Christine Kole keeps a 2-liter bottle of Vernors in the pantry to settle her stomach whenever it aches.
"It's got a little spicy kick to it," said the 63-year-old Ferndale resident, who grew up drinking theginger ale first made in Detroit. "You taste the ginger in it, and it always makes me sneeze when I first drink it. Itbubbles. Thatimmediately hits my nose."
Vernors— which wasoriginallyVernor's, before theapostrophewas dropped decades ago— isamong theoldest continuously madesoft drinks in America.Thisweek, it celebrates its150th anniversary.
For many Vernors drinkers, it's a nostalgic celebration.Generations of Michiganders,like Kole, grewup with the effervescent, caramel-colored elixir as abeverage of choice, a special treat on special occasions and also as a general curefor whatever ailed them.
A few years ago on network television, singerAretha Franklin,the Queen of Soul, was making a recipe that requiredVernorsand called the ginger ale a "Detroit treasure."
Vernors is no longer made inDetroit, and the business has changed hands many times. Butthe drink has endured.
"Vernors is so unique," said Joel Stone, 60, the senior curator of the Detroit Historical Society. The historical museum even has a small collection of Vernors artifacts."Putting it in romantic terms, Vernorsties back to good things people remember about their childhood.Times were simpler then.If you were a good boy on a hot summer Saturday andyou got the grass cut, you got to have a cold Vernors."
To commemorate the anniversary, restaurants also plan to serve specials made with Vernors. Among the public events and celebrations planned:the Detroit Historical Museum is setting up a specialexhibit that opens Tuesday, and will be on display until next Sunday. On Saturday, the museumis holding an anniversary party.
Aretha Franklin shares Christmas ham recipe with Vernors glaze on LIVE with Kelly and Michael
Businessingenuity
The story goes that in 1862Detroit pharmacist James Vernorconcocteda new drink.
It was amix of medical tonic, vanilla and spices, with a touch of ginger to soothe a sour stomach. He was goingoff to fight the Civil War, so he stored it in an oak cask.Four years later, hereturned from battle, tapped the kegand Vernors was born.
By some accounts, he tasted his drinkand declared it to be "Deliciously different!" which became the drink'smotto.
Stone said it's afantastic story, butit's alsoprobably an apocryphal one.
What was true, according to Stone, was that Vernor studied pharmacy and was issued the first pharmacy licence in the state. Hetinkered with flavors to duplicatea ginger ale that was imported from Europe, and after he was discharged from the 4th Michigan Cavalry, he began selling it froma Woodward Avenue drugstore soda fountain.
As demand grew, Vernor soldsyrup to soda fountains.Later, he got out of the drugstore business to focus on making just the pop.Hebrought in his namesake son to run the business and went to great lengths to keepthe recipea carefully-guarded secret.
"In the world of ginger ale," Stone said, "Vernorsstands completely apart because of its bold flavor."
Marketing savvy
Throughout Prohibition, the company expanded.
A bottling plant and headquarters was built in Detroit. Asoda fountain near the ferry boat docks on the Detroit River welcomedpassengers with ice cold drinks. Abig Vernors sign added to the city skyline, and the company distributed pop throughout Michigan and the Midwest.
"Vernor's made ginger ale and that's all they made," Stone said. "It was unique in the country, and Detroit had it.Detroiters latched on to that. They moved other places. But when they would come back to visit, they'd take it home with them longbefore it had national distribution."
The drink also became an ingredient in all sorts of familyrecipes. It is baked into cakes, baked beans, added to glazes and even combined with scoops ofvanilla ice cream to make a refreshing summer treat known throughout Michigan as a Boston Cooler. Combined with chocolate milk and it becomes a brown cow in some circles.
But when the company turned 100, the next generations of the Vernorfamily decided to sellit to a group of investors.
Since then, it has been owned by a variety of groups.
In 1971, Vernors was sold to American Consumer products,thento United Brands, which closed the Detroit bottling plant in the 1980s, andthen it was soldto A&W Brands. In 1993, A&W was acquired by Cadbury Schweppes; and in 2008, Cadbury’s North American beverages business was spun off asDr. Pepper Snapple Group.
Detroit nostalgia
Chris Barnes, a spokesman forDr. Pepper Snapple, said Vernors makes up about 1% of the company's total sales volume; it'sone of about 50 drink brands the company owns.
The drink is still bottled in Michigan, in Holland, and other cities nationwide.
Butwhile Vernors is distributed inseveral states, by far, itsmost loyal — andpassionate— customers are in Michigan.
Last year,the company said, it sold more than 7 million cases of Vernors, a large percentage — although not a majority — of the sales werein Michigan.
As much as any other product that was invented and made in Michigan, Vernors — which has a unique look, taste and smell — evokes a powerful response.
"Growing up, we always had Vernors in the house, and a couple of times, when I was younger, I went down to the Vernors factory on Woodward Avenue with my grandparents," saidMike Wisniewski, 50, of Detroit."I prefer to drink Vernors over everything else — warm, cold, with ice cream — it doesn't matter,"
For folks like Kole, Vernors brings backpreciousmemories.
Koleassociates the drink with her mother, now91, who toldher stories of how as a willowy,young woman in the 1940s, she'dwalk from the Guardian Building, where she worked, tothe old Vernors plant to have a Boston Cooler,and then stroll the riverfront and dance the jitterbug.
Kole remembers getting the pop from her mom as a treat when she was a girl.
And she recalls how it was the one concoction she could count on to soothe the awful pains she had when she was pregnant with each of her three children.
"Nobody elsemakes ginger ale the way they did in Detroit," Kole said. "It's very comforting."
Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022 or fwitsil@freepress.com.
