root beer

root beer, sweet, nonalcoholic, carbonated beverage commonly flavored with extracts of roots and herbs. Invented in North America, the drink has characteristic herbal, earthy notes that have traditionally been imparted by sassafras root (Sassafras albidum), wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens), or sarsaparilla (a flavoring agent made from Smilax species) and other natural flavorings such as birch (Betula species) and juniper (Juniperus species). Philadelphia-based pharmacist Charles Elmer Hires was the first to successfully market root beer in the late 1800s, and commercial root beer is now produced by major American brands such as PepsiCo, Inc. and The Coca-Cola Company. Root beer can be bought at most supermarkets and enjoyed at home. It also can still be found served with ice cream, making for a classic root beer float, at old-fashioned soda fountains and ice cream parlors.

It is thought that modern, carbonated root beer was originally inspired by the non-carbonated medicinal root teas made by Indigenous North Americans. Although such teas were made from any number of fragrant leaves, roots, barks, fruits, and flowers, the plants sassafras, wintergreen, and sarsaparilla were commonly used, and these three ingredients would define commercial root beer’s flavor profile going forward. Sassafras, in particular, was known for its health benefits and had been used to treat a number of ailments for centuries prior to modern root beer’s inception.

In the 19th century, American colonists brewed the antecedent root beers in their homes from a variety of ingredients, often serving their concoctions as hot teas. In the 1840s, the first root beer began to appear in confectionaries and general stores, bottled in stoneware and sold for medicinal use. It is unknown when people began to add carbonation to traditional root beers, but there are records indicating that one early entrepreneur, George Twitchell of Philadelphia, began selling a root concentrate syrup intended to be mixed with soda in 1850. Root beer recipes can be found in cookbooks dating back to the 1860s. With so many possible ingredients and combinations, individuals and families often developed their own unique root beer recipes that they in turn passed down to younger generations. Many of these were brewed by adding aromatic plant extracts and a sweetener (often molasses) to water. Beyond the standard sassafras, wintergreen, and sarsaparilla, other aromatics such as ginger (Zingiber officinale), birch bark, licorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra), hops (Humulus lupulus), vanilla (Vanilla species), burdock (Arctium minus) root, dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) root, coriander (Coriandrum sativum), cherry (Prunus avium) bark, and guiacum (Guiacum species) gum also appeared in early root beverages. The mixture was then cooked down to a syruplike consistency, at which point more water was added along with a small amount of yeast and the beverage was left to ferment (small amounts of alcohol were usually present in early root beers).

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Root beer was first marketed and sold on a mass scale by Hires. Hires, a teetotaler, began selling his nonalcoholic root drink in powder form: a 25-cent packet could garner five gallons (19 liters) of the beverage. Hires claimed to have taken the original recipe from an innkeeper who had brewed a root tea for him and his wife on their honeymoon. Hires debuted his proprietary “root beer”—a name he introduced to make the drink more attractive to coal miners—at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876. Although the inclusion of “beer” in its name brought the ire of the powerful Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, Hires’s product eventually took off, creating a new nationwide market and inspiring competition in turn. One early competitor was Edward Barq, who first began bottling his root beer in Biloxi, Mississippi, in 1897. In 1919 Roy W. Allen opened the first A&W root beer stand in Lodi, California. IBC root beer was first sold the same year in St. Louis, Missouri. These three brands—A&W, Barq’s, and IBC—are still favorites today. Root beer’s popularity exploded during Prohibition and continued to grow throughout the 20th century.

Modern mass-produced root beer is usually made with a proprietary mixture of carbonated water, high-fructose corn syrup or sugar, caramel coloring (to give the product its trademark dark brown appearance), and small amounts of natural and artificial flavorings. In 1960 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned safrole, the aromatic oil in sassafras, citing its potential to cause liver damage and certain cancers. In response, most producers began using a safrole-free sassafras extract. Each of the major commercial brands of root beer has its own characteristic flavorings. For example, Barq’s uses gum acacia (Acacia senegal), while IBC uses quillaia (Quillaja saponaria). Some root beers have zero-sugar or diet lines, which use artificial sweeteners such as aspartame. With the notable exception of Barq’s, most do not contain caffeine. A number of at-home and small-scale root beer operations generally use more traditional methods and extracts. In the mid-2010s, some small craft beer breweries began making alcoholic root beers.