Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Speaker 1: Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: any surprise that the eponymous food series has become one
Speaker 1: of my favorite things to do. We get a lot
Speaker 1: of emails from listeners who also have found it to
Speaker 1: be a favorite. It's super fun. Who doesn't want to
Speaker 1: talk about food, delicious or otherwise. But last time we
Speaker 1: did an all chocolate addition. This time I thought it
Speaker 1: might be fun if we only talk about beverages, which,
Speaker 1: just to set it up, we're doing kind of an assortment.
Speaker 1: So one is a mocktail, technically one is a cocktail,
Speaker 1: and one is a brand person's name attached to it.
Speaker 1: So we're getting a little bit of a spread of options.
Speaker 1: And there are some surprises in here for me personally. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it just made me very, very nostalgic about various
Speaker 1: things I have consumed and enjoyed over the years, So
Speaker 1: hopefully it will do the same for you. And then
Speaker 1: I feel like this is we're setting up for a
Speaker 1: very lively Friday conversation. Yeah, I think so. We'll start
Speaker 1: with an absolute classic and one of the earliest mocktails,
Speaker 1: and that's the Shirley Temple. So probably not a surprise
Speaker 1: who it's named for. Child star Shirley Temple. And if
Speaker 1: you don't know who that is, Shirley Temple was a
Speaker 1: leading child star in the nineteen thirties and in the
Speaker 1: US as the country was completely engulfed in the Great
Speaker 1: Depression that followed the nineteen twenty nine stock market crash,
Speaker 1: she really became kind of an antidote for the failing
Speaker 1: morale of the country. Even President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, quote,
Speaker 1: as long as our country has Shirley Temple, we'll be
Speaker 1: all right. Because she was adoor. She was a very
Speaker 1: good performer from the time she was just tiny. She
Speaker 1: charmed people on screen so much charm. Shirley was born
Speaker 1: on April twenty third, nineteen twenty eight to George and
Speaker 1: Gertrude Temple. She was their third child and their only daughter.
Speaker 1: At the age of three, she was enrolled in a
Speaker 1: dance school. Sometimes you'll see that reported as like two
Speaker 1: and a half, and that is where she was spotted
Speaker 1: by a casting director for educational pictures and her film
Speaker 1: career began. We're not going to get into all of
Speaker 1: that film career here. That is its own whole thing,
Speaker 1: but I will say if you go back and watch
Speaker 1: some of Temple's earliest films, there's some pretty cringey stuff
Speaker 1: in there. There was often a trend in films and
Speaker 1: particularly educational pictures, to show children playing adults as sort
Speaker 1: of a spoof, which can be funny in theory, but
Speaker 1: often these were kind of weird situations to put children in.
Speaker 1: For example, in her first movie, War Babies, she played
Speaker 1: a dancer who entertained soldiers. There's some some sexual overtones
Speaker 1: to it. That's pretty weird. There's a romance storyline. This
Speaker 1: is reported as when she received her first kiss, So
Speaker 1: it's like there's it's icky. Some people don't find it icky.
Speaker 1: A lot of people do. There are others like this film.
Speaker 1: They were all under an umbrella of baby burlesques, and
Speaker 1: per Temple's own autobiography, the kids were treated very poorly
Speaker 1: and exploited in addition to whatever issues you may or
Speaker 1: may not have with the subject matter, But to the
Speaker 1: film going audience, this was all kind of cute and
Speaker 1: wholesome at the time, and Temple's image and success were
Speaker 1: based entirely around that idea of innocent sweetness that was
Speaker 1: used to market them. There are three different places that
Speaker 1: have been the alleged originators of the drink that was
Speaker 1: named for this child actor. The most frequently cited is
Speaker 1: Chasin's in Hollywood. That's an eatery that opened in nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty six. The Royal Hawaiian Hotel on Awaho has also
Speaker 1: touted the drink as its own invention over the years,
Speaker 1: and yet another version of the story states that it
Speaker 1: was created at the Hollywood Brown Derby, which has been
Speaker 1: the focus on the show other Food. Despite the variety
Speaker 1: of locations that this may have happened in, the basic
Speaker 1: origin story for the drink is almost always the same. Sureley,
Speaker 1: who at this point was a successful actor, was out
Speaker 1: with her parents. Both of them were drinking old fashions.
Speaker 1: Surely wanted one because of the cherry garnish. Here we'll
Speaker 1: have a sidebar on the pronunciation of Maraschino, which is
Speaker 1: how we say it in the US, versus Maraschino, which
Speaker 1: is how it really is said in Italy. Here is
Speaker 1: a distinguisher. I have heard people use, I don't know
Speaker 1: if this is universal. They tend to use Maraschino for
Speaker 1: the hyper sweet, kind of bright translucent ones that go
Speaker 1: into things like Shirley Temple's Here Now, and Maraschino for
Speaker 1: the darker, deeper flavored ones that go into actual cocktails.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's a convention a lot of
Speaker 1: people use. I have heard it in a few different places, though,
Speaker 1: But anyway, Sureley wanted a drink because of this cute garnish,
Speaker 1: but of course she could not have an old fashioned,
Speaker 1: so someone on the staff made up an alcohol free
Speaker 1: drink that she could have and garnished it with a
Speaker 1: Maraschino cherry. Voila, the Shirley Temple is born. And after that,
Speaker 1: restaurants in Hollywood started offering this as a beverage for
Speaker 1: younger diners to enjoy, and it's spread very quickly from there,
Speaker 1: and adults who didn't drink alcohol also started to order
Speaker 1: it because it's delicious. The actual ingredients are kind of variable, though,
Speaker 1: depending on what recipe you look at or where you
Speaker 1: order it. There's usually grenadine and then either a lemon
Speaker 1: lime soda or ginger ale on top. Some versions combine
Speaker 1: those sodas, also orange juice, maybe a little lime juice,
Speaker 1: but there's always that Maraschino cherry to garnish it. But Shirley,
Speaker 1: who became Shirley Temple Black when she married her second
Speaker 1: husban in nineteen fifty, appears to have not been a
Speaker 1: huge fan of the drink, especially as time war on.
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty eight, a company called Soda Pop Kids
Speaker 1: in Encino, California, brought a bottled version of the Shirley
Speaker 1: Temple to market under the brand name Shirley t with
Speaker 1: the tagline the Shirley Temple Soft Drink. But Temple Black
Speaker 1: fought it aggressively through legal channels, saying that it diluted
Speaker 1: her name's commercial value and invaded her privacy. In a
Speaker 1: quote given to press in autumn of nineteen eighty eight,
Speaker 1: she said, quote, I will fight it like a tigris.
Speaker 1: All a celebrity has is their name. She noted in
Speaker 1: another interview, quote, I have always been very cautious all
Speaker 1: of my life to make sure any items are licensed.
Speaker 1: My lawyer will go after anyone who is using my
Speaker 1: name on a product without my permission. And she also
Speaker 1: stated that she thought most Shirley Temple drinks were just
Speaker 1: too sweet and she didn't even really like it, and
Speaker 1: she felt like, even though so this drink contained no alcohol,
Speaker 1: it still kind of felt like marketing a cocktail to children,
Speaker 1: and she never liked that about it either. The legal
Speaker 1: battle over bottled Shirley Temple soda hinged on whether the
Speaker 1: name had become a generic term or not. Bradley Wideman,
Speaker 1: the owner of Soda Pop Kids, and his counsel, argued
Speaker 1: that people had been able to walk into restaurants and
Speaker 1: order a Shirley Temple for fifty years at that point,
Speaker 1: so obviously it was a generic term. But Temple Black's attorney,
Speaker 1: Joseph M. Malcolm, made the case that it did not
Speaker 1: matter how long people had been ordering Shirley Temples and restaurants.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy one, a law had been passed in
Speaker 1: California making it illegal to use a person's likeness or
Speaker 1: name for commercial purposes without their consent. Malcolm said in
Speaker 1: an interview with the Los Angeles Times, quote, it's one
Speaker 1: thing to go into a bar and order a Shirley
Speaker 1: Temple drink, or go into a restaurant and get a
Speaker 1: Clint Eastwood sandwich. It's another thing to sell a soft
Speaker 1: drink as the Shirley Temple Soft drink or a sandwich
Speaker 1: as the Clint Eastwood Sandwich. In late October of nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty eight, Temple Black was able to stop the use
Speaker 1: of her name associated with the sale of Shirley Tea temporarily.
Speaker 1: The court order stated that the company could sell existing
Speaker 1: inventory of the product, but it had to be relabeled
Speaker 1: to exclude her name. It appears that the company never
Speaker 1: got back to making it after the lawsuit. Today, you
Speaker 1: can occasionally find empty bottles with the Shirley Tea label
Speaker 1: on them on eBay with the Shirley Temple Soft Drink tag.
Speaker 1: Temple Black died in twenty fourteen, and today you can
Speaker 1: easily purchase drinks with the Shirley Temple name on them
Speaker 1: in both mocktail and alcoholic varieties. Okay, so it's time
Speaker 1: for one that I actually wanted to do for a
Speaker 1: long time as its own episode, and I kept backing
Speaker 1: away from it. But this seems like the right place
Speaker 1: to do it. Holy cow, everyone has been talking about
Speaker 1: negronies in the last year, yes, particularly after how Dragon's
Speaker 1: actor Emma Darcy said the Negronie spalliado was their drink
Speaker 1: of choice in a viral TikTok from HBO's account with
Speaker 1: fellow House of Dragon star Olivia Cook. Okay, everybody knows
Speaker 1: this by now, but I'm just going to go over it.
Speaker 1: And the Gronie Spiriato has prosecco in it instead of gin,
Speaker 1: and spalliato means mistake in Italian, so it's literally a
Speaker 1: mistake in the gronie. Also just the delivery, Oh yes,
Speaker 1: although it has led I know to people ordering it
Speaker 1: in a weird way. I'm not criticizing anyway. Whatever you do,
Speaker 1: it's fine. But if you say to a bartender, I
Speaker 1: want a Negronie balliado, you don't have to say with prosecco.
Speaker 1: When they say that. In that TikTok, they're explaining what
Speaker 1: it is, not saying it's this, and you add this additionally,
Speaker 1: with prosecco, you know that it's vaded prosecco. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: where did the original cocktail, which usually consists of equal
Speaker 1: parts come Parise Vermuth and gin get its name. Before
Speaker 1: we talk about the person it's named for, we have
Speaker 1: to talk about its predecessor drink, the Americano. We do
Speaker 1: not mean a Cafe Americano. That is a different thing.
Speaker 1: This is a drink that incorporates on a morrow that's
Speaker 1: a bitter herb liqueur, specifically campari. For the Americano, it's
Speaker 1: combined with sweet vermouth, which is a fortified wine that
Speaker 1: also has herbs, spices and bark flavoring, and then that's
Speaker 1: topped off with club soda. It's a pretty light drink
Speaker 1: in terms of alcohol by volume. Yeah, the club soda
Speaker 1: makes it pretty refreshing. But the Americano was based on
Speaker 1: a drink called the Milano Tourno. Maybe Milano is a
Speaker 1: reference to Milan, the origin city of Campari, and Torino
Speaker 1: is a reference to Turin, where vermut Titurini comes from.
Speaker 1: This drink was invented by Gaspar Campari in the eighteen
Speaker 1: sixties at Cafe Camparino in Milan, and it was, according
Speaker 1: to legend, popular with American tourists that they preferred it
Speaker 1: diluted with a bit of club soda, thus the name Americano.
Speaker 1: But there's debate, however, about whether or not Italians also
Speaker 1: already drank it on occasion with a soda topper. According
Speaker 1: to author and drink's historian David Wondrich, who knows all
Speaker 1: of the things about the history of drinks, the Americano
Speaker 1: and Milano Torino are better described as kind of existing
Speaker 1: in tandem, that the Americano being a generic version, in
Speaker 1: the Milano Torino being a variation. An Americano, according to
Speaker 1: his information, is not named for the version with the
Speaker 1: diluted club soda, but for the use of bidders with vermouth,
Speaker 1: which was considered an American practice. So what we can
Speaker 1: say with certainty is that in the nineteen teens the
Speaker 1: Americano was a very popular drink in Italy, both with
Speaker 1: people who lived in Italy and people who visit it.
Speaker 1: Now we get to Negroni, the man, or more accurately Negronese,
Speaker 1: because there are two different origin stories. We're going to
Speaker 1: talk about both of those after a sponsor break. Okay,
Speaker 1: before the break, we said we would talk about the
Speaker 1: two men who are both discussed as possibly being the
Speaker 1: man for whom the Negroni is named. So first, Camillo
Speaker 1: Luigi Manfredro Maria Negroni was born on May twenty fifth,
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty eight, in Florence, Italy. His father was Count
Speaker 1: Enrico Negroni, and his mother was Ada Savage Landor. His
Speaker 1: father died when he was ten years old, and when
Speaker 1: he was sixteen, Camillo went to a military academy. He also,
Speaker 1: during this time subtly changed the spelling of his name.
Speaker 1: Instead of two ms in Camillo, he changed it to one.
Speaker 1: We do not have a clear reason why his mother,
Speaker 1: though remarried and Camillo did not get along with the
Speaker 1: second husband at all, and it is that conflict which
Speaker 1: is said to have inspired him to leave home and travel,
Speaker 1: and he headed to the United States. For a long time,
Speaker 1: the only real account of Camillo Negroni came from a
Speaker 1: wonderful and somewhat fanciful tale that appeared in North American
Speaker 1: newspapers in nineteen twenty eight. This is the biography slash Travelog,
Speaker 1: written by a journalist named Bob Davis who worked for
Speaker 1: the New York Sun. Have a number of questions about it.
Speaker 1: There may or may not be answers, but it's pretty fun. So.
Speaker 1: Davis said that he encountered Negroni after he had such
Speaker 1: a hard time communicating with his cab driver while visiting
Speaker 1: Italy that he had just kind of gestured to the
Speaker 1: man to simply drive and hope that he would figure
Speaker 1: out where to go or that he would see something
Speaker 1: of interest. And when he saw a man on a
Speaker 1: horse with a Mexican saddle and looking entirely like a
Speaker 1: wild West cowboy, he had the driver stop and he
Speaker 1: asked if demand spoke English, and he got the reply,
Speaker 1: your tutin' I do ombre, although allegedly with an Italian act,
Speaker 1: which I dared not try because I will sound like
Speaker 1: a bad video game. I don't I that just this
Speaker 1: is part of my questions. That just seems like an
Speaker 1: impossible sentence to say with an Italian accent. Like I said,
Speaker 1: I dare not. But the two men, according to this story,
Speaker 1: began talking and the Gronie told Davis, quote, you are
Speaker 1: the first stranger in these parts who ever tumbled to
Speaker 1: my outfit. He also told the American tourists that he
Speaker 1: could tell the driver to follow him over a ridge
Speaker 1: that he was pointing to, and that once they got there,
Speaker 1: he could show him where to get something to eat
Speaker 1: and drink. So over these refreshments, according to what Davis wrote,
Speaker 1: the count told his life story quote, I went out
Speaker 1: to the Rockies in the late eighties and fell in
Speaker 1: love with the country. I learned enough about stud Qino
Speaker 1: and Pharaoh to get broke and stay that way. Punching
Speaker 1: horses suited me to death, and I went adventuring over
Speaker 1: the ranges. And the Gronie talked about how he the road,
Speaker 1: heard around North America, spent time in Alberta, Canada, and
Speaker 1: even taught a horse to stick around without hitching. He
Speaker 1: also shared a story about when he was delivering beef
Speaker 1: from one ranch to another and met a cowboy along
Speaker 1: the way who bad mouthed the man who was supposed
Speaker 1: to receive the order. That man's name was Walter Gordon Cumming.
Speaker 1: The two of them got drunk together, and it turned
Speaker 1: out the cowboy talking trash about coming was actually Walter
Speaker 1: Gordon Coming. And then after this whole joke was exposed,
Speaker 1: Coming and Negrony became very good friends. Coming gifted the
Speaker 1: count with the Mexican saddle that Davis had noticed from
Speaker 1: the taxi while he was lost. It also turned out
Speaker 1: that as Nigroni told Davis about his gambling exploits, Davis
Speaker 1: started to recognize some of the stories and realized that
Speaker 1: he had actually heard of Nigrony before, and had even
Speaker 1: gone to a party that Nigrony had thrown when the
Speaker 1: Count was flushed with winnings when he was in North America.
Speaker 1: By the way, he eventually lost all of that money
Speaker 1: again according to the story. For a long time, this
Speaker 1: very fanciful write up was really consistent of the only
Speaker 1: pieces of information that we in North America had about
Speaker 1: this Count ne Groni's personality up to when the cocktail emerges,
Speaker 1: and it establishes that this person does seem to exist.
Speaker 1: This doesn't mention the cocktail at all, although the whole
Speaker 1: thing is rather fantastical. This and so many aspects of
Speaker 1: this reading to me like something that the writer made up. Yes,
Speaker 1: So in recent years, as more books about Negroney history
Speaker 1: have been published, we've gotten more detail about this cowboy count.
Speaker 1: He got married on his thirtieth birthday to a woman
Speaker 1: named Antoinette's worka from Prague. He found out he had
Speaker 1: a son from a romance. In his youth. He designed
Speaker 1: gardens probably, and he lived a lot of life and
Speaker 1: died at the age of sixty six. And now we're
Speaker 1: gonna step sideway and talk about the other Negroni who
Speaker 1: maybe the reason the cocktail got its name. This is
Speaker 1: a briefer story, probably because it involves less fanciful things.
Speaker 1: The second Negroni namesake is General Pascal Olivier, Count de Negroni.
Speaker 1: He was born on April fourth, eighteen twenty nine, in
Speaker 1: San Colombano a l'ambro in Italy's Lombardi region. This Count
Speaker 1: Negroni was a member of the French army who served
Speaker 1: starting when he was eighteen and ending forty four years
Speaker 1: later at the age of sixty two. During this time,
Speaker 1: this Negroni led a pivotal charge in the Franco Prussian
Speaker 1: War of eighteen seventy and earned the Officer's Cross of
Speaker 1: the Imperial Legion of Honor. He was captured just weeks
Speaker 1: later and spent six months as a prisoner of war,
Speaker 1: but after that he continued his rise through the ranks
Speaker 1: and became a general and a commander of the Legion
Speaker 1: of Honor. But Negroni, the general, died in nineteen thirteen
Speaker 1: at the age of eighty four, and this causes a
Speaker 1: little problem with the ti timeline of the invention of
Speaker 1: the eponymous cocktail, because it's usually noted as having been
Speaker 1: created in nineteen nineteen, so the Cowboy count is said
Speaker 1: to have returned to Italy as calls for prohibition were
Speaker 1: gaining favor in the United States, and he frequented a
Speaker 1: place called Cafe Cassoni in Florence. This was not strictly
Speaker 1: a bar, not strictly a cafe. It also sold groceries
Speaker 1: and perfumes, kind of like a corner store with a
Speaker 1: cocktail bar in it, which that sounds like a handy
Speaker 1: thing to have in a neighborhood. It still exists, though
Speaker 1: it's now known as Cafe Jacosa, and Camillo d'groni is
Speaker 1: said to have stopped in there one day, as he
Speaker 1: often did, and asked for an Americano but popi robusto
Speaker 1: or a little bit more robust. Camila n'groni is said
Speaker 1: to have picked up a taste for gin while living
Speaker 1: in the United States, so bartender Fosco Scarceli omitted the
Speaker 1: club soda and replaced it with gin, and then topped
Speaker 1: that with an orange garnish. There are also historians that
Speaker 1: say the gin was simply added without omitting the soda.
Speaker 1: But whichever way the Negroni was born, maybe Scarceli remained
Speaker 1: known for creating the Negroni for the rest of his life,
Speaker 1: and according to various accounts, people started ordering it by saying,
Speaker 1: I want the same drink as Negroni. But there are
Speaker 1: still some problems with the story. For one, members of
Speaker 1: the Negroni family have stated that they have scoured their
Speaker 1: family tree back to the eleventh century. They found no
Speaker 1: Count Camillo, although there was a reproduction of his birth
Speaker 1: certificate that has since appeared in print. Now to support
Speaker 1: the general Pascal Negroni story, we found several mentions of
Speaker 1: an article titled new evidence that Neigroni was invented in
Speaker 1: Africa Sorry Italy that was said to appear in a
Speaker 1: publication called Drinking Cup in twenty twelve. I sure couldn't
Speaker 1: find this, but Tracy did. It's a now defunct site
Speaker 1: which featured a photo of a letter that Pascal Olivier
Speaker 1: Negroni sent to his brother that suggested that he created
Speaker 1: this drink in eighteen fifty seven to celebrate his wedding,
Speaker 1: and he then introduced it to officers while he was
Speaker 1: stationed in Senegal in eighteen seventy. This is also tricky though,
Speaker 1: because in eighteen fifty seven Campari didn't exist yet, and
Speaker 1: most bartenders will tell you if there's no Campari, it's
Speaker 1: not a Negroni. But in twenty fifteen, author Luca Peake
Speaker 1: published his story of the Negroni and sides with the
Speaker 1: Camilla Nigroni version, but also includes a story of litigation
Speaker 1: in this book which echoes the one we talked about
Speaker 1: with the Shirley Temple, although in the opposite way. In
Speaker 1: the late nineteen fifties, a company called Treviso, which was
Speaker 1: owned by a member of the Nigroni family, put a
Speaker 1: pre mixed negro on the market, sold in bottles, but
Speaker 1: it was, according to the barman and liqueur manufacturers of
Speaker 1: the time, bad bad enough that Campari and several other
Speaker 1: Liqueur companies sued over it and the case. A lot
Speaker 1: of people testified to the Florence origin of the cocktail
Speaker 1: at Cafe Cassoni, including bartender Fosco Sarcelli. The bottled old
Speaker 1: Nigrony cocktail was taken off the market, so it seems
Speaker 1: like pretty much all of the actual evidence supports the
Speaker 1: Count Negroni, who was a cowboy and perhaps a very
Speaker 1: flamboyant character. But wherever it started, it seems like its
Speaker 1: intense flavor is matched only by the intense scrutiny its
Speaker 1: origins have gotten and the intense disagreements about who it's
Speaker 1: really named for. The Campari Company, by the way, sticks
Speaker 1: with that nineteen nineteen Florence origin. Our next beverage is
Speaker 1: a soft drink. We will talk about whether or not
Speaker 1: it really qualifies as an eponymous food him after we
Speaker 1: hear from the sponsors that keep stuffymus in history class,
Speaker 1: going alrighty, we have had a mocktail and a cocktail,
Speaker 1: and this next one is a soft drink. Have you
Speaker 1: ever wondered why doctor Pepper is called? That? Is there
Speaker 1: Doctor Pepper? Like the Negroni, there are competing stories. We
Speaker 1: definitely do know who invented this one though, and a
Speaker 1: lot about the early years of doctor Pepper, but the
Speaker 1: doctor himself that it may or may not be known for.
Speaker 1: That's a little more mysterious. And this story starts in Waco, Texas,
Speaker 1: but it has roots in Virginia. The inventor of this
Speaker 1: soft drink was Charles Alderton. Alderton was born in Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: New York, on June twenty first, eighteen fifty seven. After
Speaker 1: finishing a bachelor's degree in England. He went to the
Speaker 1: University of Texas to study medicine and used his education
Speaker 1: to become a pharmacist a job in a drug store
Speaker 1: in Waco, Texas called Morrison's Old Corner drug Store. This
Speaker 1: was an old school drug store with a soda fountain.
Speaker 1: I kind of missed these. There maybe are still some somewhere.
Speaker 1: I know definitely of one in New York, but there
Speaker 1: are more than that, I'm sure, but they're few and
Speaker 1: far between now. Yeah, there was one in Like the
Speaker 1: pharmacy that we went to when I was growing up
Speaker 1: had a soda fountain, and that is where my brother's
Speaker 1: after school job was in high school. So, according to
Speaker 1: the Doctor Pepper Museum, which is in the original building
Speaker 1: where the now defunct Morrison's drug Store operated, Alderton loved
Speaker 1: the way the store smelled because of all of the
Speaker 1: fruit syrups from the soda fountain. So when he wasn't
Speaker 1: busy compounding medicines, he would get behind the soda fountain
Speaker 1: counter and help serve customers, and he started to think
Speaker 1: about how he might combine a number of syrups to
Speaker 1: make a carbonated drink that tasted the way the store smelled.
Speaker 1: He started experimenting with this idea in eighteen eighty five
Speaker 1: and kept notes on what combinations and proportions he had used.
Speaker 1: He kept tweaking the mix until he felt like he
Speaker 1: had it just right, so the next step was a
Speaker 1: taste test with the boss, Wade Morrison. Morrison also liked it,
Speaker 1: and they started offering it to customers, who also liked
Speaker 1: it a lot. They patented this beverage on December first,
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty five. At that point it was just called
Speaker 1: a Waco and it became so popular that other drug
Speaker 1: stores started buying the mix from Morrison so they too
Speaker 1: could sell wacos. The burden of distributing that much product
Speaker 1: out of a drug store got to be too much,
Speaker 1: especially because according to legend, it has had twenty three
Speaker 1: ingredients Since the beginning, Alderton and Morrison could not keep
Speaker 1: up as demand grew, enter Richard S. Lazenbee, who was
Speaker 1: a beverage chemist. Lazinbie owned a ginger ale company and
Speaker 1: he approached Morrison and Alderton and suggested that he could help,
Speaker 1: and at this point Morrison went into business with Lazinbe.
Speaker 1: It seems that Alderton loved the creativity of creating this
Speaker 1: drink and working out the formula, but he wasn't really
Speaker 1: interested in the logistics of large scale beverage manufacture. So
Speaker 1: Lazinbe and Morrison went into business together and they formed
Speaker 1: the Artesian Manufacturing and Bottling Company. In eighteen ninety one.
Speaker 1: Lazinbee's son in law, JB. O'Hara, also joined the company
Speaker 1: and it changed names to the Doctor Pepper Company. I
Speaker 1: swear we're going to come back to the name, but
Speaker 1: for now, just know it changed names for the next
Speaker 1: decade and change. The drink remained kind of a local
Speaker 1: specialty in Texas, but in nineteen oh four, Doctor Pepper
Speaker 1: made its global debut at the World's Fair exposition in
Speaker 1: Saint Louis. It's estimated that Lazinbe and O'Hare served the
Speaker 1: drink to twenty million people over the course of the expo,
Speaker 1: but they had prepared for that. The company had built
Speaker 1: a new bottling plan in Saint Louis ahead of the
Speaker 1: fair and started advertising in Missouri as early as nineteen
Speaker 1: oh one, and when the expo opened, Doctor Pepper was
Speaker 1: sold at concession stands throughout the complex. Was a huge
Speaker 1: moment for the company, which continued to expand rapidly. Headquarters
Speaker 1: moved from Waco to Dallas in nineteen twenty three as
Speaker 1: part of the expansion. Okay, but who is doctor Pepper?
Speaker 1: There are several stories and theories. One is simply that
Speaker 1: the name was concocted to suggest the idea of it
Speaker 1: giving the consumer a bit of pep or energy. That
Speaker 1: was something that was a big concept in the late
Speaker 1: nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. You've heard us talk about
Speaker 1: it on other episodes where we talk about people who
Speaker 1: I don't want to say study nutrition because sometimes they
Speaker 1: weren't quite on it. But it was a popular concept
Speaker 1: like we need more pep, and that the addition of
Speaker 1: doctor on the label was intended to give it some
Speaker 1: sort of gravitaz, right, like a doctor pick me up.
Speaker 1: Pep may have also been short for pepsin, which is
Speaker 1: a digestive enzyme. The most popular story, though, is what
Speaker 1: puts this in an eponymous Foods episode. This one involves
Speaker 1: a bit of backward time travel. Not long after the
Speaker 1: US Civil War, a drug store opened in the town
Speaker 1: of Rural Retreat, Virginia by a man named Charles T. Pepper.
Speaker 1: Pepper was born in New River Valley in eighteen thirty
Speaker 1: and attended the University of Virginia Medical School. He got
Speaker 1: his medical degree in eighteen fifty five. Served in the
Speaker 1: Civil War as a surgeon for the Confederate Army. He
Speaker 1: had first started a private practice in Tennessee when the
Speaker 1: war ended, but then moved to Rural Retreat and established
Speaker 1: a combination drug store in doctor's office according to the law.
Speaker 1: In eighteen seventy four, he hired a young Wade Morrison
Speaker 1: to work as a pharmacist, and it was Morrison's first job.
Speaker 1: Wade only stayed in Rural Retreat for a few year
Speaker 1: years before moving to Texas, although he moved around the
Speaker 1: state of Texas for a bit before settling in Waco.
Speaker 1: So there is this story that he had fallen in
Speaker 1: love with Charles Pepper's daughter and wanted to marry her.
Speaker 1: That information does not hold up to scrutiny. Pepper's daughter
Speaker 1: would have been a little kid when Wade moved to Texas.
Speaker 1: Ruth Pepper did get married much later, in nineteen oh
Speaker 1: one to a man named Barnes Gillespie, but this story
Speaker 1: of this romance element has persisted. That Morrison had named
Speaker 1: this popular soda after his first boss as part of
Speaker 1: his involvement with the family. There is an interesting element
Speaker 1: in this, which is how very invested rural retreat Virginia
Speaker 1: has been in maintaining the importance of doctor Charles Pepper's
Speaker 1: role in this chain of events that led to the
Speaker 1: soda and its name. Sometimes the story of the daughter
Speaker 1: and Wade being in love is repeated. It's combined with
Speaker 1: a romantic melodrama element, suggesting that Morrison created the soda
Speaker 1: beverage to try to impress Charles Pepper but failed, and
Speaker 1: that he left Virginia in embarrassment and heartbreak. Another version
Speaker 1: of the story that sometimes told is that Charles Pepper
Speaker 1: actually invented the formula and that Wade Morrison took it.
Speaker 1: There's even a brief mention in a nineteen ninety two
Speaker 1: write up about the beverage that Charles Pepper left behind
Speaker 1: some notes that some believe to have been part of
Speaker 1: the formula. These notes mentioned swamproot, quinine, spices, raisins, and soda.
Speaker 1: Yet another version suggests that Wade may have taken the
Speaker 1: formula from Charles's son, Lewis. There's even a variation suggesting
Speaker 1: that Lewis ran away to join the circus and got
Speaker 1: it from someone. There so many fanciful stories, but there
Speaker 1: is yet another twist in all of this. Because researchers
Speaker 1: at the Doctor Pepper Museum looked into Morrison's years in Virginia,
Speaker 1: there is there's no evidence he ever worked for Charles T. Pepper.
Speaker 1: He lived about forty miles away in Christiansburg, Virginia, But
Speaker 1: when they looked at census records for that town during
Speaker 1: the time Wade Morrison lived there, they did find another
Speaker 1: Doctor Pepper, doctor William Alexander Reed Pepper. This doctor Pepper
Speaker 1: lived near Morrison, They were in the same neighborhood, and
Speaker 1: he had a daughter just one year younger than Wade.
Speaker 1: Could he be the real doctor that the drink is
Speaker 1: named for, and maybe that's where this love interest story
Speaker 1: got its start listen. If so, we're probably never going
Speaker 1: to know for certain, because there is not much information
Speaker 1: on that doctor Pepper or Wade's possible relationship with him
Speaker 1: or his daughter. What we do know is that Doctor
Speaker 1: Pepper has continued to be one of the largest soda
Speaker 1: brands globally. A secret recipe of twenty three ingredients has
Speaker 1: been theorized and mythologized for more than one hundred years.
Speaker 1: The company has also gone through a lot of shifts
Speaker 1: and changes over the years. Today it is part of
Speaker 1: Kurig Doctor Pepper. There are more things about Doctor Pepper's history.
Speaker 1: For example, now just FYI any style guide people, there's
Speaker 1: no period in it. Okay, we'll talk about that and
Speaker 1: other stuff behind the scenes on Friday. I feel like
Speaker 1: my head is full of odd Doctor Pepper facts that
Speaker 1: weren't really germane to this part of the story. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of litigation that I became very fascinated by.
Speaker 1: But now I will do a little bit of listener mail,
Speaker 1: which feels a little bit like a solidarity listener mail
Speaker 1: because it is somebody who felt the same way as
Speaker 1: I did about their plush toy growing up and Scarlet Fever.
Speaker 1: This is from our listener Elise, who titled their email
Speaker 1: Don't burn My Teddy Bear. Alise writes, Hi, Holly and Tracy,
Speaker 1: I'm catching up on the last few weeks of episodes
Speaker 1: and just listen to the behind the scenes episode on
Speaker 1: Scarlet Fever, and I had to write you after listening
Speaker 1: to you ladies discuss the Velveteen Rabbit, and admittedly tearing up,
Speaker 1: I had to share I have a teddy bear that
Speaker 1: I've loved dearly my whole life. It's lived with me
Speaker 1: in every house an apartment I've ever had, and still does.
Speaker 1: As a kid, after reading The Velveteen Rabbit, I was
Speaker 1: so fearful of scarlet fever and the consequences that any
Speaker 1: time I had the slightest throat tickle or any signs
Speaker 1: of illness, I would hide my bear in the back
Speaker 1: of my closet. I remember being so afraid the adults
Speaker 1: would come and burn my things, including the bear, and
Speaker 1: I could not allow that. But if he wasn't near
Speaker 1: me when I was sick, he wouldn't need to be burned. Right,
Speaker 1: nightmares ensued. I'm certainly no advocate of banning books, but
Speaker 1: this one should maybe be labeled as YA fiction. I
Speaker 1: think that's actually kind of smart. On another note, I
Speaker 1: cannot thank the two of you enough for all your
Speaker 1: hard work sourcing materials, for your episodes, working tirelessly to
Speaker 1: use respectful and updated language, and for the care with
Speaker 1: which you handle delicate and potentially triggering topics. I also
Speaker 1: love the laughter you share and find myself smiling and
Speaker 1: chuckling along with you, especially when I can predict one
Speaker 1: of your reactions to something. I've been a listener to
Speaker 1: Stuffy Miss in history class for a long time, but
Speaker 1: over the last years, I worked my way through every
Speaker 1: single episode earning my second PhD. The first is in
Speaker 1: cellular and molecular biology. It allows me to teach biology
Speaker 1: at a local university. During the last few years, your
Speaker 1: voices have become such a source of comfort and familiarity
Speaker 1: that I will save up episodes to listen to you
Speaker 1: after a hard day. I'm so honored by that My
Speaker 1: two doggoes, Greta and Finn actually allow me to move
Speaker 1: around the house without constantly trailing behind when your voices
Speaker 1: are playing from my pocket. Thanks, by the way, for
Speaker 1: not using lots of background sound effects doors creaking or
Speaker 1: knocking in the background of some of my other favorite podcasts.
Speaker 1: Sends the dogs off into the deep end. Dog photos attached.
Speaker 1: Obviously this is so sweet. Okay, first of all, I
Speaker 1: don't know which dog is which one of these dogs.
Speaker 1: This is like a supermodel glamour shot. The dog is gorgeous.
Speaker 1: First of all, it's the one with the white chest area.
Speaker 1: Sitting in the grass just in the yard, but one
Speaker 1: ear is flopped over with this like insussient devil may
Speaker 1: care expression that's like a The other dog is absolutely
Speaker 1: adorable and they both look like very good babies. I
Speaker 1: kind of want to hug and kisch your dogs. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much to a Lease. I'm glad I'm not
Speaker 1: the only person who had contingency plans for my toys
Speaker 1: and how they had to be kept safe at all costs.
Speaker 1: It was very reasuring. If you would like to write
Speaker 1: to us, you could do so at History Podcast at
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio dot com. You can also find us on social
Speaker 1: media as missed in History pretty much everywhere. And if
Speaker 1: you would like to subscribe to the show and haven't
Speaker 1: done so yet, maybe you, like Alise, want to get
Speaker 1: your PhD and stuff you missed the History class. You
Speaker 1: can do that on the iHeartRadio app or anywhere you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows. Stuff you Missed in History
Speaker 1: Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.