Rethinking What Great Great Grandma Was Really Drinking
A research rabbit hole about soda fountains
“Happy Days” formed my earliest vision of #sodafountainlife, though there were no hashtags and Arnold’s Diner didn’t feature a soda counter. Still, that TV show sparked a craze for all things ‘50s, like malteds. To my elementary school mind, that world and everything in it was cast in a sheen of innocence.
While researching my forthcoming historical novel, Florida Girls (click here to get an audio sample of the prologue), I learned otherwise. And the history kept on giving. My book takes place over about six months in 1944/45, so only about two sentences of my investigations made their way into the manuscript. But it’s all too juicy not to share. I hope you enjoy what I found, but if nothing else, culling my research is also leaving breadcrumbs for my future self.
No one knows exactly when flavors were first added to soda water (a name coined in 1798), but there’s no question the mixtures became wildly popular in the late 1800s. Given that the main ingredient, soda, reportedly cured ailments from nervousness to gout to gonorrhea, these carbonated drinks were considered medicinal. Thus soda fountains were installed in drug stores, with pharmacists dispensing the drinks as healing tonics.
The most enduring creation of the era, minted in 1886, was a combination of African kola nut and South American cocaine blended to make the formula we’ve come to know as Coca-Cola. Before Coke dominated the market (even without the cocaine), the competition was steep.
In the late 19th century, chemists everywhere installed soda fountains. Serving narcotics over the counter was good business, but it wasn’t enough. As department stores siphoned off customers with cheap medicines and their own soda fountains, the economic pressure to lure customers back into apothecaries increased. The fountains themselves grew increasingly elaborate, as did the pharmacists’ concoctions.
It’s no overstatement to claim that these beasts were works of art, evidenced here in the picture below, which shows a stunning example from Tufts at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876.
Another factor in this soaring popularity was societal. In the late 1800s “nice ladies” didn’t frequent bars. If reports are accurate, it's fair to say that women were regular soda fountain patrons. In 1877, New Yorkers consumed a whopping 200,000 glasses of fountain drinks every day. At an average of 7.5 cents each, NYC druggists made $15,000 a day on sodas alone. Not that all drinks were tinged with cocaine.
Take the beverage we call 7 Up. Originally Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda (BLLLLS), the secret sauce is in the name—lithium. In the 1920s, lithium baths were considered rejuvenating and became popular destinations. Seen as a healthy additive, lithium citrate ended up in BLLLLS. (I refrained from exploring the name change, but endorse it!)
Taste fads led to a constant search for trends. Flavors came with names like Easter Punch and Creme de Russe, and mixes included ice cream, phosphates, and eggs. While I can’t know how those flavors hit the palate, to my ear, they’re repugnant. Regardless of how the drinks tasted, a big part of the sales job was the look.
Between the intricate tube and faucet build-outs, complex mixing apparatuses, and the skills needed to prepare theses beverages, druggists could reassure the public that their libations were similar to compounded medicines. They used formulas, not recipes. And the possibilities were endless.
One manual published in 1897—the Standard Manual of Soda and Other Beverages—held more than 1,500 such concoctions. Directions included formulas for:
Coloring Agents, Foams, Extracts, Essences, Fruit Juices, Syrups, Meads, Beers, Ales, Phosphates, Lactarts, Egg Drinks, Ades, Milk and Cream Drinks, Medicinal Drinks, Popular Fancy Drinks, Hot Soda Drinks, Ice Creams, Ciders, Fruit Wines, Liqueurs, Cordials, Bitters, and Cremes.
Blech.
Even the Narcotics Act of 1914, which put an end to over-the-counter cocaine and the like, didn’t quell the popularity of soda counters.
In 1929, The New York Times, reported that Americans were spending $700 million annually at soda fountains. In the film It’s a Wonderful Life (released in 1947), a young George Bailey is working the soda counter when Mary Hatch whispers softly, “George Bailey, I’ll love you till the day I die.”
So what did put an end to these once ubiquitous installations? The same thing that killed my soul decades later, car culture and suburbia.
The wheels were put in motion at the turn of the 20th century, when one of the industry’s earliest bulwarks, Coca Cola, began bottling their formula. Many have credited this switch for the company’s long-term success. The soda industry was another story.
As outlets offering sodas switched to self-service vending machines and pre-packaged soft drinks, the days of the Perisian Sherbette were on the wane.
By the 1950s, drive-in restaurants and roadside ice cream outlets like Dairy Queen (albeit one of my favorite employers) meant that labor-intensive fountains didn’t fit the new sales model. Today, only a handful of those vintage counters still remain.
Strangest of all, to my mind, is how the long and twisty history of this seemingly innocent pastime intersects with our country’s curious relationship to drugs and alcohol. Sometimes religion is the opiate of the masses, sometimes it’s opium.
You’re here, let’s chat!
Some conversation starters…
Ever been to a real live soda fountain and had an egg crème? You want to know more about egg crèmes, promise.
Did you ever work at Dairy Queen? Was it not the greatest job?? If not, what on earth was better?
Do you have any idea how BLLLLS became 7-Up? Was it ever really called BLLLLS??? How is that pronounced? Guesses welcome. Please save me from this rabbit hole.
Have you ever tried adding cocaine to a beverage? Did you still get high from the coke?
Prohibition was another reason for the rise of soda fountains. In 1920, instead of closing down, bars changed their business model and became soda counters, instead. I bet most of them still sold booze But that’s an armchair opinion. What’s yours?
Or, AMA!
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-The Feminist Rant You DIDN’T Hear in the Barbie Movie
-Getting Your Story Unstuck (A video workshop)
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I used to mix a colada with coke (coca-cola) and it kept me pretty energetic and upbeat.