Food - Drink
The Oldest Soda Brand In The World
By ELIAS NASH
Soda is a refreshing beverage the world can’t get enough of, but did you know the drink itself was discovered through the fizz in mineral baths? Europeans were so entranced with the natural sparkling water they experimented on it in the 1700s to create a new and revolutionary carbonated drink.
The first big step in seltzer soda originated in the late 18th century by a watchmaker named Johann Jacob Schweppe, who grew up near Seltzers, where a very popular mineral bath was located. After bottling the drink, he started the company, Schweppes, and started selling his creation to different areas of the globe.
It wasn’t until much later in 1835 that Schweppe began selling flavored versions of the soda, first with lemonade, then moving onto ginger ale and tonic water. As it stands, Schweppe is by far the oldest soda brand by far, outranking America’s oldest soda brand, Vernor's ginger ale, by almost 85 years!