 Brewer/bottler #884 | | | Name | The Seven-Up Company Inc. |
| | Address | Use for all 7up, Brownie, Howdy and Like crowns where local bottler is not known. |
| | | | | | | | Extra info | It was Charles Leiper Grigg, an albino, who invented a soft drink that became a worldwide favorite. He named it “Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda but that name somehow didn’t stick. Charles Grigg was the original inventor of the Howdy formula, forming a company in 1920, that made Howdy and eventually Orange Crush. Howdy was Grigg's second soft drink creation (Whistle being the first), and consisted of an orange-flavored beverage with 14% sugar. Based on the quality of the product, the company grew quickly, adding bottling companies anxious to sell the drink.
Seven-Up was first introduced into commerce on Aug. 7, 1928 by Grigg’s Howdy Corporation of St. Louis. That company was granted a federal trademark on Feb. 5, 1929 on what was by then called “Seven Up.”
The statement on the Dr Pepper/Seven Up website that “Grigg introduced his new soft drink two weeks before the stock market crashed in October 1929” is curious, being contradicted by information on file in the Patent and Trademark Office. This is a rare instance of a company claiming a later founding date for a product than that borne out by official records.
On Jan. 7, 1936, a variation on the name, “7 Up,” was registered. It was that same year that the Howdy Corporation became the Seven-Up Company.
7-Up Lithiated Lemon Soda was initially sold as a Prohibition-era hang-over cure. An April 13, 1931 ad in a Pennsylvania newspaper, the Monessen Daily Independent, billed the drink as a counteractant to “Morning After Toxicity.” The ad advised that “Seven-Up neutralizes the acid blood—2 to 4 glasses soothes and smooths the ragged nerves.”
A California newspaper, the Woodland Daily Democrat, carried this item on July 30, 1932:
“By way of expanding service, Bill Ebell of the Woodland Ice & Bottling Works is distributing a new lithiated soda called ‘7 Up,’ said to be the last word as an antidote for ‘hang overs.’
At the time Grigg’s “lithiated” soft drink went on the market, numerous other products were lithiated, including a supposed cure for rheumetism and a laxative.
On Dec. 20, 1967, 7-Up was first marketed as “The Uncola.”
In 1978, Philip Morris, Inc. bought up a controlling interest in the Seven Up Company. As recited in a 1991 U.S. Tax Court opinion:
“Soon after acquiring Seven-Up, members of [Philip Morris’s] senior management inspected Seven-Up’s manufacturing facilities for the first time. They were surprised by the location and poor condition of the manufacturing facilities and by the ‘low-tech’ equipment used by Seven-Up to manufacture its extract (which was described as ‘stainless steel tubs with big paddles’ and as ‘a couple of bath tubs and a paddle.’)”
It was in 1986 that 7-Up was sold and was merged with Dr Pepper. Dr Pepper/Seven Up, Inc. has been owned by the British company Cadbury-Schweppes since 1995. |
| | | | | | | Other names used for this Brewer/bottler | | Name 1 | Seven-Up Bottling Co. (St Louis, MO) |
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