Vernors

Deliciously different!

Detroit's Vernors ginger ale shares the title of America's oldest soft drink with Hires Root Beer. It was invented in 1866 by James Vernor, a Detroit pharmacist. In 1862, Vernor was called off to the American Civil War. According to legend, he left a mixture of ginger, vanilla and spices sitting in an oak cask in his pharmacy. After returning from battle four years later, he opened the keg and found the drink inside had been changed by the aging process in the wood. It was like nothing else he had ever tasted, and he reportedly declared it "Deliciously different," which remains the drink's motto to this day. Its current slogan is "Barrel Aged, Bold Taste!™". The apostrophe in the name "Vernor's" was dropped in the late 1950s.

Vernors is a golden ginger ale with a pungent flavor, more like a ginger beer. This style was common before Prohibition when the less flavorful pale ginger ale became popular as an alcoholic mixer. While Michiganders who grew up with it tend to love it, others find that it doesn't taste like ginger ales more widely available.

In the past, Vernors had a reputation of being highly carbonated, so much so that drinking it from a glass would sometimes make one sneeze or cough from the bubbles it would give off. Some people considered Vernors (or Vernors with milk) a folk remedy for stomach ache. Vernors is still highly carbonated; in fact, it is so highly carbonated that plastic bottles of Vernors must attach the warning that the "contents are under pressure" and that the consumer should "avoid pointing at the face or other persons" while opening. It is one of few, if any, United States soft drinks which must carry such a warning.

The Vernor family owned the company until 1966 when they sold it to an investment group. The company was next acquired by American Consumer Products and then by United Brands before being purchased by A&W Beverages in 1987. A&W was later purchased by Cadbury Schweppes.

Vernors has not historically been distributed nationally. Until the late 1980s, the drink was only distributed within a few hundred miles of Detroit, but its distribution today has expanded slightly. It has particular popularity in Michigan, western New York, and extreme Southwestern Ontario, but can be found in a few other areas throughout the United States including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Arizona, California, Washington and Texas, where it can be found in Kroger stores. It is also sold in Virginia, Utah, Iowa, Kansas and Colorado where it is generally found in the specialty soft-drink aisle, by the 6-pack, 12-pack, and 2-liter bottle. It can also be found in Florida's Gulf Coast, and central Florida, both of which have large populations of retired Metro Detroiters. Vernors has also been a popular choice of those flying Horizon Air as it is one of the choices on all of their flights and has recently been introduced in Anchorage Alaska.

A Boston cooler is an ice cream soda drink made from Vernors and vanilla ice cream, named not after Boston, where Vernors is practically unknown, but after Detroit's Boston Boulevard, where it was supposedly invented.

The Detroit Egg Cream is another drink made with Vernors. The ingredients include Vernors, chocolate syrup and milk.

References

• The Vernor's Story : From Gnomes to Now, Lawrence L. Rouch, ISBN 0472066978
• A Vernors Fansite [1]
• Recipe for Detroit Egg Cream
• Snack foods and pop, Detroit style