August 19, 2012
How to Sell Herb Tea to Miners
On this day in business history, 1851…
Soft drink entrepreneur Charles Elmer Hires is born on a farm near Roadstover, NJ.
In 1886 he began selling a ready-to-drink beverage made from sixteen different wild roots, herbs, bark, and berries in bottles.
Hires selected the name “Root Beer” when a friend suggested to him that hard-drinking miners would be more attracted to root beer than herb tea.
More interesting background…
At Philadelphia’s Centennial Exposition in 1876, Hires cultivated new customers by giving away free glasses of root beer. Hires marketed it as a solid concentrate of sixteen wild roots and berries. It claimed to purify the blood and make rosy cheeks.
In 1884, Hires began producing a liquid extract and a syrup for use in soda fountains, and was soon shipping root beer in kegs and producing a special fountain dispenser called the “Hires Automatic Munimaker.” In 1890, the Charles E. Hires company was incorporated and began supplying Hires root beer in small bottles.
Hires’s choice of name for his product caused a problem: The word “beer” drew the wrath of the temperance movement. He had his root beer tested by a laboratory, and trumpeted their conclusion that a glass of his root beer contained less alcohol than a loaf of bread.
Hires Root Beer was promoted as “The Temperance Drink” and “the Greatest Health-Giving Beverage in the World.” Hires advertised aggressively, believing “doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you are doing, but nobody ELSE does.
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