White Rock Beverages is an American beverage company. The formal name of the company is White Rock Production Corporation. The company is located in Whitestone, New York. The company was established in 1871 by a pharmacist, H.M. Colver in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

In 1871, the founder of White Rock, the pharmacist named H.M. Colver bought the natural spring and its surrounding at White Rock which was 60 acres of land in Waukesha, Wisconsin. The Locals who were Potawatomi Indians and settlers were under the belief that the spring’s sparkling mineral water, which filtered through 1,400 feet of white magnesium rocks, held some medicinal power or value. Investing money on this legend, Colver landscaped the grounds, built a pavilion and promoted the spring as a destination for vacationers and health seekers. A steamboat was there to carry passengers to the grounds which were completed with spring house and later a health hotel. Hence White Rock Beverages started out as a destination for vacationers and health seekers. The company around 1876 started to bottle the natural spring water and distribute it throughout the country.

The company was looking for a trademark. In 1893, the company came upon one at the Chicago World Fair. There was a painting which was titled “Psyche at Nature’s Mirror”. It was by a German artist named Paul Thumann who depicted a young woman, Psyche, kneeling on an alabaster rock and seeing her reflection in a pure, clear pool of water. This was appropriately symbolic of the natural water bottled at the Waukesha spring. Psyche has now represented the White Rock Company for over 110 years.

White Rock Beverages by 1923 became one of the largest producers of Mineral Water in the U.S. Apart from mineral water the company also produced Ginger ale and other soft drinks. In 1923, the value of the company’s property was valued at around Seven million Dollars which included land holdings and bottling plants. In 1941 White Rock soft drinks was called White Rock Mineral Springs Company. Few of the other products from White Rock are as follows:

• Seltzer: Plain
• Mandarin Orange
• Lemon Lime
• Black Cherry
• Raspberry
• Mixers: Club Soda
• Diet Ginger Ale
• Ginger Ale
• Diet Tonic Water
• Tonic Water
• Organic: Passion Orange
• Raspberry Crème
• Red Peach
• Soda: Cream Soda, Black Cherry, Root Beer, Grape, Orange, Lemon-Lime, Cola.

Here is some historical background of the company:

• 1898: White Rock is judged most pure at Paris Exposition.
• 1901: White Rock is featured at the coronation banquet of England’s King Edward VII.
• 1924: White Rock goes public and lists its shares on the New York Stock Exchange.
• 1927: Charles Lindbergh launches his historic transatlantic flight from New York to Paris by breaking a bottle of White Rock water over his “Spirit of Saint Louis” monoplane.
• 1944: White Rock is acquired by National Distillers and then merged with Morgan Beverages, a New York based company founded in 1857.
• 1947: A new taller and thinner models are chosen to grace the labels of White Rock products.
• 1952: White Rock is sold to then president Alfred Y. Morgan and new distribution is gained in the finest bars, hotels and restaurants.
• 1975: Sioux City Sarsaparilla is introduced in a 12-ounce steel can with innovative, action graphics.
• 1986: Sioux City expands into an embossed brown bottle adding additional flavors and achieving national distribution.
• 1997: A lines of 8-ounce cans is introduced to the healthcare market and achieves national distribution.
• 2003: The rights to the Old Brooklyn line of carbonated drinks are acquired.
• 2005: White Rock launches Organics line using natural fruit extracts and organic pure cane sugar.

- Ramyajit Gupta

• Definition of Beverages: Liquid for drinking; drink; usually applied to drink artificially prepared and of an agreeable flavor; as an intoxicating beverage.

Manufactured and distributed primarily in St. Louis, Missouri and metropolitan area Vess Soda is a brand of soft drink which was founded in 1916 by Vess Jones. In 1994, Cott Beverages purchased “Vess Beverage Assets and Division” and “Vess Specialty Packaging Company”.

Vess has standard cola and fruit flavors in their range of drinks. The most popular flavor of theirs is the orange flavored soft drink called “Whistle”. The cream variety of the drink is an unusual deep pink in color. Their lemon lime flavored soda is called “Vess Up”. Apart from this, Vess also produced flavored soda like Cherry Cola, Black Cherry, Pineapple, Peach, Pina Collada, Strawberry-Grape, Strawberry-Kiwi, and Blue Raspberry. There are also products like Vess Tonic Water, Ginger ale, Club Soda and Seltzer. In the 80’s Vess produced a chocolate beverage almost identical to “Yoo-hoo” (a product from another company) called Vess Chocolate. This product was discontinued in the mid 90’s. As of 2007, Vess changed its slogan to “The Billion Bubble Beverage”.

In the early days of the company, a giant replica of a Vess Soda Bottle was erected at Hampton Avenue and Gravois Boulevard in South St. Louis. It was constructed by Treesh Neon Sign Company. The model of the bottle revolved on a steel pole. In those days it was believed to be the largest revolving lighted bottle in the world. It would be lit up by more than 600 lineal feet of neon tubes. Over a period of time it was removed and kept in the company’s storage room. In 1989, it was repaired and re-erected outside the company’s office, mounted on a similar pole as before. Only now, it did not rotate.

Charles Leiper Grigg, who was a Vess Soda salesman, had developed the Orange Whistle Flavor for Vess. After leaving Jones’ company in 1919, he came up with another orange drink recipe, which he started marketing with Edmund G. Ridgeway in 1920 as Howdy Company.

This new company had thrived through the Prohibition Period. This encouraged Grigg to introduce another soft drink in the market in 1929. This time coincided with the beginning of the Great Depression Period. Grigg had used a lot of catchy names for his earlier inventions which contributed a lot of success towards his drinks. Still he chose to call his new drink “Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda” which was later named “7-UP”. The historians of 7-UP said that Grigg changed the name to “7-UP” before the earlier name caused significant damage to the company and the product. Although the origin of the name is unknown, it is believed that Grigg might have been inspired by the cattle brand that consisted of a “7″ and a “U”.

The end of the Prohibition came in 1933. 7-UP started to be marketed as a hangover cure and a drink mixer. Slowly 7-UP started spreading around in the world. In 1967 the Uncola promotion began.

- Ramyajit Gupta

Grapette is an American brand of a grape flavored soft drink. It has been in the market for about 70 years. It was first developed by Mr. Benjamin Tyndle Fooks. He created the empire of Grapette International. The drink is sold all over United States today through Wal-Mart.

Mr. Fooks used to work as a salesman earlier and he used to sell a drink called Fooks Flavors. It during this time, that he noticed the rage for grape flavored drinks. He knew that there was a lot of scope for a better grape flavored drink. Therefore he began to develop a new grape soda. After about two years and thousands of taste tests, he finally came out with an exquisite grape flavored soft drink which he believed was better than all the other grape flavored soft drinks.

Hubert Owen was Mr. Fook’s assistant. Therefore Mr. Fooks asked Owen to come up with a name for the drink. Owen ran a local contest. But this did not yield good names. So Owen went Washington D.C. and researched in the Patent Office of United States. He discovered Rube Goldstein owned a trademark for the names Grapette, Orangette and Lemonette. Since Goldstein had never used these names, Owen and Mr. Fooks journeyed to Illinois in Chicago to buy the trademarked names of Grapette, Orangette and Lemonette. They bought these names for 500$.

In 1949, Mr. Fooks bought his soft drink into the market. He started from Camden (which is located in Arkansas). Grapette had a unique packaging style. Most other drinks of that time used to sell in 12 ounce bottles. But Grapette came in small six ounce glass bottles. Since the drink came in glass bottles, it showed off the brilliant purple color of the drink. Its slogan was “Thirsty or Not”. Due to the huge success of Grapette, Mr. Fooks developed a unique Orange and Lemon soda too. He used a lot of natural lemon and orange juice in his sodas.

Grapette was one of the few drinks that survived the shortage of supplies in World War II. Mr. Fooks had to discontinue other brands like Botl-O and SunBurst but not Grapette. Looking at the tremendous success of Grapette, Mr. R. Paul May requested Mr. Benjamin Tyndle Fooks to let him market Grapette in Latin America. Grapette built a good reputation for itself over there. Soon Orangette and Lemonette too were marketed in Latin America.

Mr. Fooks later sold Grapette to Rheingold Corporation. Rheingold completely changed the packaging and the slogan of the soda and its advertising totally depended on the distributers. This led to the decline of Grapette. Rheingold was then purchased by PepsiCo; which then sold off Grapette to Monarch Beverage Company. Monarch already had a Grape soda so it fired the Grapette team. Grapette went out of market. But later in 1986, May gave the ownership to Mr. Brooks Rice. Rice sold Grapette’s flavor to Sam Walton (the owner of Wal-Mart). At first it was marketed under the name of Ozark farms. As Sam Walton died, David Glass the CEO of Wal-Mart renamed Ozark Farms as Sam’s Choice. And Grapette was again launched as Sam’s Choice Grape. This soda still contained the same original flavor of Mr. Fooks. Under the name of Sam’s Choice Grape, the drink began to grow popular again and in late 2004 it has been renamed as Grapette with the original logotypes. And therefore, the true splendor and glory of Grapette has been restored.

- Seema Khinnavar

Frostop Root Beer is a beverage which falls under the soft drink category. Frostop Root Beer is a widely popular brand of root beer. In the beginning, Frostop Root Beer was produced by L.S. Harvey a citizen of Springfield which is located in Ohio. Frostop Root Beer was first produced in 1926.

Frostop Root Beer was initially sold in roadside stands and drive – in restaurants. The brand Frostop Root Beer also sells Crème Brulee – Style Soda. This soda has a unique taste to it. It is actually a cream soda but it also carries a twist of caramel taste in it. This soda is sold in one liter pet bottles. The cost of this soda is only 99 cents.

This root beer became immensely popular and its sales sky rocketed. Due to shortage of supplies like flavors, sweetening agents, equipment and building materials during World War II its sales were curtailed. Mr. L.S. Harvey believed that Frostop Root Beer as the finest brand of Root Beer ever manufactured. Therefore after the World War II, L.S. Harvey did all that he could to expand his chain of Frostop Root Beer stands. In the ownership of Mr. L.S. Harvey the brand experienced immense growth. The countryside was full of the brown and yellow neon lit Frostop Root Beer stands. The stands even included a revolving root beer mug on top. The country people enjoyed the beer immensely and soon it became popular with people of all ages.

Frostop Root Beer products are known to be devoid of any caffeine. This beverage is so widely loved because it has maintained it unique taste of the 1950s. It is still has the same old smooth and creamy flavor. It still gives you the same old heady feeling that it used to give 60 years back. It is percolated through herbs, various barks and berries, pure vanilla essence, caramel and other sweeteners.

Frostop Root Beer has one of the most matchless packaging styles. It is available in brown glasses and long neck beer bottles in most restaurants, delis, grocery stores, and convenience stores. But it is best enjoyed in the classical frosted beer mug. The brand is still going strong. And it is available in Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, Washington, Idaho, Nevada, California and Oregon. Frostop Root Beer has also introduced new flavors like Diet Frostop Root Beer Root Beer and Diet Frostop Root Beer Cream Soda. Frostop Root Beer also sells its own Root Beer Float Kits, Glass Mugs, Coasters, Tap Handles, Jackets, Hats, T-Shirts, Denim Shirts, Stickers and Buttons.

The Frostop Root Beer has survived throughout the ages and is still enjoyed by all people. It is still available in those old signature brown bottles. It has survived the test of time.

- Seema Khinnavar