Not long ago, out of curiosity, I stopped at the Williamsburg General Store on Route 9 in Williamsburg, Massachusetts. What caught my eye in that riot of scented soaps, ice cream, gewgaws, old-fashioned candy, and New England crafts (some actually from New England) was an orange can behind the glass door of the refrigerator case: a can of Moxie.

I hadn’t tasted, or seen, that soda in a decade. Moxie is a drink I associate with my grandfather, Dr. William Shavelson, who practiced medicine in Revere, Massachusetts from the mid-1920s until the mid-’70s. He is the only person I remember who drank Moxie regularly and voluntarily. Was it because he was a doctor, or because I couldn’t stand the bitter stuff as a child, that I assumed it must have medicinal roots?

I call Merrill Lewis, a retired Carrier air-conditioner engineer from Manchester, New Hampshire, who is president of the New England Moxie Congress, a fan club with 250 to 300 members. The drink did have medicinal roots, Lewis confirms, and gentian root is its distinctive ingredient. “Moxie was invented in 1885 by Dr. Augustin Thompson of Union, Maine,” he says. “It is the nation’s oldest bottled soft drink and it is still sort of, kind of, going strong.”

Moxie was originally produced in Lowell, Massachusetts, and then from the twenties until the forties, in Moxieland, a former brewery complex in Boston’s Roxbury section. Today the brand is owned by the Moxie Beverage Company of Bedford, New Hampshire, a division of the Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Northern New England.

Lewis pointed me to a nineteenth-century Moxie bottle label on which the drink was called “nerve food,” promised to strengthen and invigorate users, and even help with “loss of manhood, imbecility, and helplessness.” At its peak in the 1920s, Moxie was said to outsell Coca-Cola, though that’s hard to verify. Certainly, its success had something to do with its oddball promotion: there was the mechanical Moxie horse on an auto chassis, the giant Moxie bottle with the vendor inside, the Moxie Boy logo, and later endorsements from movie stars and Ted Williams. In August 1923, after Calvin Coolidge took the oath of office in Plymouth, Vermont upon the death of President Harding, he steadied himself with a glass of Moxie.

While Moxie has suffered near-death experiences for generations, its admirers and renown seem to be growing. The Moxie Congress, established in 1991, was instrumental in the 2009 creation of the Moxie wing of the Matthews Museum of Maine Heritage in Union, Maine. (Moxie is Maine’s official soft drink.) “The centerpiece,” says Lewis, “is a thirty-three–foot Moxie bottle, which used to be a refreshment stand.” Naturally, the Congress plays a big role in Lisbon, Maine’s annual Moxie Festival, which will be held this year from July 7-9.

I ask Lewis if there’s something that makes Moxie a particularly New England beverage. “New Englanders are a hearty bunch,” he says, “and they show no signs of pain. It takes a lot of moxie to drink it.”

Moxie – Bottled Soda
Bedford, New Hampshire
Website
Facebook
Twitter

The post Distinctively Different appeared first on Take Magazine.

We’re expected to start with that most New England of sodas, Moxie, so we won’t disappoint. Moxie Nerve Food was invented and patented in the late 1800s in Lowell, Massachusetts, by Dr. Augustine Thompson, originally from Union, Maine. It was produced in Boston during its heyday in the 1920s and 1930s, on up to its Ted Williams endorsement of the 1950s. Starting in the 1980s, Lisbon Falls, Maine, threw what would now be called Moxie-Con, effectively capitalizing on the nostalgia and uniqueness of the medicinal soda pop and birthing an annual Moxie Festival still being held today (usually July—wear orange). But there’s much more to weird, old New England sodas than Moxie. Growing up, I knew someone was sick if there was Chelmsford Ginger Ale in the fridge—a little warmer in flavor, a little sweeter, a little flatter—perfect for flu symptoms, a tonic in the original sense. And can we talk about half and half?

CONNECTICUT

Foxon Park Beverages
East Haven, 1922
Notable Flavors: Cherry, Cream, Diet Kola, Diet White Birch, Gassosa, Gingerale, Grape, Iron Brew, Kola Soda, Lemon Lime, Orange, Root Beer, White Birch, Tonic
Where to buy: Online, specialty grocers, independent stores, small restaurants

Avery’s Beverages
New Britain, 1904
Notable Flavors: Cream, Birch Beer, Root Beer, Golden Ginger Ale, Half & Half, Korker Lime Rickey, Orange Cream, Sarsaparilla, Tonic
Where to buy: Company store, online, local delivery, specialty grocers, independent stores, small restaurants

Hosmer Mountain Spring Bottling Works
Willimantic, 1912
Notable Flavors: Lime Ricky, Half and Half, Tonic, Peach, Chocolate Cream, ‘Dangerous’ Ginger Beer, Root Beer, Birch Beer, Cream, Sarsaparilla
Where to buy: Company stores, home delivery

MAINE

Green Bee Soda
Brunswick, 2010
Notable flavors: Lemon Sting, Ginger Buzz, Blueberry Dream, Half & Half, Love Potion
Where to buy: Online and throughout New England

Capt’n Eli’s Soda
Portland, 1996
Notable Flavors: Sea Dog Root Beer, Ginger Beer, Blueberry, Strawberry Pop, Orange Pop, Black Cherry
Where to buy: Online, Federal Jack’s Brew Pub, retail locations in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont

MASSACHUSETTS

Chelmsford Ginger Ale
Worcester, 1901
Notable Flavors: Golden Ginger Ale
Where to buy: Market Basket Supermarkets

Harmony Springs
Ludlow, 1908
Notable Flavors: Birch Beer, Black Raspberry, Half & Half, Lemon, Orange, Peach, Pineapple, Quinine Water, Root Beer, Sarsaparilla
Where to buy: home delivery, specialty grocers, independent stores, small restaurants

Polar Beverage Company
Worcester, 1882
Notable Products: Vichy Water, Lemon Sour, Half & Half, Bitter Lemon, Tom Collins
Where to buy: online, most convenience stores in the Northeast, some national markets

Simpson Spring
South Easton, 1878
Notable Flavors: Root Beer, Sarsaparilla, White Birch, Fruit Punch, Raspberry, Lime-Rickey Cola, Ginger Ale, Cream Soda, Coffee Soda
Where to buy: Company store, specialty grocers, independent stores, small restaurants

Twin Lights Soda
Rockport, 1907
Notable Flavors: cola, orangeade, root beer, lemon-lime, grape, fruit punch, cream soda, birch beer, sarsaparilla, golden ginger ale
Where to buy: Company store

AJ Stephans
Fall River, 1980s
Notable Flavors: Black Cherry, Lemon & Lime, Cream Soda, Ginger Beer, Lime Rickey, Strawberry, Sarsaparilla, Birch Beer, Root Beer
Where to buy: Distributed throughout New England

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Squamscot Beverages
Newfields, 1863
Notable Flavors: Birch Beer, Cola, Cream Soda, Fruit Bowl, Ginger Beer, Half and Half, Root Beer, Yup, Maple Cream, Raspberry Lemonade, Creamy Orange
Where to buy: Company store

RHODE ISLAND

Empire Bottling Works
Bristol, 1930
Notable flavors: Banana, Spruce Cream Soda, Ginger Ale, Lemon Lime, Pineapple, Sarsaparilla, Olde Rhode Island Molasses Root Beer
Where to buy: specialty grocers, independent stores, small restaurants

Yacht Club
Centerdale, 1915
Notable flavors: Quinine Tonic, Ginger Beer, Birch Beer, Yacht Up!, Cream, Cola, Golden Ginger Ale, Sarsaparilla
Where to buy: Company store, specialty grocers, independent stores, small restaurants

VERMONT

Vermont Sweetwater Bottling Company
Poultney, 1993
Notable Flavors: Country Apple Jack, Kickin’ Cow Cola, Mango Moonshine, Maple Seltzer, Maple Soda, Raspberry Rhubarb Ramble, Rugged Mountain Boot, Tangerine Cream Twister, Back Country Blueberry Lemon
Where to buy: Online, specialty grocers, independent stores, small restaurants

Hosmer Mountain Spring Bottling Works
Willimantic, 1912
Notable Flavors: Lime Ricky, Half and Half, Tonic, Peach, Chocolate Cream, ‘Dangerous’ Ginger Beer, Root Beer, Birch Beer, Cream, Sarsaparilla
Where to buy: Company stores, home delivery

This article originally appeared in the February/March 2016 issue of Take.

Top Illustration by Amanda Fadum Hall

The post Sweetest New England Sodas appeared first on Take Magazine.