12 minutes 55 seconds
Credits:
Music: I Got Your Ice-Cold NuGrape by the NuGrape Twins
Recorded 1926
Times Ain’t Like They Used to Be Vol 1
Interludes - © J. Cave Buckner 2006
OPEN
Picture yourself on a hot and humid summer morning walking on a blinding concrete sidewalk in Anytown USA. It’s 87 degrees and it’s not even 10 o’clock. Your shirt is wet, sticking to your backsides and though your sleeves are rolled up, your forearms are hot to the touch. The top of your head feels the heat. Your hair feels like you’re wearing a hat with a heater and your mouth is dry.
The sweat on your forehead is almost non-existent, evaporating with the shallow breaths you’re taking as a coping mechanism. Your leather dress shoes are no longer clicking and clacking on the hot pavement, where no ant scurries out of the way—they’re too smart for that.
No, those shoes land with a dull thud, a thud that matches the distant pulse of a start-up headache, and an awareness you are just barely moving at all to arrive at your in-the-shade destination. And it’s a welcome destination at that—particularly if that destination happens to sell an ice cold NuGrape soda.
Hey! I’m Cave Buckner, and I’m your host for The Southern Minute Podcast.
Intro Music
My gosh, we’ve all been there in that downtown scenario on a hot morning, particularly in Atlanta. But never far away is a cold respite from those blue blazes of summer in the way of a cold, frosty, carbonated beverage. There’s a reason, most all of the famous carbonated soda pops were formulated in the South, in cities and towns like Atlanta, Georgia, Waco, Texas, Knoxville, TN, and New Bern, North Carolina.
But I want to talk about a soda that was first bottled in the 1920s, actually in Louisiana and later in Atlanta, where it hit the market like gang busters in the 1930s, down on Ralph McGill Blvd.
But this was a return home, because NuGrape was formulated in Atlanta in 1906, first bottled in 1921 and a year later, licensed to the Olla Bottling Works in Olla, Louisiana. Olla was known for exceptional ground water. As a pre-Civil War settlement, it was called Castor Sulfur Springs and became a nationally recognized health spa famed for its sulfur muds and spring water. So, a bottling company took advantage of the exceptional water.
Early History
Then, the National NuGrape Company was formed in Atlanta, in 1933 to take over licensing, bottling and distribution. To simplify a somewhat complicated buyout again from the Moxie Company and later, Moxie, Monarch and NuGrape Company in 1968, Big Red Ltd. (of the famous Big Red crème soda) bought NuGrape in 1999, and it owns the brand to this day.
When carbonated soda formulations were first available at drug store soda fountains, and then bottled, such as Coca Cola, the marketing positioned them to be of medicinal value, hence the addition of cocaine in that particular drink’s formulation. It has been reported that the amount of cocaine in a glass of Coca Cola was 9 milligrams, though that is disputed.
You have to remember that at the turn of the last century, drugs and actually alcohol were only beginning to be regulated. Federal narcotics drug legislation did not come about until 1911, and alcohol, in 1920 with the 18thAmendment.
In his book Pills, Petticoats and Plows: The Southern Country Store, author Thomas D. Clark said laudanum, opium, morphine (the precursor to heroin), and paregoric were found in country store invoice records with regularity.
His description of the life of some sharecroppers was probably not far off the mark. “Loneliness of the surroundings of the rural South preyed upon the minds of temperamentally unstable persons, and eventually they resorted to the use of whisky or narcotics to break the tedium of life. Victims sat night after night on front porches or on rickety doorsteps with nothing to do but listen to the call of the whippoorwills or to the monotonous rasping of ‘July’ bugs.”
He says an eighth of an ounce of P.& W. morphine sold at wholesale for about 26 cents, and it retailed for as much as 75 cents. Opium gum balls were also popular and sold for $3.10 an ounce or $4 in a powder form.
Sharecroppers were always short on money to begin with, so where they got the money for drugs—that’s probably another podcast, and they seldom got the crossroads store. A bottle of Coca Cola with 9 mg of cocaine cost at that time, a nickel. What did the sharecropper get for a nickel? Aside from immediate taste buds refreshment, Wikipedia says at the lower exposure levels, such as 9 milligrams in CocaCola, the drug acts as a mild central nervous system stimulant. Effects typically appear within minutes and may last for a short duration.
I bring this up this whole Coke-drug topic for several reasons.
To give you a better idea of the origins of carbonated sodas and what life was like in the 20s, when NuGrape showed up on the horizon. Federal regulations were starting creep into Americans lives in the 20s, so the CocaCola Company started easing the cocaine out of their formulation. That, and the fact that competing sodas were medicinally drug free. The marketing boys in these companies were also starting to understand the profitability of flavor extensions, such as cherry, grape, crème, lemon-lime and root beer—all cocaine-free, of course. That left them to quibble about caffeine, but the cola drinks seemed to be the only holdouts on that.
I would be remiss if I didn’t call attention to the temperance movement in the South, which would favor carbonated syrup drinks without stimulants of any kind. After all, Atlanta citizens voted to make the city alcohol free in 1885, the first major city to do so.
What’s in it?
NuGrape ad from 1926 featuring Miss Atlanta, 17-year-old Estelle Bradley, who later became a silent movie film star in Hollywood.
NuGrape did get into some court battles over possible false advertising claims, emphasizing the grape and origins of the grape flavor.
Here’s a 1920s NuGrape ad copy description entitled “Sparkling Charm. “Even before its lively, delicious winey flavor touches your lips, you enjoy the unmistakable tempting aroma of the big ripe purple grapes, from which this wonderful drink is made.”
Another 1932 ad states, “The Nu-Grape . . . real liquid flavor of Concord Grapes—livened, given champagne-life by a secret process. It leaps and glistens in the glass with the glow of health.”
An Atlanta Constitution article from May 28th, 1931, states “Nu-Grape syrup is held not to contain sufficient natural fruit or juice of the grape to give it its color or flavor. The color is derived from artificial coloring matter and the flavor principally from the added tartaric acid.”
One interesting note comes from Wisconsin beer brewer and craft soda company, Sprecher, who say many cheap mass-market grape sodas are flavored with methyl anthranilate (an-thron-e-late). Methyl anthranilate is a flavor compound found naturally in grapes, but more cheaply made from petroleum. I’m not insinuating NuGrape is associated with such an additive, but these guys seem to know their stuff, when it comes to contemporary carbonated soda.
Nu-Grape, looking for differentiation from other Southern grape sodas on the market in the 30s, such as Grapette, from Arkansas and a Louisiana competitor, Grapico, created a patented three-ringed glass bottle, the CocaCola-styled bottled with more exaggerated curves had three rings spaced within the edge of the convex curves, so it looked like a belt, constricting the “waist” and bottle neck area. As the NuGrape ads say, “Look for the three rings!”
Where can you find NuGrape soda today?
So, where can you find NuGrape soda today?
NuGrape’s distribution is now tied to Big Red’s network, which is why you see it more commonly in certain parts of the country, particularly the South. You usually find it at Cracker Barrel restaurants, if they didn’t throw that out with the rocking chairs, with their restaurant makeover. Also, any large grocery chain who carries specialty or craft sodas may have it, along with candy and southern boutique food shops.
The taste
What does NuGrape Soda taste like?
NARRATION: Chubby Beard Bandit TV (see link)
A website called eathealthy365.com says if you’ve never had it, you’re in for a treat. NuGrape is known for its bold, sweet, and slightly tangy grape flavor. It’s often described as less “syrupy” than some modern grape sodas. The flavor comes from a blend of artificial and natural flavorings, and it’s famous for being highly carbonated.
NuGrape Lofts
Entrance to NuGrape Lofts, the repurposed NuGrape bottling plant in Atlanta, Georgia.
Residence in the NuGrape Lofts, the repurposed NuGrape bottling plant in Atlanta, Georgia
And what about the NuGrape Company building? It turns out it was repurposed into the NuGrape Lofts for contemporary loft living in Atlanta, along their pedestrian/bike trail, not too far from Ponce City Market, in the Ponce-Highlands area, if you’re familiar with Atlanta. I’ll post a few photos on the podcast website page so you can see the transition.
You’ve been listening to The Southern Minute, and I’m your host Cave Buckner. Don’t ever forget the simple life. Sit under a shade tree and sip a cold drink, whether it’s a NuGrape, iced tea or something a little more ambitious—and just enjoy.
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LINKS:
I Got Your Ice-Cold NuGrape by the NuGrape Twins
Watch the Chubby Beard Bandit as he gives his no holds barred opinion about NuGrape soda