Pennsylvania coal miners were among the first intended recipients of the original commercial root beer recipe around the turn of the 20th century. But no amount of persuasion could convince them to try it. And why? Because “powdered root tea” the name of the original brew just didn’t sound like it had the kick of the miners’ favorite poison. Fortunately for Charles E. Hires the man behind the drink a wise mentor suggested that root beer spoke to men differently than root tea ever would. Never mind that his drink did indeed contain a combination of 16 roots berries and herbs and that earlier folk versions of it had actually been a tea. The name was a turn-off. It had to go.
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 Tasting Through Time | 2023-01-22 19:36:05 |  488,886 Views |
The Rise and Fall of Root Beer in America!
Originally hired a pharmacist but eventually sold a lot of his uniquely flavored root beer. Creating a recipe that didn’t clean out the bowels like earlier versions of the drink didn’t hurt the drink’s chances of success. Advertising the powdered drink certainly helped the drink’s plight even more. But it was an appearance at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition that cemented the name and the drink. The Bard was right. A rose—or in this case a root beer—would still taste just as sweet by any other name at least to the working class people who attended the Expo.
The earliest incarnations of root tea would never have been at home with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. To the Native Americans who gathered the sarsaparilla sassafras and wintergreen that gave rise to the earliest incarnations of the drink those plants were remedies for allergies and inflammation and even immune system boosters. Medicinal beverages called saloop were; root beer floats with ice cream despite being flavored with sugar and milk like coffee and tea were not.
Many of the ingredients found in these brews became the basis for what early European settlers called small beers beverages with trace amounts of alcohol and a more viable alternative to the sometimes questionable water supply. Sassafras from which the sassafras root the key ingredient in Hires' root beer comes was also popular with European settlers in the 16th and 17th centuries. As it turns out Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh were instrumental in bringing the plant across the pond with Drake bringing it to England in 1586 and Raleigh exporting it in 1602. The plant proved so popular as an ingredient in small beers and a sought-after export that it was driven to near extinction by deforestation.
