State hails its ale, 150 years and counting
Christine Kole keeps a 2-liter bottle of Vernors in the pantry to settle her stomach whenever it aches.
“It’s got a little spicy kick to it,” said the 63-year-old Ferndale resident, who grew up drinking the ginger ale first made in Detroit. “You taste the ginger in it, and it always makes me sneeze when I first drink it. It bubbles. That immediately hits my nose.”
Vernors — which was originally Vernor’s, before the apostrophe was dropped decades ago — is among the oldest continuously made soft drinks in America. This week, it celebrates its 150th anniversary.
For many Vernors drinkers, it’s a nostalgic celebration. Generations of Michiganders, like Kole, grew up with the effervescent, caramel-colored elixir as a beverage of choice, a special treat on special occasions and also as a general cure for whatever ailed them.
A few years ago on network television, singer Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul, was making a recipe that required Vernors and called the ginger ale a “Detroit treasure.”
Vernors is no longer made in Detroit, and the business has changed hands many times. But the drink has endured.
“Vernors is so unique,” said Joel Stone, 60, the senior curator of the Detroit Historical Society. The historical museum even has a small collection of Vernors artifacts. “Putting it in romantic terms, Vernors ties back to good things people remember about their childhood. Times were simpler then. If you were a good boy on a hot summer Saturday and you got the grass cut, you got to have a cold Vernors.”
To commemorate the anniversary, restaurants also plan to serve specials made with Vernors. Among the public events: the Detroit Historical Museum is setting up a special exhibit that opens Tuesday; an anniversary party is Saturday.
Kole remembers getting the pop from her mom, now 91, as a treat when she was a girl. She says it was the one concoction she could count on when she was pregnant with each of her three children. “It’s very comforting,” Kole said.