Hires Root Beer

But.

There's Hires Root Beer.

There's Wilson Franks.

Yep, yep.

As its reputation as a drug declined, people began consuming the sassafras beverage purely for its earthy taste.

Number two, a pharmacist named Charles Hires introduced the first commercial brand of root beer at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition.

Charles Hires discovered a recipe for an herbal tea while on his honeymoon in New Jersey.

When he returned to his Philadelphia pharmacy, he experimented with the formula.

He combined sassafras, sarsaparilla, hops, wintergreen, and licorice, packaging this dry mixture in boxes for customers to brew at home.

Uh, people boiled the dry ingredients in water, strained the liquid, and added sugar and yeast to initiate fermentation.

Hires named his product Root Beer to appeal to the working class Pennsylvania coal miners who typically consumed traditional ales.

Then, at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, the first official World's Fair held in the United States, he debuted a liquid concentrate version of his root beer.