again mixed the ingredients and blended his own formulation, trying to get a perfect blend. By 1876, Hires had developed his own recipe and was marketing 25-cent packets of powder which each yielded five gallons of root beer.

Hires Root Beer Extract was then bottled in quantities for the first time, and sold in his Philadelphia pharmacy. No longer would housewives be required to gather and process a slew ingredient to prepare a refreshing beverage for their families.

Hires marketed it as a solid concentrate of sixteen wild roots and berries. It claimed to purify the blood and make rosy cheeks.

The extract would be mixed by the buyer with water, sugar, and yeast on his premises. In 1886, Hires began to bottles his concoction and by 1893 it was distributed throughout North America.
Charles Elmer Hires invented root beer

Caleb Davis Bradham and Pepsi-Cola

Caleb Davis Bradham was born in May 27, 1867. He grew up in Chinquapin, a tiny farm community in Duplin County, North Carolina. He attended Clements, School, Wallace and Kings Mountains Military Institute in North Carolina.

In 1892, he opened a drug store called Bradham’s Pharmacy. Like many pharmacists at the turn of the 19th century, he operated a soda fountain in his drugstore. He founded it as a fun to mix delicious a soft drink as it was to make medicines. His soda fountain grew popular as townspeople gathered to socialize. Like many drugstore of the day, Bradham’s was more than a dispenser of patent medicines.

Soon Bradham concocted a dink all his own. He wanted to create something that tasted good and was also healthy.

 ‘Brad’s drink created in the summer of 1893, was later renamed Pepsi Cola in 1898. According to a document signed by Bradham, his formula for Pepsi-Cola consisted of sugar, water, caramel, lime juice, phosphoric acid, alcohol and oils (lemon, orange, cinnamon, nutmeg, coriander, and petit grain).
Caleb Davis Bradham and Pepsi-Cola

The invention of Pepsi Cola

Caleb Bradham, licensed pharmacist and proprietor of Bradham’s Prescription Pharmacy, thought someone ought to create a good tasting, refreshing drink without then harmful dugs contained in many fountain beverages.

In 1893, he began experimenting with combinations of spices, juices, and syrups trying to create a refreshing new drink to serve his customers.

Cola flavored beverages already existed – among them Coca-Cola - but Bradham wanted to develop his own formula, omitting the caffeine and cocaine.

He succeeded beyond all expectations because he invented the beverage known around the world as Pepsi-Cola in the summer of 1893.

Caleb Bradham creation, a unique mixture of kola nut extract, vanilla and rare oils, became so popular his customers named it "Brad's Drink."

The name ‘Brad’s Drink’ didn’t convey the nature so the beverage and he decided to rename it "Pepsi-Cola,” in 1898 and advertised his new soft drink. People responded, and sales of Pepsi-Cola started to grow, convincing him that he should form a company to market the new beverage.

In 1898, Caleb Bradham wisely bought the trade name ‘Pep Cola’ for $100 from a competitor from Newark, New Jersey that had gone burke.

By 1900 Pepsi-Cola had become so popular, that Bradham created the Pepsi-Cola Company.

According to a document signed by Bradham, his formula for Pepsi-Cola consisted of sugar, water, caramel, lime juice, phosphoric acid, alcohol and oils (lemon, orange, cinnamon, nutmeg, coriander and petit grain).
The invention of Pepsi Cola