Let’s welcome 2021 with toast to Orlando’s homegrown soda
If you snagged some “Sparkling Holidays” stamps this season, you may have identified the four images as the Coca-Cola Santa: details from larger paintings by the artist Haddon Sundblom thatwere used in CocaCola ads fromthe 1940s through the early 1960s, according toUSPS.com.
We’ve been drinking Coca-Cola for a long time, judging froma photo of McElroy’s Pharmacy fromat least a century ago showing its distinctive logo. In 1914, a Sentinel article referred to the success of the Atlanta-based beverage, first introduced by Dr. John Pemberton in 1886. But at McElroy’s in 1914, the article said, a homegrown flavor was also wowing Orlandoans, who declared it “to be the most delightful to the palate.”
This nectar was made froma Florida product: “the despised palmetto berry.” In 1914, Orlando’s own Dr. R. H. Peak gathered them fromlocal woods and cooked up a palmetto-berry extract in his laboratory on South Main Street.
Another secret formula
Just as the formula for Coke is reputed to be a closely guarded trade secret, McElroy’s concocted its Peak’s Palmetto soda-fountain treat using a secret formula thatwas the Orlando drugstore’s alone. In 1914, itwas the most popular drink sold there, according to the Sentinel’s “advertorial,” which declared that “one drink creates a desire for another.”
McElroy’s may have invented the Peak’s Palmetto soda, but it seems to have been offered by competitors, too, including the soda fountain at Butt’s Candy Kitchen, which touted “Peak’s Palmetto” in a June 1915 ad along with peach, chocolate, vanilla and tutti fruitti flavors for sodas.
“Let’s meet at Butt’s,” the ad invites readers.
The Sentinel’s 1914 article about Peak’s Palmetto saw great potential. McElroy’s had never made an effort
to market the soda flavor, the writer noted, but if thatwere to happen, “there is no reason why it should not become as popular as Coca-Cola.”
But itwas not to be. Dr. Peak was “a goodman loved by all,” as his headstone in Orlando’s Greenwood Cemetery notes, but his popular Orlando drink seems to have gone with him whenhe died unexpectedly in 1919.
McElroy’s drugstore continued to supply Orlandoans with many formulas, from McElroy’s Nose Drops to McElroy’s Pine Bud Cough Syrup, and perhaps most memorably, McElroy’s Liver Scrapers. For nonmedical, household problems, customers clamored for McElroy’s Roach Paste.
And, at the soda fountain, “McElroy’s ice cream became a culinary legend in Central Florida,” Eve Bacon wrote in the 1970s.
Treats for generations
Molly McElroy of Orlando described the beginnings of the business in an article written for the Central Florida Genealogical Society in 2003.
Her paternal great-grandparents, James Newton McElroy Sr., called “J.N.” or “Doc,” and Queen
Esther Peel, called “Queeny,” came to Orlando from Tennessee in 1881 and opened whatwas first named the Blue Front Drug Store at the southwest corner of Orange Avenue and Church Street. The namewas later changed to McElroy’s Pharmacy, and the business moved to the east side of Orange Avenue.
Whenit closed in 1948, McElroy’s was Orlando’s oldest retail store, the source of health remedies and soda-fountain treats for generations.
In the meantime, Coca-Cola has become “the most recognized brand on the planet,” according to CNBC. com. At its Disney Springs store, fans can find its iconic label on almost anything that will hold paint, and also visit a super version of the old-fashioned soda fountain at the store’s Rooftop Beverage Bar. Just think of what might have been. We could be asking one another if we’d like to sip a cold Peak’s.