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Friday 3 April 2015

Ginger Ale

A pharmacist James Vernor created Vernor’s Ginger Ale in Detroit, Michigan in 1866. This was America’s first home brewed ginger ale, (previously it had been imported from Ireland, where the drink was created 15 years earlier) and also America’s first soft drink.

It is claimed when Vernor went off to fight in the civil war, he left in his pharmacy a keg made from oak containing a combination of ginger, spices and vanilla. On his return four years later, he opened the cask and found the drink inside had been changed into a delicious beverage by the ageing process in the wood.

After 30 years of selling his strongly flavored golden ginger ale in his drug store, James Vernor opened a factory to produce it on a larger scale.


On August 26, 1928, a Mrs Donoghue was drinking ginger beer in the Wellmeadow café in Paisley, Scotland, when she found a dead snail in the bottle. Mrs Donaghue fell ill, and she sued the ginger beer manufacturer, Mr Stevenson. The ensuing civil action case Donoghue v Stevenson resulted in a landmark court decision by the House of Lords, which held that the manufacturer owed a duty of care to Mrs Donaghue, which was breached. This laid the foundation of the modern law of negligence, establishing general principles of the duty of care.

During the prohibition, one of the drinks that saw it’s sales rocket was ginger ale. A new drier ginger ale with a softer flavor was developed as a mixer for illegal alcoholic beverages.

Wikipedia

Greta Garbo's first spoken line in the ‘talkies’ movie, Anna Christie, was "Gimme a whiskey with ginger ale on the side and don’t be stingy, baby."

Cliquot Club Ginger Ale was the first canned soft drink. It was introduced in America in 1938. A cone top can produced by Continental Can Company was used, but the sodas were beset by leakage and flavor absorption problems from the can liner.

The first sugar-free diet soft drink was introduced in the US in 1952. It was a ginger ale sold by Kirsch and was called the "No-Cal Beverage."

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