The History of Soft Drinks
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One of the most popular categories of beverage in the world today is soft drinks. Soft drinks can be found almost everywhere in every country, from corner stores to restaurants to vending machines. Unlike other popular beverages, soft drinks are a rather recent invention, despite there being early antecedents to soft drinks that go back to antiquity. Learn more about soft drinks, their origins, and how they became so popular on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. ♪♪♪

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Everyone is familiar with soft drinks. They may be called different names around the world, including pop, soda, fizzy drinks, mineral, refresco, gaseosa, softies, and aerated drinks, but they're all referring to basically the same thing. Most, but not all, soft drinks are carbonated, and most, but not all, drinks are sweetened. The soft in soft drinks comes from the fact that they do not have alcohol, which is considered a hard drink.

The earliest origins of something we might call a soft drink dates back to ancient times when people would often put flavoring in their water. In Mesopotamia and Egypt, flavored water was made with herbs and fruit. Ancient Greeks and Romans sometimes consumed mineral water from natural springs, believing that it had medicinal properties. None of this was very special, and it's most likely that every civilization had some sort of flavored water that they drank. Dropping something into water to give it some flavor is pretty easy to do.

The first real jump in taking non-alcoholic drinks seriously took place during the Islamic Golden Age. As Muslims have a prohibition against drinking alcohol, they put a great deal of thought into the creation of good-tasting beverages that didn't have alcohol. One of the most significant contributions from this area was sharbat, from the Arabic word shariba, meaning to drink. It was a sweet, flavored syrup mixed with water or snow to create a refreshing beverage.

The concept of sharbat spread across the Islamic world, from Persia in the Middle East to the Indian subcontinent and even Europe, where it influenced the modern treat called sherbet. These drinks were often infused with fruits, herbs, and flowers, such as rose, lemon, pomegranate, tamarind, and mint. The expansion of sugar cultivation under the Abbasid Caliphate, especially in Persia, Egypt, and Andalusia, led to increased use of sugar in beverages.

Before this period, honey was the primary sweetener, but the refining of cane sugar allowed for a wider variety of sweetened soft drinks. The introduction of sugar and flavored syrups to Europe through trade and the Crusades contributed to the development of lemonade and early sodas in the 17th century.

In 1676, the Compagnie des Limonadiers, founded in Paris, was the first known soft drink company granted exclusive rights to sell lemonade-like sweetened beverages in the city, which vendors dispensed from portable tanks. Flavored water was certainly an important step in the development of soft drinks, but the thing that separated modern soft drinks from flavored water was carbonation.

Naturally carbonated water had been around since time immemorial in the form of water from natural mineral springs. In 1767, Joseph Priestley, an English scientist who also happened to be the discoverer of the element oxygen, discovered how to infuse water with carbon dioxide, creating the first artificially carbonated water.

In 1772, he published Impregnating Water with Fixed Air, describing how to create fizzy water by adding CO2 from a chemical reaction between sulfuric acid and chalk. Swedish chemist Torbjörn Bergman improved Priestley's process by designing the first carbonation apparatus, allowing for the controlled infusion of CO2 into water on a larger scale. His method laid the groundwork for commercial carbonated water production.

The Swiss-German jeweler and amateur scientist Johann Jacob Schwepp perfected a method of carbonating water using compressed CO2 gas and developed the first commercial soda water. In 1792, he moved to London, where he founded the Schweppes Company, producing bottled carbonated water, which became a luxury item amongst the British elite. By the early 1800s, Schweppes soda water was promoted as a medicinal drink, often prescribed for digestive issues and general health.

By the 1820s to 1830s, pharmacists in Europe and America began mixing carbonated water with flavor syrups to create early versions of soft drinks. Soda fountains became popular in American pharmacies, where carbonated water was dispensed fresh for medicinal purposes. Innovations in bottle sealing techniques, such as Hiram Codd's marble-sealed bottle in the 1870s, improved carbonation retention.

Once you had carbonated water, a way to keep it carbonated in bottles, and flavoring, you had all the ingredients necessary to make modern soft drinks. One of the first drinks that you might recognize was ginger ale. Ginger ale is a carbonated soft drink flavored with ginger root and often sweetened with sugar or artificial sweeteners.

It originated in the mid-19th century with the earliest known version created in 1851 by an apothecary named Thomas Joseph Cantrell in Belfast, Ireland. The modern dry ginger ale style was developed by John McLachlan in Canada in 1904 with the launch of Canada Dry Ginger Ale. Root beer originated as a medicinal herbal drink made from roots, bark, and herbs used by indigenous North American tribes for their healing properties.

Early European settlers adopted these herbal brews, incorporating ingredients like sassafras, sarsaparilla, wintergreen, and licorice, often fermenting them into low-alcohol small beers. By the 19th century, root beer evolved into a non-alcoholic carbonated beverage as pharmacists and soda makers experimented with herbal tonics.

In 1876, Charles Elmer Hires, a Philadelphia pharmacist, developed the first commercial root beer syrup, promoting it as a healthful alternative to alcoholic beverages. He introduced it to a national audience at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, and by the late 19th century, bottled carbonated root beer became widely available. The drink gained massive popularity in the 20th century with brands like A&W Root Beer, founded in 1919, leading the way.

Perhaps the most popular soft drink to be developed in the 19th century was cola. Cola is a carbonated soft drink traditionally flavored with a combination of cola nut extract, vanilla, cinnamon, citrus oils, and caramel for sweetness and depth. Early versions used a cola nut, which naturally contains caffeine. Cola originated in the late 19th century as a medicinal tonic.

The first commercially successful cola was Coca-Cola, invented in 1886 by Dr. John Pemberton, an Atlanta pharmacist who combined coca leaf extract, which originally contained cocaine and was later removed, and cola nut extract to create a stimulating beverage. Pepsi-Cola, created by Caleb Bradham in 1893, soon followed as a competitor. The brand that is considered to be the oldest soft drink in the world is Dr. Pepper.

It was invented in 1885 by Charles Adlerton, a pharmacist working at Morrison's Old Corner Drugstore in Waco, Texas, making it one year older than Coca-Cola. Adlerton created a drink by experimenting with different syrups at the store's soda fountain, aiming to replicate the aroma of a drugstore filled with fruity and spicy scents. When local customers began asking for a Waco, store owner Wade Morrison recognized its potential and began marketing it more widely.

The drink was officially named Dr. Pepper and in 1904 gained national recognition when it was introduced at the St. Louis World's Fair, the same event that helped popularize hamburgers and hot dogs. Unlike many early sodas that were marketed as medicinal tonics, Dr. Pepper was promoted primarily as just a refreshing beverage with an energizing effect. The 1890s and 1900s saw many innovations which allowed for the mass production of soft drinks.

The 1890s saw the mass production of glass bottles, which allowed for a wider distribution. In 1899, the Coca-Cola Company started bottling its drinks instead of relying solely on soda fountains. And in 1904, the first automatic bottling machines revolutionized production. One of the biggest boons to the soft drink industry was the establishment of prohibition in the United States in 1920. With the banning of alcohol, non-alcoholic drinks exploded in popularity.

The popularization of electric refrigerators during this period also allowed soft drinks to be kept cold at all times. Soft drinks played an important role in the Second World War. In 1941, Robert Woodruff, the president of Coca-Cola, famously declared that every U.S. soldier should be able to buy a Coke for five cents, no matter where they were stationed. This led to the establishment of military bottling plants around the world to supply troops.

Special arrangements with the U.S. government allowed Coca-Cola to continue production despite sugar rationing. Coke wasn't the only soft drink manufacturer to aid in the war effort, but they were by far the biggest. By the end of the war, American soft drink companies had expanded into Europe, Asia, and the Pacific, setting the stage for the global dominance of brands like Coca-Cola and Pepsi in the following decades. The war inadvertently made soft drinks a universal beverage, fueling their post-war boom.

The post-war period saw a dramatic expansion of the soft drink industry. The 1950s saw the introduction of canned sodas, and in the 1960s, aluminum cans replaced steel, making production cheaper. Perhaps the biggest innovation from this period was the creation of diet sodas. The first diet soda was called No-Cal. It was introduced in 1952 by the Kirsch Bottling Company in Brooklyn, New York.

Originally marketed to diabetics, it was sweetened with cyclamate and sold primarily in niche health markets. In 1958, Diet Right Cola, created by the Crown Royal Cola Company, became the first nationally distributed diet soda in the U.S. and was targeted towards weight-conscious consumers rather than just diabetics. Coca-Cola entered the diet market in 1963 with Tab, sweetened with saccharin and cyclamate. Tab became one of the most popular diet sodas of the era.

Pepsi followed suit in 1964 with Diet Pepsi, making low-calorie sodas more widely accepted. In 1982, Coca-Cola launched Diet Coke, which quickly became the best-selling diet soda of all time. In 1983, they adopted the newly approved sweetener, aspartame. Perhaps the biggest trend over the last 50 years has been the global expansion of American soft drink companies.

Having traveled extensively around the world, I can say from first-hand experience that I don't think I've ever visited an inhabited area where I couldn't find Coke and or Pepsi. In the 1950s and 1960s, both brands set up localized bottling plants in Japan and Europe to adapt to regional tastes. In the 60s and 70s, Coca-Cola and Pepsi used franchising models in Latin America and Africa, allowing local businesses to operate bottling plants under their brands.

Pepsi became the first American consumer product sold in the USSR in 1972, trading Pepsi concentrate for vodka under a unique barter system. The rise of energy drinks began in the late 20th century, driven by increasing consumer demand for quick energy boosts, enhanced focus, and endurance. The concept originated in Japan in the 1960s, where drinks like Lipovitin D contained taurine, caffeine, and B vitamins to combat fatigue.

The trend spread globally in 1987 with the launch of Red Bull, an Austrian adaptation of a Thai energy drink. Red Bull's aggressive marketing strategy focusing on extreme sports, nightlife, and youth culture made energy drinks a mainstream category by the early 2000s. Competitors like Monster, Rockstar, and 5-Hour Energy followed, further expanding the industry. The global soft drink industry today is enormous.

Total revenues in 2025 are estimated to reach $584 billion. Taken as a whole, the soft drink industry would be the 26th largest economy in the world between Ireland and the United Arab Emirates. Despite their broad worldwide popularity, soft drinks aren't without their problems. Soft drinks have been linked to several health concerns, primarily due to their high sugar content, acidity, and artificial additives.

Excessive consumption of sugary sodas has been associated with obesity, type 2 diabetes, and metabolic syndrome as they contribute to excess calorie intake and insulin resistance. The phosphoric acid and citric acid found in many sodas can erode tooth enamel leading to dental cavities. Additionally, some studies suggest that diet sodas, despite being sugar-free, may still negatively impact gut health, appetite regulation, and metabolism due to artificial sweeteners like aspartame and sucralose.

High caffeine sodas and energy drinks can also contribute to heart palpitations, high blood pressure, and sleep disturbances when consumed excessively. Soft drinks have come a long way since ancient people infused water with herbs and honey. Today, it's one of the world's biggest industries.

Given the increase in health concerns and the rise of products like energy drinks, we might not know where the soft drink business is going to be in several decades, but it most likely will still be providing beverages for people all over the world. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Benji Long and Cameron Kiefer.

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