Dr Pepper

As the popularity of carbonated beverages increased in the late 1880s many clever entrepreneurs looked for ways of getting on the pop band wagon. A trend which was circulating at the time was prescribing soda as a form of medicine.

It cured everything, from stomach aches to chest pains. To strengthen the appeal of this new trend, pharmacists mixed carbonated water with almost anything they could find. Pineapples, bananas, cherries, vanilla extract, even cold medicine and the like. Soda, or pop as it was known in the South, was truly a hit and many people made a lot of money from it.

Yet too much of a good thing isn’t always great, as the saying goes, and such was the case with soda flavors. In time the vast assortment of choices was simply too much for most customers and resulted in people wasting their times choosing rather than buying. Here comes Charles Anderson, a young pharmacist working at the Morrison’s Old Country Drug Store, who liked playing with concoctions. One day he decided to put together all 22 flavors together. Upon tasting it and offering it to the store owner, the two decided to start offering the drink to the public. For some time it was known as Waco but eventually it became known as Dr Pepper.