Welcome to Criminalia, a production of shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio.
Many patent medicines may have done more harm than good, or at the very least nothing at all, and we've been talking about a good many of them so far this season. Ingredients in patent medicines were unregulated and manufacturers weren't required to list ingredients on their labels. Products could contain anything from deadly arsenic to narcotics and alcohol, or
things as benign as vegetables and water. Most patent medicines didn't help your problem, but there were several products that originated in that era that we still use to this day, believe it or not. Although these modern versions typically don't include exactly the same ingredients as their predecessors, which is often a good thing, and many no longer claim to be cure alls, which too is a good thing. Let's talk about a few of those patent medicine products that
have persisted over the years. Welcome to Criminalia. I'm Maria Tremarki.
And I'm Holly Fry. Let's take, for instance, J Maurice Treener, head chemist at the Doctor Miles Medical Company in Elkhart, Indiana. That's a well known patent medicine manufacturer of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Trainer invented those effervescent tablets that we know as Alka Seltzer. They hit the market in roughly nineteen thirty and that is, of course a product that's still sold today. An aspirin was and is
one of its main active ingredients. And then there's vix Vapo rub, which used to be called Vic's Magic croupsalve. Once a patent medicine, it remains a commonly used product for relieving chest congestion. Another that you may reckon nice is Philip's Milk of Magnesia, used then and now for gastro intestinal discomforts.
But here's what we're going to focus on. Some of our favorite soft drinks too, began as patent medicines. Coca Cola, now the most popular soda brand in the world, is one of them. When it first hit the scene, it was marketed as a patent medicine and had a meteoric rise in popularity over the years. Coca Cola and other sodas didn't just magically appear on the market, though. The
condensed backstory here goes a bit like this. For centuries, soda water has gone in and out of fashion as a wellness tonic, and in the nineteenth century, consumers couldn't get enough of the alleged healing properties of that fizzy water. Physicians recommended carbonated water as a way to treat various ailments,
including digestive issues and general fatigue. Though it can be traced back to ancient times from natural springs, English scientist Joseph Priestley is credited with creating artificially sparkling water in seventeen sixty seven when he discovered a way to infuse water with carbon dioxide. So the succinct explanation on that is it involved suspending a bowl of water above a
vat of fermenting beer to create a bubbly result. By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the soft drink industry began to gain traction.
Coca Cola was invented by a pharmacist named John Pemberton, who first brewed the syrup in his Atlanta, Georgia backyard one night in May of eighteen eighty six. A pharmacist by trade, Pemberton was no stranger to making patent medicines. That was a common task in his field, but this one was personal. He had been injured during his time fighting in the American Civil War, and he had, as a result, developed an addiction to morphine, an addiction that
he was hoping to relieve. Medical reports at the time suggested cocaine might be a cure for morphine addiction, and as a pharmacist, it's unclear if Pemberton knew about this research, but it's entirely possible that he could have his recipes ingredients list contained coca leaves, that's the cocaine cola nuts which provide caffeine and sugar syrup, and satisfied with his concoction, he debuted this new product as quote Coca Cola the temperance drink.
Okay, so this idea of a temperance drink. Though prohibition wouldn't hit America until nineteen twenty, it took place during the years between nineteen twenty and nineteen thirty three. The country's first serious anti alcohol movement swept the nation beginning in the eighteen thirties, so by eighteen thirty the the average American over the age of fifteen was consuming nearly seven gallons of pure alcohol annually, which is about three
times as much as we drink today. And this temperance movement was a push for abstinence that really caught on. And while legally alcohol could be an ingredient in patent medicines, many Americans were curtailing how much they drank, but it didn't impact stimulants, and some people believed ingredients like cocaine, coalon nuts, as well as lithium, almaretto and ginger were curative. While those are not all stimulants, they were all considered
medically beneficial in some way. For the curious, we couldn't nail down just how much cocaine was in Pemberton's coca cola. Some reports suggest it had about point zero zero seven grams of cocaine per ounce of syrup when it was first bottled, and by nineteen oh two sources suggest it was probably about one four hundredth of a grain of cocaine per ounce of syrup, and that equals about point zero zero two five grams. Ads claimed the drink was quote a valuable brain tonic and a cure for all
nervous affections. The now illegal cocaine ingredient was infamously part of the SODA's recipe until nineteen oh four.
But we're not trying to be unfair to Coca Cola. Legally, they were not doing anything wrong at the time, and it certainly was not the only soda that contained stimulants or other interesting ingredients. Seven Up, which was originally called BIB labeled lithiated lemon lime soda which rolls right off the tongue, contained as you may have guessed from that name, lithium salts, and it quickly became a popular every day
pick me up. Other sodas that came from this era include Pepsi Cola, which was originally called Brad's Drink after pharmacy this Caleb Bradham, who invented it Doctor Pepper, believed to be the oldest major brand of soft drink in the United States, as well as Sasparilla soda and root beer. Unlike how seven Up was popular for its potential mood lifting qualities. Note that it did contain lithium, but in small amounts. Sasparilla soda was popular for its alleged long
list of health benefits. So let's take a look at that reputation.
Before we get talking about the sas Marilla cureal soda, We're going to take a break for a word from our sponsors. And when we're back, we have a whole bunch of health claims and promises to talk about.
Welcome back to Criminalia. Need to cure your general wearinesses? Oh, have we got a drink for you?
South Marilla like Coca cola, is another interesting patent medicine turned soft drink because it was not just marketed as a refreshing beverage. It was marketed as a tonic to purify the blood and cure various disorders, including heart disease, rheumatism, and edema. Many maybe even all, but that's a really bold statement. Many patent medicine tonics in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries promised to cure all kinds of things. After all, they were patent medicines, and that was part
of the deal. One of the best known and most popular of these health tonics was Sasparilla soda. It was enjoyed as a tasty beverage for its medicinal purposes, and even as a popular hangover cure among ranchers and Cowboys in the American West.
C I hood In Company, founded by Charles Ira Hood in eighteen seventy five in Lowell, Massachusetts, was among the largest patent medicine companies in the United States at the time. Their product line was mostly personal health products, but they also made a well known sasparilla drink HOODS Sasparilla. Their product was inspired at least in part by the success of another brand, and that was AYR Sasparilla. A R Sasparilla was marketed as a quote blood medicine that could
remove quote poisons from your blood. Spoiler by the way, no, it did not, But if you believe the labeling on a lot of the Sasparilla drinks at the time, they claimed a whole lot of things. In addition to quenching your thirst, of course, they promised to restore your health and vigor. They promised to treat tuberculosis. Some even promised to reverse hair loss. Sasparilla, it was claimed, could allegedly cure headaches, stomach aches, tumors, as well as quote general wearinesses.
And there's more. Some of the medicinal claims also stated it could cure impotence and prevent flatulence, and could treat a variety of skin conditions such as exema and psoriasis if you applied it to your skin. Manufacturers claimed it would relieve various digestive disorders too, and let's not forget
that for a time, depending on who you asked. It was also believed to be a cure for various sexually transmitted infections, specifically herpes, syphilis, and gonorrhea, but like most patent medicines, sasparillesota was credited with way way more healing potential than it actually had. It didn't cure any of these things, but people believed it might, mainly because it said so on the label, and it also had a slightly medicinal flavor.
And word got around. But it wasn't just word of mouth that helped its popularity, so did the media. California's first newspaper, the San Francisco Californian, for instance, included a sasparilla advertisement in its August seventh, eighteen forty seven edition. Shelley and Norris, a store at the corner of Clay and Kearney Streets, offered more than one hundred products, including
sasparilla soda. Quote for sale, low for cash. The very first issue of the Marin Journal, which debuted on March twenty third, eighteen sixty one, contained an advertorial that's part advertisement, part editorial by the makers of San Sasparilla, who proclaimed that quote, the promontory symptoms of disease are the precursors of many fatal maladies, taken upon the first indication of
an attack. If anything will relieve the sufferer, purify the blood, restore a vigorous character, and thoroughly renovate the system, it's San Sasparilla. This Sasparilla, they were telling consumers, was not just a drink, it was medicine.
During the latter half of the nineteenth century, several other brands of Sasparo Lnesota were similarly advertised in newspapers across the country, and brands like Halls, Airs, Bristols, Scoville's, Talafaro's, and Hoods were all represented. These were all national companies except for Talafaro's, a local brand out of Oakland. Using a local formula created by a local physician named doctor Alfred W.
Talafaro, Sasparo Milnesota became a go to drink for the health conscious of the nineteenth century, and it was widely consumed across the United States. If your town didn't have a pharmacy or apothecary, it was still easy to find. They carried it at your local saloon. We came across a few instances where modern historians made an interesting observation that sasparilla was kind of like the kombucha of today.
It could fix the hitch in your gidea up if you weren't feeling well, or put a little pep in your step if that's what you needed.
We are going to take a break forward from our sponsors now, but when we're back we have a bit of a bombshell to share about what's really in those sasparilla sotas.
Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's talk about what sasparilla is, where it comes from, and why you should also know about an ingredient called sassafras.
If sasparilla SODA's popularity wasn't solidified before, it sure was with this anecdote regarding President Calvin Coolidge and prohibition. When briefed that Americans were discontent of a prohibition because, quote, sir, the people have no beer. The president is said to have replied, quote, well, then let them drink sasparilla.
The plant commonly known as sasparilla is native to North and Central America, and it was used by indigenous peoples for various medicinal cures as well as a way to spice up foods and drinks. A true sasparilla drink is made from the dried root bark of any of several plants that are part of the genus Smilax, which are green, climbing vines with these sort of christmasy looking red berries. Smilax plants have been used in medicinal teas everywhere from
China to Mexico and all places in between. The name sasparilla comes from a Spanish word, zarsaparia, which has a long history of use as a blood cleanser and tonic. Back to the sixteenth century, sasparilla root was used as a therapy for arthritis, psoriasis, and other inflammatory disorders. So it's possible that maybe some of those patent medicine claims weren't wrong, but they were over promising and they were misleading.
And here's the catch, Flassic sasparilla drinks weren't made from the extract of the sasas sperrilla plants, its ingredients were actually from a different root. Instead, drinks were typically made from sassafras, So let's talk about sassafras. This is a dried root bark of flowering trees, not vines, and there
are several native to the United States. Although not listed as ingredients in early versions of the American drink, later brews included various vegetable extracts too, such as dandelion, man drake, and juniper berries. Sometimes these sasparilla free drinks were called sasparilla, but sometimes they were called and you might guess this
root beer. Root beer was less bitter than sasparilla offerings, but its main ingredient was also sassafras and often winter green, along with birch oil, licorice root, and maybe some nutmeg.
Like the soft drinks that we mentioned earlier, the sasparilla sodas of today are not quite the same as they wents were, and that's because of a few things, but the big one. Those ingredients can be deadly. The roots and barks of the sassafras tree contain a high concentration of a chemical called saffrol, and saffrol, the main ingredient in the drink, is actually really bad for you. Today,
we know that saffrol can cause liver damage. It may also be carcinogenic, and the risk of developing cancer increases with how much you consume and for how long of a period of time you consume it. Side effects can include vomiting, high blood pressure, sweating, hot flashes, skin rashes, and even hallucinations. To that point, saffrol is also used in the production of the stimulant and psychedelic drug MDMA.
Consuming five milliliters of saffrol, which is roughly just one teaspoon, is deadly for an adult. Natural sassafras or saffral have been banned for commercial use by the United States Food and Drug Administration since the nineteen sixties. Additionally, drinks bearing the name sasparilla don't contain actual sasparilla either, as it too has been banned by the FDA. And it's not just drinks. Sassafras was also once used as a food additive,
including in sassafras tea tea. We mentioned tea earlier in its use around the world. It sounds healthy, right, but hold on though, because sassafras tea contained a high concentration of saffral about four and a half times allowed by government regulation, and the FDA has also prohibited the use of sassafras as a food additive because of that, which also includes its use in root beer.
So what does this.
Mean for what we're really drinking in our sasparilla and root beer sodas well? They all now use synthetic flavoring in its place, and you really would never know.
And over time, of course, the claims of medicinal benefits associated with these sodas fell away, or they were legislated away, but people had developed a taste for them, so the drinks continued to be marketed. But today they're just touted as refreshing beverages rather than cure alls. But Maria, would you like a little sip of something that cures what ails you?
As long as it doesn't have saffrol in it.
I have a very yummy drink this time, because Maria accidentally set me up in the best way, because I told her a few weeks ago. I don't know if you remember this, Maria, but I had a thing I wanted to use in a cocktail and I was waiting for just the right time, and you accidentally invoked it in this episode, and here we are, and here we are. So we're going to start by talking about how to make dandelions, sirup, Yeah, because dandelions, and I am a
fan of dandelions. You start this out by gathering a handful of dandelions. You may in your yard have what you think are dandelions, but they're actually Carolina desert chickery. Guess what those are? Also? Okay, both of these plants are completely fine for you. They're safe for human consumption. But I also want to say, because we are suggesting that people pick things from the wild, please be careful anytime you forage. Use an Identify your app when you can.
I have one on my phone where if I take a picture of a flower where I'm not one hundred percent shore or any plant, it'll come back and be like, no, that one's safe. No, that's not what you think it is, et cetera. There are many of those, and they're great. Also, as I just mentioned, just about all parts of the dandelion or the desert chickery are edible. You can saute the leaves, I read a story about somebody even boiling
the stems to be like noodles, which sounded interesting. There are a lot of options, but I also want you to be sure to consult well healed resources for how to handle them, just so you're eating safely anytime you're eating something that's grown in the wild. So now that we have scared you get your dan allions together. You're gonna rinse those flowers really thoroughly. You can even dunk them in a bowl of water for a little while to make sure any visitors you didn't mean to invite
along the way are eliminated. Rinse them again after that. I know some recipes for dandelion syrup have you soaking the dandelion pedals overnight. I don't do that. I do a different thing. That version has you strain off the water and then use the remaining water in your syrup. But I put the dandelion pedals right on in there. We'll strain later. You're gonna pluck the petals from the stems. And when I say a handful, I think I had fifteen to twenty dandelions. I wish they were a little
bit further along in progression. Mine were kind of like right at the beginning of starting to bloom. But the timing is what it is. I can't make them hurry, So you pluck the petals from them. You just drop them into a small saucepan with about one and a quarter cups of water and a cup of sugar or sugar substitute, and you're gonna turn up the heat and heat it on medium until it comes to a boil,
and then you'll reduce the heat to a simmer. How long it simmers will depend on what sweetener you use, at least ten minutes, but basically you want to let it reduce by about half and then you're just gonna let it cool and then you're gonna strain it off. You may want a double strain yours. There's always a little bit of sediment that comes with anything that you're making like this, especially when you're using natural, unprocessed ingredients. So if that really bugs you give it a good
double strain. But you do want a good mesh strainer to begin with that's got a pretty fine a pretty fine mesh to it. Now you have your dandillion syrup, and we are ready to make a drink, and we are going to make this by starting out with three quarters of an ounce of dandelion syrup. You're gonna match that with three quarters of an ounce of lemon juice, and then you're gonna make Maria very happy because you're gonn an ounce and a half of rye.
Ah, here we go.
Give this a shake in your shaking tin, get it getting cold, pour it over fresh ice, and then you top the whole thing with root beer. I use a low sugar root beer because I just I don't like super sweet drinks, and that lower sugar just lets some really cool stuff happen. Because this drink turns into nothing you expect. It doesn't taste the way it smells. The lemon juice completely changes the flavor profile of the root
beer as well as the rye. You can't really even taste the rye, which is a little bit of a shocker, because rye is a very prominent flavor in drinks that it's in. When you taste your dandelion syrup, to my palette, anyway, it doesn't have a prominent floral note. But somehow, when these things combine, you get that sense of flowers were involved here. It's a really cool little trick. It happened accidentally. I didn't know if this was all gonna work, but
it did, and then just enjoy your sip. To make this a non alcoholic version, it's pretty easy. You're gonna get rid of your rye. This is one where you want to brew a black tea and maybe add some bitters if you are not averse to using bitters. As we always say, they have alcohol content, but it's minute at the point where you're adding two to three drops. But if you do absolutely none, I would put black pepper in your tea that's substituting for rye and mix
it that way. And we are gonna call this one the cure Nothing because it won't except for your sadness, perhaps because it's so yummy. Yeah, it's the cure nothing, because these things didn't really cure anything either. I also wanted to use root beer instead of a sasperrilla sota because we mentioned that so many of them were actually not made with real saasperlet anyway.
They had similar ingredients anyway, and this sounds like it could be possibly my drink of the season.
It's really good. I will say this too. The other reason I wanted to steer away from sasparilla is that you can buy it, but it's not as readily available on shelves as a root beer. So I'm I never want to like come up with a thing that's hard for anybody to get a hold of. Ideally, the good news is most people have dandelions. If you have a perfectly manicured lawn and you never get dandelions, ask a neighbor,
visit your neighbor. The neighbors can all come to my house because even if I try to curtail the dandelions impossible, it doesn't work. And that's fine too. This is the cure Nothing. Cure's nothing at all, but it cured my blues because it worked, which is always a delight when you're doing an experiment. I hope you try the Cure Nothing,
because honestly, it's really delicious. It delivers in stages. You get three different flavors, but none of those flavors are what you think they're gonna be, and it's not in a way where you're like, what is going on here? This is quite fascinating. So it's a little scientifically interesting thing. And if you make yours with Carolina desert chickory instead of dandelion, that I think might change it a little
bit too. I picked both and only ended up making syrup with the dandelions because I just didn't have time to do a whole other thing with it. But that's also very interesting to me. And chickory shows up everywhere. The roots are used in coffee in the South all the time. Interesting stuff. I hope you enjoy it. I hope you enjoy making floral syrup. If you haven't done that with us before, you could start adding all kinds of flowers as long as they are edible, into syrups
and getting some really interesting things. I talking' roses, carnations, just about anything that you can think of. Violets, It's easy to make your own violet syrup. They are completely edible, Chrysanthemums, all kinds of things. Make yummy syrups with plants, and it's really fun. I will say, if you do this, those syrups do not have the same shelf life as one you would buy from a store, where those tend
to last forever. This one's gonna last you two to four weeks, depending on what your sweet nerve choice is. You do want to keep it refrigerated. Ideally, if you are anything like me, you start adding it to everything, like I'm gonna have dandelion syrup in my coffee. I'm gonna have dandalion syrup my muffin in the morning.
Right, What does this taste like on wobble?
Right? What does it taste like if I just add it to a little bit of sparkling water with some lemon juice? Answer? Delicious, Highly recommend. So I hope that this gives you some food for thought and causes you to think of yummy experiments of your own. We will be right back here next week with another tale of snake oil and another drink that may or may not inspire many other drinks. Criminalia is a production of Shondaland
Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.