Ron the Yarn Spinner

 

Green River: Pop-ular Folklore

I saw it in the soda aisle in Jewel-Osco today. It’s back: Green River soda - a lime flavored, caffeine-free beverage with a tangy sweetness and a hint of citrus. It “pops” up in the spring. The soda has a zestful taste and Irish Green color that’s in keeping with the Shamrocks’ Shakes unofficial holiday. The grand kids love it, and it goes hand-in-hand with the Irish Soda Bread and  corned beef and cabbage my wife likes to serve on St. Patrick’s Day. Green River soda dates back to the time of Prohibition, through the diners and drugstore soda fountains of 1950s and '60s.

While Green River became an iconic soda associated with Chicago,  it's not from Illinois at all. The story of Green River soda actually starts in Iowa.  Richard C. Jones took over a confectionary shop near a high school in 1914. It was here  in 1916 that Jones invented the electric-green soda. With Jones selling ice cream and sodas at his shop, Green River was first used as a soda fountain syrup but Jones also served it to students and Davenport locals alike until 1919 when, he reaped the soda’s sweet success, sold the secret recipe and retired – maybe somewhere warm– and lived happily ever after – again maybe, Anyway Green River's new owners (Schoenhoden Edelweiss)  moved the brand to its new home, Chicago, where it took off.

What really pushed Green River soda into the Chicago market was the ban on alcohol in the U.S. in the early 20th century. As Prohibition came rolling in at the start of 1920, the Schoenhofen Edelweiss Brewing Company was forced to shift away from brewing beer. Its new, non-alcoholic savior turned out to be Green River soda, with its sharp taste, strong flavor, and eye-popping color.

The company started selling the soda in recycled beer bottles. (Why not? They couldn’t put beer into them.) and the brand did very well. Schoenhofen Edelweiss produced Green River soda right up to 1950 when the brewery shut down.  Some of you might remember the Edelweiss Brand.   “ Edelweiss it tastes so nice….”    After that, the recipe was passed around for a while among several different manufacturers, and almost totally disappeared but in 2021, the rights to make Green River soda were acquired by Sprecher Brewing Company in Glendale, Wisconsin, which bottles and sells the soda today.

OK, so much for the Green River soda history. Stop yawning. Fasten your seatbelts. Here’s come the really interesting “stuff.”

If you're not from around here, then you probably don’t know that folks in the Midwest refer to soda as POP and since ” inquiring minds like yours”  thirst for knowledge and maybe a Green River, here’s why:

It may be connected with Green River soda.

Remember Green River was sold during Prohibition in recycled Edelweiss bottles? Well, it was (We covered that)  and  a marble was used to close the top of the bottle. Yes , a marble. The idea was that the marble would not only serve to seal the bottles but stir the syrup into the carbonated water as well.

Here comes the tricky part.

To release the green nectar, you had to sharply jolt the bottle upward so that the marble popped down to the bottom of the bottle. As it did, the fizz would create a popping noise, which folklore suggests is where the term pop originated — the sound of a Green River soda being opened. You could seal the drink again by simply tipping the bottle upside down to lodge the marble in place once again with the help of the carbonated gases.

You got all of that?

As you might imagine, someone thought, “There has to be a better way.”  The marble stoppers didn’t last too long and were replaced by bottle caps.

No matter if this is POPular fantasy folklore, or actually true,  the  word pop is definitely an everyday term in many households that has, over the years, stood the test of time — just as Green River’s taste.

Sales were once second to Coca-Cola.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day