Trip Down Memory Lane to Grandmother's House Sipping Soda

I was texting back and forth with a friend and our conversation led to the soft drink TaB.  How many of you remember TaB?  I certainly do I remember drinking it at my Grandmother Dobson's house on N. River in Independence, MO. TaB was introduced into the market in 1962 by Coca Cola Company after the successful sales and marketing of Diet Rite cola owned by The Royal Crown Company. I would have been just a baby not even a toddler yet.  I always thought TaB was the first sugar free soda but to my surprise it was Diet Rite cola.  Now 50 years later I am still drinking diet cola.

Growing up as kids we didn't have soda handy at home like kids have today.  My mom would keep Dr. Pepper or 7-Up for medical purposes such as an upset stomach.  The only time we had soda was when it was a special occasion which certainly made you appreciate it much more.  I wonder if any of us kids ever faked an upset stomach just to have a soda?  We drank iced tea, juice, milk, or water.  It wasn't until some time in the 70's that mom would have it available as an option for a beverage.  I seem to remember that coincided with the introduction of the plastic  two liter bottles.

When we were kids and went to Grandmother's house she always had ice cold bottles of Coke Cola, Tab, and 7-UP; sometimes she would have Dr. Pepper and Canada Dry Ginger Ale but those were mainly for medical purposes. Although I can say if you asked she'd grant you with your choice of soft drink. She always served it in the bottle with a straw. The straw was usually one of those bendable ones but I do remember when I was younger that sometimes they were the paper straws.

Coca Cola was formulated in 1886 by John Pemberton. The first sales were at Jacobs Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia on May 8, 1886.  It was originally sold as a patent medicine for 5 cents a glass at soda fountains which were popular at the time because of the belief that carbonated water was good for the health.  Mr. Pemberton claimed that coca cola cured many diseases such as morphine addictions, dyspepsia, neurasthenia, headaches, and impotence.  If only that last part were true we wouldn't have to listen and see Jimmy Johnson's Extenses commercial on TV.  lol

ut  In 1929 Charles Lieper Grigg of the The Howdy Corporation in St. Louis, Mo created the lemon-lime formula for 7-UP.  It was launched two weeks before the Wall Street Crash.  It contained lithium citrate a mood-stabilizing drug until 1950.  It has been reformulated several times since then.  It was one of many products patent for medical purposes that were popular in the late-19th and early-20th centuries.  It was considered a common folk remedy.  I don't know about you but there is something about drinking a cold 7-UP when you've been sick with the stomach flu.

 Charles Alderton of Waco, Texas first created Dr Pepper in the 1880's.  It was first served in 1885 at Morrison's Old Corner Drug Store in Waco. It was nationally marketed in United States in 1904 at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition.  In the early years it was marketed as a brain tonic and a energizing pick-me-up.  I don't know about you but I am beginning to get the picture of why my grandmother and mother considered some of these products for medical purposes  I also now understand why some family members are hooked on it, they need it for the brain tonic purposes.  (smiling singing) Be a Pepper. Drink Dr Pepper...

  Canada Dry's formula was perfected in 1904 by John McLaughlin in Toronto, Canada at a small plant that manufactured soda water.  It wasn't until 1919 that McLaughlin began to ship the product to New York City.  Two years later the first plant was opened in United States in Manhattan on 38th Street.  During the roaring 20's it cost the high price of 35 cents for a 12 ounce bottle.  Ginger ale was used as a home remedy to alleviate indigestion and nausea but its real popularity came during the prohibition as a mixer with the horrid taste of homemade liquor.  In other words it made gut rot worth drinking.  lol

We had a lot of good times laughing, talking, and visiting while we sipped our sodas at Grandmother's house.  I can remember sitting in her living room in front of the fireplace on the big oval rug and then later on wall to wall carpet sipping one of these sodas as we visited with one another. Somewhere on an old cassette tape there is a recording of me making up a poem as I looked into the fire in the fire place while drinking my soda.  She had a tape cassette tape recorder back in the 1970's.  I think if she was still alive today she would be up on all the electronic gadgets.  She liked to update with the times and take advantage of new things and ways to do things but she also loved and appreciated antiques. I can imagine us sipping soda but probably out of cans or plastic bottles while she would be using the video cam on her smart phone recording the memories.