Sunkist Sold Lemonade In The 1800s With An Unusual Slogan

Lemonade — it's a classic Beyonce album, a refreshing summer beverage, and a great mixer for vodka. But back during the Prohibition era, lemonade was touted as a replacement for alcoholic beverages. In fact, Prohibition was a huge factor in making lemonade a very popular drink in America. Sunkist brand even used the creative slogan "Good-bye to liquor, here's to lemonade" to sell its product (via the Museum of Ventura County).

It's not like lemonade didn't exist before Prohibition. An early form of the beverage was popular in Europe, especially in France starting in the 17th century. People enjoyed drinks made from lemon juice, sparkling water, and honey, and it was sold on the street by vendors who strapped barrels to their backs. In 1824, the first recipe for lemonade in America appeared in a cookbook called "The Virginia House-wife" and was closer to a sherbet than something sippable. But thanks to the efforts of advertising, as well as the Women's Christian Temperance Union, which was founded in 1873, lemonade was pushed as an alternative to alcoholic drinks. 

Temperance movements have been around in America since the early 1800s, and they focused on ridding Americans of all things considered impure for the body: tobacco, spices, sometimes meat, and, of course, alcohol. Temperance movements were kind of a big deal in regards to American food consumption and were even responsible for the creation of cereal. Influential Americans such as First Lady Lucy Webb Hayes, who was given the nickname "Lemonade Lucy" because she promoted temperance, asserted that alcohol should not be served in the White House during her husband's tenure, which was from 1877 to 1881. 

The official beginning of Prohibition came with the addition of the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920 and lasted until 1933. Sunkist Growers got its start in 1893, though at the time it was called the Southern California Fruit Exchange. Based in Claremont, California, the citrus cooperative was started by father-son duo Peter (or P.J.) and Edward Dreher and initially only handled oranges, marketing them as "sun-kissed," which became Sunkist.

Sunkist was very involved in marketing and advertising its oranges, and eventually started doing the same with lemons in order to compete with imported lemons from Italy. Prohibition helped boost sales, and the temperance slogan "Good-bye to liquor, here's to lemonade" was one of the ways Sunkist hawked the virtues of its beverage. By the 1930s, Sunkist was also promoting fresh-squeezed orange juice and lemonade as healthy options in a world that was becoming hooked on bottled Coca-Cola. 

Right before Prohibition made alcohol illegal, an influenza pandemic hit in 1918. Sunkist was already enjoying success with its temperance-related popularity, but now they saw a new angle: Sunkist lemonade as a health booster in the face of the virus. According to the Museum of Ventura County, lemonade was promoted as a beverage that would aid people who were sick or help people avoid getting sick: "Avoid crowds, take adequate exercise, get plenty of sleep, and drink one or two glasses of hot lemonade daily" one ad for lemonade in 1918 read. Though these ads never mentioned Sunkist, sales rose 80 percent. 

By the time the pandemic ended in 1920, Sunkist and lemonade were ready to move on to its Prohibition-era reputation as the perfect replacement for alcoholic beverages. Today, lemonade is still exceedingly popular in America — frozen and with alcohol added or without, of course.