From Soda Fountains to Smoothies

Soda fountain, malt shop, shake shack – they are all terms that grew into gathering places that originated out of the fizzy drink. The popularity of this goes back hundreds of years, thousands of years if you think about the curative mineral waters that sprang up in the shape of spas, such as the one in Bath England which was made into a spa by the Romans in the year 43 Common Era. The waters from mineral spas were thought to be healing and restorative. This idea held strong, and mineral waters were sold. The earliest bottling of such was in the 1600s.  Bottling water began in the United Kingdom with the first water bottling at the Holy Well in 1621  The first commercially distributed water in America was bottled and sold by Jackson’s Spa in Boston in 1767. Soon the introduction of carbonation into the mineral water happened.  Remember in the old movies someone in a saloon ordering a sasperilla? Soda fountain days. In the early 1770s, Swedish chemist Torbern Bergman, and (separately) at nearly the same time, English scientist Joseph Priestley invented equipment for saturating water with carbon dioxide.

The ‘soda jerk’ was the common term for what we would now call a barista, if sodas were coffees. Soda fountains morphed into places where milkshakes or malted milkshakes were served. In 1922, the milkshake made it into the mainstream when a Walgreens employee in Chicago, Ivar “Pop” Coulson, took an old-fashioned malted milk (milk, chocolate, and malt) and added two scoops of ice cream, creating a drink that became popular, soon becoming a high-demand drink for young adults around the country. Malt shop was another term. This then grew into smoothies.

History of smoothies

On the West Coast of the United States health food stores began selling smoothies with the invention of the electric blender. The actual term “smoothie” was being used in recipes and by the mid-1980s. In the 1960s  Inspired by his work as a soda jerk, Steve Kuhnau began experimenting with smoothies. They were an alternative for the lactose intolerant Kuhnau to taste his own concoctions using unique blends of fruit juices, vegetables, protein powder, and vitamins. Kuhnau founded Smoothie Kind when he discovered early success in his smoothie sales.. Smoothie King expanded throughout the United States and would pioneer other smoothie businesses such as Jamba Juice. The smoothie was then modified by fast food chains with the addition of sweeter ingredients like chocolate and Splenda.  In the 2000s, people began making smoothies at home and adding fruits and vegetables.