Today is Vintage Thingie Thursday. I love looking at all the entries! But with traveling to New Stanton, PA this week for Harvey’s job and being sick for a couple of days, I didn’t have anything prepared. So last night I started thinking about what I could contribute to today’s posting.
I’ve collected Vintage advertising pictures for a while. This postcard from The Graphic Fairy completes this collage. I’m not sure you can read its contents with the blending, but it reads:
Dear Jack,
Be sure to come early this evening. I made Root beer from Hines Household Extract, the kind you
like so well and it is simply delicious. You must drink a lot of it to get as rosy cheeks as
Yours affectionately,
Alice
The little girl with the hat is holding a box of Hires Improved Root beer which says it makes 5 gallons.
According to this article about inventor Charles Hires:
Ingredients in early root beers included allspice, birch bark, coriander, juniper, ginger, wintergreen, hops, burdock root, dandelion root, spikenard, pipsissewa, guaiacum chips, sarsaparilla, spicewood, wild cherry bark, yellow dock, prickly ash bark, sassafras root*, vanilla beans, hops, dog grass, molasses and licorice. Many of the above ingredients are still used in root beer today along with added carbonation. There is no one recipe.
A little history about Charles Hires:
Charles Hires was a Philadelphia pharmacist who according to his biography discovered a recipe for a delicious herbal tea while on his honeymoon. The pharmacist began selling a dry version of the tea mixture and also began working on a liquid version of the same tea. The result of was a combination of over twenty-five herbs, berries and roots that Charles Hires used to flavor a carbonated soda water drink. The Charles Hires’ version of a root beer beverage was first introduced to the public at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial exhibition.
The advertising using the baby cracked me up. Apparently they thought it gave babies rosy cheeks, even though it had a small amount of alcohol.
I hope you enjoyed learning a little bit about the first commercially produced Root Beer.
As Alice said in her postcard,
“You must drink a lot of it to get as rosy cheeks as
Yours affectionately,”
Margaret
P.S. I won! I can’t remember winning anything from a blog before, but I got an email from Cindy Atkins at Recovery Artist saying I was the winner of her Marie Antoinette CD. How exciting! Can’t wait till I get home to play with the images from it. Thank you Cindy! and visit her entry in today’s challenge and see her beautiful embellishment!
Hi Margaret,
What a fabulous collage! I had forgotten all about that little note about the root beer, I’m so glad you used it here. It really is charming, you did a wonderful job!! Thanks so much for linking this up for “Brag Monday”.
Oh wow, Margaret, what a GORGEOUS collage! How funny, I had just run off those graphics last week because I love them (we think alike!)
Yes, on the dresses I used cheesecloth so figured that they aren’t really to wear, but rather, would look pretty in someone’s craft room as a vintage accessory.
Thanks so much for putting my link on your page–that was SO sweet! Hope you’re having a good trip…
HUGS,
Cindy
How funny! I ‘spose it probably would give a baby rosey little cheeks…and a sick tummy…and quite a swagger! 🙂
Have a great day and thanks for sharing!
Sarah
How great Margaret!!! Congrats are well deserved for this one. Hmmm….I wonder what it would look like as a quilted wall hanging?!?!?!
Awesome Margaret, this has to be your best ever. Congrats. I like the idea of a quilted wall hanging. Get to work!
Just stopped by to ThankYou for visiting my VTT Maytag post and found this wonderful collage and info on RootBeer. I’m not sure I would have drank the stuff if I’d have known all the ingredients even if I did know what Pipsissiewa was. Even more distasteful idea of guaiacum chips…uck! Fun and informative post…thanks…I think!
Sue, I know, we just have to drink the stuff and never look at the ingredients! Personally give me Dr. Pepper anyday!
What a cute collage, one of my favorites! I am a rootbeer lover, so yummy! Thank you for visiting and leaving your sweet comment on my Vintage Thingies Thursday…Wicker Pram! I was so excited when I found this wicker pram with the red and white gingham hood and red wheels, I knew, of course, that I had to add red geraniums.
Hugz,
Kim
Beautiful….I wish I was this talented, but when I try to create something like this, it just does not look good. Have a great VTT!
Thanks for all the information. I think each brand of rootbeer tastes different – maore than colas do. Now I know why. Happy VTT.
Beautiful collage! Root beer was always my favorite soda – and popsicle flavor – wonder if they still make root beer popsicles???
Happy VTT!
Sally
Very cool! Our Goodwill store had a Hire’s bottle in their display case for a while (one of those big 1 gallon bottles). It had my attention but they wanted $10 for it. Someone must have bought it 🙂
Blessings!
Gail
It is interesting to learn about root beer and see how many different ingredients have bee used.
What an interesting history! That was some ingredient list, eh? But hey, unlike today, I do have some inkling about what most of those ingredients are.
Beeuutiful!
*hugs*deb
Beautiful collage. I have never seen or tasted root beer, only seen it mentioned in books and films. It doesn’t sound very delicious!
Adorable collage!
Here in Israel it is still very popular to mix your own sodas! There’s a special gizmo that you buy, fill with water and flavoring syrup and it carbonates the water (with CO2). We don’t use it…solid Coke fans in this house!
Collage is wonderful! It illustrates text on the post card – as advertising. On my card, I tried to hide the text for a flower. And thank you for comment.