• #160: Hires Root Beer – The Origin Of Root Beer

  • Jul 3 2024
  • Duración: 17 m
  • Podcast

#160: Hires Root Beer – The Origin Of Root Beer Por arte de portada

#160: Hires Root Beer – The Origin Of Root Beer

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  • What do you d What do you drink when water is not good for you and your only other option is alcohol? Well, you rename root tea to root beer. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us. But we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients, so here's one of those. [Tapper's Jewelers Ad] Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders podcast, Dave Young here along with Stephen Semple, and we are sharing stories about empires, business empires, brands that were built and grew really big, and figuring out what they did to make them grow really big. And Stephen just mentioned today's topic, whispered it in my ear as the recorder was counting down, and you said that I probably haven't seen this in a while. But I feel like it's maybe still around, but it's Hires Root Beer. Stephen Semple: Hires Root Beer, yes. Dave Young: Hires Root Beer, and I was kind of a root beer snob when I was a kid. Stephen Semple: Oh, were you? Dave Young: Not so much anymore, right? But I knew the difference between Hires and Dad's and A&W and all the big root beer brands. Stephen Semple: Which was your favorite? Dave Young: There was nothing that compared to an A&W root beer coming out of a fountain, not a can. Stephen Semple: Yep. Dave Young: Going to A&W and having a root beer in a giant glass cold mug. But we're here to talk about Hires Root Beer. Stephen Semple: Yeah, which is now owned by A&W. I do not believe that Hires is still available in the US. You can get it still in Canada. But at one point, they were the largest in the United States. And Hires is actually kind of the inventor of the root beer business. And today it's like $600 million a year of root beer sold. Dave Young: Wow. Stephen Semple: So I thought- Dave Young: That's a lot of root beer. Stephen Semple: I thought it was worth exploring. Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: Because this is the origin of root beer. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: So it's the early 1870s, and the population in the United States is booming due to massive immigration. And sanitation is becoming a huge problem in cities. Polluted water is spreading disease and people frankly turn to alcohol for safe drinking. The average American at that time was consuming seven gallons of alcohol a year. Dave Young: Wow. Stephen Semple: Primarily beer and things along that lines, but part of it was because of water. So in 1874, protests start around alcohol, the anti-alcohol movements start. But the challenge is there's no good alternative to water. And so, Charles Hires is a pharmacist, and he always had these little side hustles and was always looking for opportunities. And while he's on his honeymoon, he is served this beverage called root tea. And it's made by fermenting, so it's carbonated, but the fermentation is cut off before alcohol forms. And it's really popular in these rural areas, but not in urban areas. And he's a member of the Temperance Movement, so he knew it was hard to find good alternatives to alcohol. So he starts to experiment on recipes for root tea. And he felt this could be a temperance drink because it had the feeling of a beer, and it could be sold in stores. And it was delicious, and he felt he could create a shelf-stable version. The first version of it was this powdered mix that you would boil, add water, add sugar, add yeast, let it ferment, cut it short, and there it would be. Right? And so, he met with this local Reverend, Russell Conwell, and he was sharing with him this idea of this root tea.
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