Anisa Khalifa: So, here's a polarizing question for you. Coke or Pepsi?
Unidentified Speaker: Every now and then I'll do coke. Pepsi is too sweet.
Unidentified Speaker: I will not drink a soft drink if it’s not a Pepsi.
Unidentified Speaker: I love my Coke Zero, I have it as a treat.
Unidentified Speaker: If I go places where they do not serve Pepsi, I drink water.
Anisa Khalifa: The South is the birthplace of all the big cola brands. Since the first Coca-Cola was poured in Atlanta in 1886, it's become an American icon. For many of us, these drinks are part of key childhood memories. But whether we're loyal to Coke, Pepsi, or something else, we don't drink as much soda as we used to. I'm Anisa Khalifa. This week on the Broadside, we ask: why did cola become King in the South? And does soda even matter in this new beverage age?
Soda, as we know it today, was born in the drugstores of the late 19th century. Pharmacists made all sorts of claims about them: that they were digestive aids, that they would give you energy. Sometimes that energy came from ingredients that were a little on the narcotic side. And those ideas about medicinal benefits lingered.
Ralph Ashworth: Well Coke, you know, it's good for settling the stomach. A lot of times, people have upset stomach.
Anisa Khalifa: This is Ralph Ashworth, the owner of Ashworth Drugs in Cary, North Carolina.
Ralph Ashworth: In the early days, we would shake ammonia. Somebody says, Oh, I feel so worn out. I don't feel good. They'd come to the fountain. They'd have a little bottle of ammonia. And they'd shake some ammonia in the Coke. And that spurred — gave 'em a spurt. Yes.
Anisa Khalifa: I don't think they would do that nowadays.
Ralph Ashworth: Probably not. But if you ask for it, I'll fix it for you.
Anisa Khalifa: Okay, I'll let you know.
There aren't a lot of soda fountains around nowadays, but I was lucky enough to find one right around the corner from my house. This is it. Yeah? Could you would you mind if I talk to you about it? Yeah?
A soda fountain can refer to two things: the machine that dispenses the soda itself, and a lunch counter with stools where you can buy a sandwich, and a fizzy treat to wash it down with. Ashworth Drugs has both: an old-fashioned soda fountain at the front, behind a low counter with stools. The fountain at Ashworth's is an antique. It doesn’t work anymore and it’s purely there for looks, but they made me a cherry Coke from their new soda dispenser before I sat down to chat with Ralph.
So you put cherry syrup and then you add the Coke in there?
Ralph Ashworth: We came in 1957 to establish this drugstore, which was already in place for about 25 years. And at that time, we had the fountain, and we served Jesse Jones hotdogs. But the fountain has been a big part of the community. When we first started, this was the center of Cary. We took light bills, telephone bills, we sold bus tickets, we had Western Union.
And so it's been a meeting place through the years. And we've just continued. It makes us feel like a small town. Now, we got about 183,000 people. But when we are here, it feels like a small town. Of course when I came, it was only 1900 people here. So I have seen a big big jump in population.
Anisa Khalifa: Yeah, my uncle has been here since the 70s. And he used to say when he used to drive through Cary. There was like one stoplight or something.
Ralph Ashworth: It was just one stoplight when I came. And that was the one right here in front of us. It's still working. Yes.
Anisa Khalifa: Oh, wow. Oh, that's the one.
Ralph Ashworth: That's the one.
Anisa Khalifa: Ralph serves Coca-Cola, and it’s certainly the juggernaut brand. Here in the South, people use the word "Coke" colloquially to refer to any kind of soda. But its dominance is global and can be traced back nearly a hundred years. During World War II, Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower actually ordered that the troops have access to Coke wherever they were deployed. By the end of the war, Coca-Cola had distributed over 5 billion bottles of cola to soldiers, making the drink nearly as representative of the United States as the American flag. And it was invented just one state over from us — where my colleague, Broadside editor Jerad Walker is from. Just like Ralph, he has a long history with cola.
Jerad Walker: Yeah, I’m from Georgia born and raised. This is a long time ago, so my memories may not be super accurate.
Anisa Khalifa: We checked. They still do this.
Jerad Walker: But Coca-Cola used to do this thing where they would send elementary school classes up to their museum in Atlanta, which is called The World of Coca-Cola. As ridiculous as it may sound, it’s a big attraction in Atlanta. So they would offer discounted tickets to elementary schools to send kids up on field trips to learn the history of cola. For an 8 or 9 year old kid, this is a big deal. This was like the highlight of our social calendar. And I have really fond memories of going there and walking through the museum. And they spit you out in this Willy-Wonka-esque hall at the very end, and they let everyone try samples of every soda that they make in the entire world. I’m probably a lifelong Coke guy — a Coke guy til I die probably, because of that.
Anisa Khalifa: So clearly the propaganda has worked on Jerad. But I have a similar personal connection to Pepsi. When I was a kid, we'd drink it in tall glass bottles at weddings when I would visit my grandparents in Pakistan. And Jerad and I just happen to live in North Carolina, which is the birthplace of Pepsi. So, we went on a road trip to the town of New Bern to find out why we care so much about cola. That’s where a pharmacist named Caleb Bradham invented Pepsi-Cola in the 1890s — or, as it was originally called, Brad's Drink.
Sabrina Bengel: And people just locally would come in and say and because his last name was Bradham, they call him Doc Bradham. So, you know, he named it Brad's Drink, give me Brad's Drink. But he officially called it Pepsi-Cola in 1898.
Anisa Khalifa: Sabrina Bengel is the managing partner of the birthplace of Pepsi-Cola, a historic site in downtown New Bern that stands on the footprint of Bradham’s original store.
Sabrina Bengel: And he was trying to assist his customers in aiding digestion. So Pepsi was founded as a digestive aid and the word dyspepsia means upset stomach. So that's where it kind of all fits in.
Anisa Khalifa: Sabrina says the new digestive aid was a hit and quickly flooded a cola-hungry market.
Sabrina Bengel: And from about 1898, like I said, until 1910, within that short span of time, roughly 10 to 12 years, he ended up with 250 franchises in 24 states, the popularity of Pepsi just went crazy. And he is the king of the castle. They wanted him to even run for governor, he was so popular.
Anisa Khalifa: But then came World War I, and with it the rationing of sugar, Pepsi's main ingredient. At the end of the war, the market crashed and Caleb Bradham lost everything — including Pepsi-Cola. The company didn't return to its former glory until a new owner revived it in the early 30s.
Sabrina Bengel: When he got Pepsi, it was bottled in six ounce, whatever, most of them were beer bottles, that's why you see the very early bottles were brown. So to rival Coke, they made a 12 ounce bottle but charged the same price. So the big slogan in the song was twice as much for a nickel too. So it's their little song is Pepsi Cola hits the spot. 12 full ounces. That's a lot…
[SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVAL PEPSI ADVERTISEMENT]
Advertisement Jingle: Pepsi Cola hits the spot / 12 full ounces, that's a lot / Twice as much for a nickel too / Pepsi-Cola is the drink for you.
Anisa Khalifa: Pepsi was invented here. Coke was invented in Atlanta. Dr. Pepper is from Waco, Texas. Why do you think these huge soda brands are all invented in the South?
Sabrina Bengel: You know, is it the culture? Is it, you know, that laid back culture? I don't know. I think that that's what people were looking for. Think about it, during that time period let's say in the 1890s, you know the drink — they were hard drinks and it was the beers and things like that. And I believe that people were looking for that soft drink. We had some temperances coming on in the 20s, you know, again, I believe they were looking for this soft drink.
Anisa Khalifa: This right here. This exact moment is when Jerad’s brain broke.
Jerad Walker: I have literally never made the connection that soft drink means non alcoholic.
Sabrina Bengel: It was a soft drink. Hard drink was the sarsaparillas and the beers and things like that. Okay, you learned something, that's why you came to New Bern, to learn something.
Jerad Walker: I feel like a total moron.
Anisa Khalifa: The birthplace of Pepsi has a modern soda fountain. During our visit, tourists and locals were coming in and out to get their under-carbonated, extra sweet Pepsi, which employees proudly told us was a special mix only available right here. One regular who came in as we chatted with Sabrina is Jerry Avery, a retired law enforcement officer turned hobby historian of Pepsi-Cola. Jerry is a Pepsi evangelist.
Jerry Avery: If I go places where they do not serve Pepsi, I drink water. I am a diehard. I drink water.
Anisa Khalifa: I got the feeling he wasn’t kidding. Jerry and his wife spend their days collecting old bottles and combing through primary sources about the story of early Pepsi. I asked him the same question that I've been asking everyone. Why did soda become so big down here?
Jerry Avery: I tend to think that we Southerners tend to like a lot of sugar in things we eat, we put a lot of sugar into things we eat. And the sugary drinks were advertised as being energetic. They were the original energy drink. So the more sugar you had through the work day, the better you felt, the more revived you were. And I think that was a big help in making the drink, become regional and ultimately global.
Anisa Khalifa: So the message I'm taking away from this is, as a North Carolinian, I should only drink Pepsi.
Jerry Avery: Absolutely. Well, but I won't be mad with you if you try Cheerwine from time to time.
Anisa Khalifa: Cheerwine is a beloved cherry soda from North Carolina…but that’s another story. When we come back after the break, we find out why people get so attached to brands and stare down soda’s future in a world that increasingly hates sugar.
We're back with the Broadside. I'm Anisa Khalifa. We've been talking with people who drink soda, and sell soda — but next, we'll hear from someone who can give us a big picture view about our relationship to what we eat and drink, and why it means so much to us.
Psyche Williams-Forson: So these products are for some of us, for most people, they are age-old and you acquire a taste that is uncompromising.
Anisa Khalifa: Dr. Psyche Williams-Forson is a professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland College Park. Psyche is not a fan of Pepsi, although her school has a contract with the company and enforces the use of Pepsi products on campus.
Psyche Williams-Forson: I tend to drink more seltzer water. But if I drink soda, it's usually a sprite. And every now and then I'll do coke. Pepsi is too sweet.
Anisa Khalifa: According to Psyche, soda was literally a product of its time. In the late 19th century, the temperance movement was taking off and would peak with the institution of Prohibition in 1920. And in the South, the transformation of how and what people drank had everything to do with their post-Civil War society.
Psyche Williams-Forson: Many have argued that temperance and Prohibition, you know, was sort of these was really the result of native whites and I'm putting this in air quotes, you know, wanting to control European Catholics. Right? Black people, people of color…we're in Reconstruction at this point, you have scores of Black folks who now have been recently free. And so how do we control that? Well, we institute Prohibition to keep people from living lives that, perhaps for them, are some measure of freedom.
Anisa Khalifa: Largely segregated spaces like soda fountains restricted access to cola. But that began to change as the century turned, with the widespread availability of bottled soda.
Psyche Williams-Forson: When glass bottles get introduced, right, and soda becomes manufactured and bottled, that actually allowed for much more freedom because then people didn't have to go to a soda fountain. They could purchase a Coke anywhere.
Anisa Khalifa: And the marketing machines at these companies kicked into high gear. In the beginning, Coca-Cola marketed exclusively to white people. But Pepsi-Cola saw the opportunity to get an edge over their competitor. By the 1940s, they even had a marketing department that catered specifically to African American audiences. And Psyche says she saw the lasting effect of that history when she was a child in rural Virginia.
Psyche Williams-Forson: I remember very much being in the local sort of drugstore or local store, Mr. Dean's, which was a Black-owned establishment where he made burgers, you could get penny candy, and you could definitely buy an RC. I don't remember ever being told, can you get me a Coke? It was always an RC or a Pepsi. But that image of white Coke and Black Pepsi really lingered for a while.
Anisa Khalifa: Today though, there’s not much difference between the marketing strategies of the two brands. While Coca-Cola leans more into nostalgia, they're both blandly inclusive and global. And so I keep coming back to this question: why do we choose sides about something as inconsequential as soda?
Psyche Williams-Forson: I mean of course, I think, again, a lot of our identities with food stem from how we were raised, and what we have access to what we were exposed to growing up. And the sooner we realize that food is a part of that, of that set of objects that really define who we are, the better we understand why it is problematic. When you simply say to people, you need to stop eating x. For some folks, that's like saying, You need to cut off your right arm, you know, or I'm gonna take your phone or I'm gonna take your car…it's literally as important to people as the material things that we value the most. Food is also intensely personal, and it speaks volumes about who we are, where we're from, how we have evolved or not, who our communities are and what those communities represent.
Anisa Khalifa: Food is intensely personal. So what happens when our desire for that food, which occupies these spaces of nostalgia, and family, and identity — bumps up against a cultural force as seismic as the war on sugar?
Because I'll be honest. I asked everyone I talked to for this story if they prefer Coke or Pepsi, and most of them said that they don't drink either very often. I don't drink soda very often. I mean, I'm a millennial. Grapefruit La Croix runs through my veins. We're living in the era of seltzer water and prebiotic wellness soda. This new take on the fizzy stuff has gone so mainstream that it even showed up during the Super Bowl a few weeks ago.
[SOUNDBITE OF POPPI ADVERTISEMENT]
Anisa Khalifa: So what's going on? Have Americans really fallen out of love with soda?
Rina Raphael: Soda consumption dropped to a 30-year low in recent years, and of course, bottled water consumption is way up. In the US, I believe more bottled water is being sold than soda.
Anisa Khalifa: That's Rina Raphael, a wellness industry journalist who writes the newsletter Well To Do, and authored the book The Gospel of Wellness. Rina says the main reason people are drinking less soda is health consciousness.
Rina Raphael: And I just think that in general, people are looking for easy ways to sort of implement that into their lives. And one of the easiest ways to do that is to just switch out what you're drinking.
Anisa Khalifa: Rina also points to the influence of social media — and argues that wellness today follows trends, just like fashion.
Rina Raphael: The algorithm really rewards the novel new and exciting. It's really, really hard to get just standard health advice viral on social media platforms. But if you have this new crazy ingredient that no one's heard of before, well, that's going to really kind of garner people's interest.
Anisa Khalifa: Rina says wellness is aspirational, it's trendy… but it's also got an almost moral dimension. Sugar in particular has become something we're told to avoid at all costs.
Rina Raphael: There's been so many more conversations and studies about sugar consumption and how it's linked to a variety of different health conditions. So you are seeing more and more consumers and especially millennials who are so health conscious, want to reduce their sugar intake. If you go to a supermarket, you'll see a lot more labels that say, sugar free, or different types of alternative sugars. It is interesting, though, because sometimes they're not drinking as much soda, but they're drinking sugar in other ways. Through fruit juices, through iced teas.
Anisa Khalifa: And then there are the so-called healthy alternatives to soda — flavored seltzers, probiotic sodas, prebiotic sodas...I'm still a little unclear on what exactly a prebiotic does.
Rina Raphael: You can't go to a supermarket beverage aisle without all of these cans boasting alleged health benefits like, supports immunity, hormone balancing, cell rejuvenating! I mean, it's a little ridiculous. And very few of these are backed up by scientific studies.
Anisa Khalifa: It’s all come full circle. These promises are reminiscent of the pharmacists that invented colas in the late 1800s, touting their health benefits.
Ralph Ashworth: You'll enjoy it. It's right downtown at the corner where the drugstore was, so it's very authentic.
Anisa Khalifa: Back at Ashworth Drugs in my hometown, with its old school pharmacy and lunch counter, I felt like I had stepped back in time. Ralph Ashworth told me that he hadn't seen soda fountain sales decline, even if people are buying less sugary drinks from the grocery store.
Ralph Ashworth: We sell a lot of tea.
Anisa Khalifa: He's talking about sweet tea — you don't even have to ask in Cary, North Carolina.
Ralph Ashworth: But they still drink Cokes. They gotta have something to drink with a sandwich or whatever. So they, as far as the fountain drinks are concerned, they are still popular. Maybe the cans or bottles when they buy, maybe they're not carrying as much home. I don't know that. But I think insofar as the drugstore concern, I haven't seen it go down.
Anisa Khalifa: As our interview wrapped up, Ralph warmly invited me to come back and have lunch at the fountain to get the full Ashworth experience. And I promised him I would. But what I didn't know at the time, was that my first visit to Ralph's store would also be my last. Like so many of the other soda fountains that have disappeared, Ashworth Drugs announced last month that they're closing their doors permanently. Before I left, though, I made sure to try a cherry Coke — the iconic drink they've served since 1957. Mm. That's good. That tastes like childhood.
Ralph Ashworth: Did you drink cherry Cokes as a kid?
Anisa Khalifa: Yeah.
Ralph Ashworth: Well that's been very popular for us over the years.
Anisa Khalifa: This episode of The Broadside was produced by me, Anisa Khalifa, and our editor Jerad Walker. Al Wodarski provided audio engineering support, and Wilson Sayre is our executive producer. Special thanks to Jordan Blackwell at the University of Maryland College Park for technical assistance.
If you'd like to see an actual old-timey drugstore from the 1920s with a soda fountain, you can find one that has been preserved in its entirety at the North Carolina Museum of History in downtown Raleigh.
The Broadside is a production of WUNC–North Carolina Public Radio. You can email us at broadside@wunc.org. If you enjoyed the show, leave us a rating, a review, or share it with a friend! Thanks for listening y'all. We'll be back next week.