Comebacks we'd like to see: #25 -- Grape Nehi
This post is part of our series ranking the top 25 bygone products and trends we'd like to see return.
Devotees of M*A*S*H will remember Radar O'Reilly's devotion to the purple soft drink Grape Nehi, a soft drink that has sadly disappeared from shelves of American grocery stores. Since the mid-1920s, it was iconic of rural America, the America of ice-chest coolers where bib-overalled farmers parched from the fields dropped a couple of pennies on the counter and fished an ice-cold Nehi from the icy water depths.
To tell the truth, cold was the salient word, because the flavor of Grape Nehi was to real grapes as lightening bugs are to lightning (Thanks, Mark Twain.) The flavor was much closer to summer-camp bug juice, cloyingly sweet. Cold, though, it poured down a boy's throat like ambrosia.
Nehi changed its name to reflect the popularity of its premier brand, RC Cola, many years ago, Grape Nehi is still available from Hometown Favorites, but unless they deliver it in its own floor cooler, it just won't taste the same.
What sodas were part of your childhood?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
5-15-2008 @ 10:51AM
Phil L. said...
I like Vault - but still miss Surge...
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5-16-2008 @ 2:08AM
Michael said...
Holy high fructose corn syrup! You hit it right on the button! Followed closely by strawberry Fanta and orange Sunkist, Grape Nehi is THE best soda ever invented.
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5-19-2008 @ 1:29AM
Former sailor said...
YES! Grape Nehi, followed by Nesbitt's orange, Buckeye root beer (Dairy Queen?) and Pepsi with chocolate syrup poured into the top of the bottle! Hot, dusty, summer days, riding our bikes, playing baseball, eating our bag lunches of PB, Fluff, and raspberry jam sandwiches, going to the swimming pool, and getting home in time for supper. And our parents never worried about us, as long as we came home for supper! Did someone say Fifties Nostalgia? Thanks for the Memories, everyone. - Growing up in Montpelier, Vermont was wonderful!
5-16-2008 @ 7:50AM
weimesmom said...
I still get Grape Nehi at least once a week froma store down the street.
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5-16-2008 @ 8:57AM
Judy said...
I am jealous. Where do you live?
5-17-2008 @ 12:12PM
Casandra said...
I recently moved from Sonoma, CA, but we were still getting these sodas in all the flavors at Sonoma Market and a deli out on Arnold Dr. (You may want to skip the wineries and just tracked down these places for a good grape soda!)
5-16-2008 @ 8:03AM
Glen Cheney said...
Jubblys - these were frozen raspberry or orange flavoured drinks that came in a sort of pyramid shaped carton, very popular in the 1960s in England.
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5-16-2008 @ 11:37AM
Jersey Joe said...
You don't have to go to university,
To know what you should do when you are thirsity.
Call for Hoffman's, drink Hoffman's
Hoffman's is the finest when you're thirsity.
Reply
5-16-2008 @ 11:45AM
John B said...
Crystal Pepsi
A travesty and yet so tempting.
Reply
5-18-2008 @ 9:08PM
Meme said...
Not from my childhood, early adulthood, but I LOVEEDD Crystal Pepsi too!! AND ..not the one that they "brought back" that tasted like a glorified 7-UP..the ORIGINAL Crystal Pepsi, right?
From my childhood ~
Ted's Root Beer --I think it was a New England thing.as it was named for Ted Williams..anyone else remember that one? (It was great with a lil bag of Day's potato chips!!)
Also - Canada Dry flavored sodas in the bottles with the sqaures pattern on the bottom: Strawberry, Fruit Punch, Lemon Lime, Root Beer, TONS of flavors! (not to mention colorful! Lol)
There was also another soda sold at Kappy's :iqour stores (another NE thing) where you bought it by the case and returned the case of bottles for $5.00 off your next case..almost any flavor you can imagine! They were great!!
I am shouting out to Pepsi now, BRING BACK the ORIGINAL Crystal Pepsi!! You all can't say it "just didn't sell", as I bought at least 3 - 12 packs a week!!
5-16-2008 @ 12:03PM
Kay F said...
The sodas of my youth were Mission Orange, Lemmy and Cotts Ginger Ale
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5-16-2008 @ 12:23PM
carol smith said...
Grape Nehi - yum! When my mom, her sisters, my cousins and I went to the sauna in Cloquet, Minn. in the '40s we always got ice cold soft drinks from the cooler along with a clean towel. Then while the adults steamed, the kids ran around throwing buckets of cold water on each other. Boy was that fun! carol
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5-16-2008 @ 1:25PM
ripsnortinroy said...
Orange Crush in the original bottle-Frostie Root Beer, both great. But for a drink that looked as good as it was when you got it? In Jacksonville, Florida, in 1978, I worked in a L'll Champ convenient store. We kept a cooler full of Nehi orange in a 16 oz. returnable bottle. Believe you me, in the summer time, when that big, ol' bottle made its appearance, it spoke volumes about how to properly quench a raging thirst. Picture sixteen ounces that began to drip with moisture from the minute you pulled it out of the cooler. It never failed to whoop the desire for one on me each day from the first time I sold one.
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5-16-2008 @ 6:12PM
Stephanie Q said...
I grew up in Michigan and I have to say the 'pop' I really miss is Nesbitt's Orange. There has never been anything like it. It had hardly any carbonation, but was just so smooth and the taste was near perfect. They also had a grape flavor, which was good, but the orange was the best.
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5-18-2008 @ 12:44PM
Joann said...
I recently moved from Miami to Huntsville Al. and was pleasantly surprised to find Nehi Grape available here. It was my favorite as a child (in Miami) but hadn't seen one until I moved here.
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5-18-2008 @ 1:01PM
Nigel said...
Huel Howser did a show on a local soda shop in eastern Los Angeles. It has every kind of soda, including Grape Nehi. Do a Google search.
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5-18-2008 @ 4:14PM
Cynthia said...
I live in Atlanta and Grape Nehi is still really easy to find...especially in predominantly black or hispanic areas of the city (who knows why). What I'm jonesing for is PEACH Nehi. You never see THAT anymore.
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5-18-2008 @ 9:29PM
denise said...
im more of a PEACH NEHI person myself!!!stiLl findin them in east texas/northwest louisiana!!!
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5-18-2008 @ 11:48PM
Fishnlwayr said...
I'm sitting here in my den and banging away on my laptop watching
Saddam's atrocities in Hi-Def AND with an orange drink into which I
poured a bag of peanuts. I don't care how much things
change...nothing will ever take the place of either Nehi Orange or
Grape and a pack of peanuts.
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5-19-2008 @ 4:37AM
Chef Alfred said...
Nehi was my uncle Henry's company.
I used to visit his estate in Coral Gables, Florida.
He was the Willie Wonka of soft drinks.
You would not believe his estate!
Email for more .
alfredschrader@aol.com
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