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Strictly speaking, carbonated beverages like beer and champagne have been around for centuries, but bubbly drinks that don’t pack an alcoholic punch have a slightly shorter, but still fascinating, history.

By the 17th century, Parisian street vendors were already selling a noncarbonated version of lemonade, but the first drinkable man-made glass of carbonated water wasn’t invented until the 1760s.

Called ‘soft drinks’, the term originated to distinguish flavoured drinks from hard liquor and was just in time to serve as a substitute for the hard-drinking habits of mostly early Americans.

Since natural mineral waters were thought to have curative powers since Roman times, pioneering soft-drink inventors, hoping to reproduce those health-enhancing qualities in the laboratory, often resorted to using chalk and acid to carbonate water.

An English clergyman and scientist named Joseph Priestley is often called “the father of the soft drinks industry” for his experiments on gas obtained from the fermenting vats of a brewery. In 1772 he demonstrated a small carbonating apparatus to the College of Physicians in London, suggesting that, with the aid of a pump, water might be ‘impregnated’ with fixed air.

No one knows exactly when or by whom flavourings and sweeteners were first added to seltzers, but mixtures of wine and carbonated water became very popular in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. By the 1830s, flavoured syrups made from berries and fruit were developed, and by 1865, suppliers were advertising different seltzers flavoured with pineapple, orange, lemon, apple, pear, plum, peach, apricot, grape, cherry, black cherry, strawberry, raspberry, gooseberry, pear, and melon.

Perhaps the most significant innovation in the realm of soda flavouring came in 1886, when J.S. Pemberton, using a combination of kola nut from Africa and cocaine from South America, created the iconic taste of Coca-Cola.

The soft drink industry expanded rapidly after that, and by 1860, 123 plants were bottling ‘soft drink water’ in the United States. By 1870, there were 387, and by 1900, there were 2,763 different plants. Soft drinks were booming.

Prohibition helped boost the soda movement, and the United States and Great Britain are often credited with spurring the success and popularity of carbonated beverages, which were seen as wholesome alternatives to alcohol. Soon, even pharmacies were serving soft drinks as ‘medicine’.

By 1904, Coca-Cola was selling one million gallons of syrup annually, and so in the latter half of the 20th century extensive research and development went into the production of carbonated beverages. Today, carbonated soft drinks are the third most consumed beverage globally, and there are almost too many flavours of ‘soft drinks’ to count.

No matter if you call it pop, cool drink, fizzy drink, soda, or mixer, without the invention of carbonated water, your gin and tonic just wouldn’t be the same. Fortunately, you don’t have to rely on a street vendor with a tank full of ‘impregnated water’ to enjoy your favourite mixer these days. Just crack open one of Fitch & Leedes‘ finest carbonated mixers and enjoy the fruits of centuries’ pursuit of the perfect mixer. Now in the UK too!

 

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[source:thoughtco]