Today is Friday, I slept in for another hour today, my Aunt canceled walking for this morning, she had to run errands before she had to go to work. It was nice sleeping in the extra hour!


I have really been wanting a cold bottle of Cheerwine lately, so I wanted to do a post about it. Because the last time I posted about something I wanted I got it. So here are all the facts I could find about good old Cheerwine! If you don't know what Cheerwine is it is Cheerwine is a cherry-flavored soft drink produced by the Carolina Beverage Corporation of Salisbury, North Carolina. It has been produced since 1917. 

When Kentucky's Maysville Syrup Company went bankrupt, L.D. Peeler bought the company and moved it to his hometown of Salisbury, NC. He renamed it the Carolina Beverage Corporation and continued making the popular Mint Cola.  In 1917, a traveling salesman from St. Louis sold the amped-up cherry flavor to the company founder, who had wanted to add a cherry soda to the Carolina Beverage Co.'s soda line-up to take advantage of the flavor's popularity. After a bit of tinkering, he landed on the Cheerwine recipe. By 1924, Cheerwine outsold Mint Cola, and the soda group's name was changed from Mint Cola Bottling Co. to Cheerwine Bottling Co.  Carolina Beverage Corp. and Cheerwine Bottling Co. are still owned by L.D. Peeler's family. When the patriarch passed away in 1931, L.D.'s son Clifford took over the company, and, today, Cliff Ritchie, Clifford Sr.'s grandson and the founder's great-grandson, helms the soda company.

The name actually comes from the drink's burgundy color and the cheerfulness drinkers experience after that first sip. 

 How intense is Cheerwine's carbonation? Ohio BBQ chain Old Carolina Barbecue Company tracked down old-fashioned soda fountains so they could serve Cheerwine, because the standard drink machines couldn't handle the carbonation.

While the other soda barons hit caffeine-lovers' lips in the 1800s -- a few decades before Cheerwine, the NC soda beat them to the cherry circuit. Cherry Coke and Wild Cherry Pepsi weren't actually sold in stores until the 1980s, while Cherry Dr. Pepper only arrived in the 2000s.

The first glass bottles and original labels with an adorable three-cherry design. 

The delightfully sweet, Tar Heel State-bred soda's first nickname was born early on and for obvious reasons, but a redesign of the label created the second moniker. Originally, "Bottling Company" was printed beneath the Cheerwine name, but that's since been replaced with "Legend since 1917".\

In 1953, President Eisenhower was apparently so overcome with excitement at his first taste of the soda, he was reduced to the two-syllable exclamation, "Ike likes!", proving that talking about yourself in the third-person always makes you sound like a moron, even if you're the President!

Until tomorrow!