Truly American Tuesday: Root Beer
Photo Credit: aaronisnotcool
Did you know that root beer is as American as, say, apple pie? I never realized just how American root beer was until I was talking with a friend from the UK. It’s something that we Americans take for granted since it’s a tradition that dates back to the 1800s.
Root beer is a beverage made from a blend herbs and spices, most notably the root or bark of the Sassafras tree. We call it a beer because, at one point, most root beer contained a little bit of alcohol to help carbonate it. This was perfectly normal back then, as hard ciders and beers were commonly drank to avoid potentially contaminated water.
For a while, Sassafras was banned due to studies showing that it could be carcinogenic. However scientists have found a way to remove the offending component, Safrole.
Root beer started out as a folk tradition and natural remedy in the Eastern US. It was first sold commercially by Charles Hires, a Philadelphia-area pharmacist, in 1876.
There were similar beverages like birch beer and ginger beer, but root beer is the one that really caught on. Other countries have similar drinks made from local herbs, such as in the Australia and UK they’re most commonly called sarsaparilla. None of them are quite like an all American root beer.
Whether you like to drink them from a tall glass or in a root beer float with vanilla ice cream, there’s nothing like an American root beer.