the name root beer came from pharmacist charles elmer hires.
where did the name root beer come from?
pharmacist charles elmer hires
hires root beer was created by philadelphia pharmacist charles elmer hires. the official story is that hires first tasted root beer, a traditional american beverage dating back to the colonial era, while on his honeymoon in 1875. however, historical accounts vary and the actual time and place of the discovery may never be known. by 1876, hires had developed his own recipe and was marketing 25-cent packets of powder which each yielded five gallons of root beer. at philadelphia's centennial exposition in 1876, he cultivated new customers by giving away free glasses of root beer. hires marketed it as a solid concentrate of sixteen wild roots and berries. it claimed to purify the blood and make rosy cheeks. in 1884, he began producing a liquid extract and a syrup for use in soda fountains, and was soon shipping root beer in kegs and producing a special fountain dispenser called the "hires automatic munimaker." in 1890, the charles e. hires company incorporated and began supplying hires root beer in small bottles claiming over a million bottles sold by 1891.
hires root beer
root beer is a sweet north american soft drink traditionally made using the bark of the sassafras tree "sassafras albidum" or the vine of "smilax ornata" (sarsaparilla) as the primary flavor. root beer may be alcoholic or non-alcoholic, most often non-alcoholic. it is naturally free of caffeine but can have caffeine added, and be carbonated or non-carbonated. it usually has a thick and foamy head when poured. modern, commercially produced root beer is generally sweet, foamy, carbonated, non-alcoholic, and flavored using artificial sassafras flavoring. sassafras root is still used to flavor traditional root beer, but since sassafras was banned by the u.s. food and drug administration due to the carcinogenicity of its constituent safrole, most commercial recipes do not contain sassafras. some commercial root beers do use a safrole-free sassafras extract. major producers include a&w root beer, barq's, dad's root beer, hires root beer, and mug root beer.
root beer