Plants of the Gods: S6E2. The Ethnobotany of Chocolate: Cacao Moves from Mexico to Europe

And if you think that capitalism sometimes gets things wrong, is often unfair, and sometimes produces hilarious results, have I got a story for you.

In the early 1900s, the U.S. candy business was booming, demand for chocolate was soaring, and a particularly clever candy maker, a German-American businessman by the name of Otto Schneering, invented a new candy bar.

Business people had figured out that you could make money by selling chocolate bars, but you could make even more money if you created new bars which combine chocolate with other confections.

For example, if you combine chocolate with caramel, you get a Milky Way.

If you mix chocolate with nougat, you have the Snickers bar.

Hazelnut mixed with chocolate-birthed Nutella and the combination of chocolate with peanut butter gave rise to Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

Blending chocolate, peanut butter, and caramel produced the iconic Butterfinger.

Meanwhile, the market for these new chocolate candies was enormous and continuing to grow.

Now, Schneering had invented a combination candy bar, which consisted of chocolate, peanuts, and caramel.

He had first called it Candy Cake, even though it contained no cake.

Yet it proved popular with consumers.

He nonetheless decided that a better name would translate into better sales.

At the time, the most famous athlete in America, if not the world, was Babe Ruth.

At a time when baseball was truly the national pastime, Ruth was shattering home run records while leading his New York Yankees to multiple championships.

He was a cultural icon synonymous with success, excellence, and the American dream.

Ruth's popularity transcended baseball, inspiring fashion trends, films, and songs.

His charisma, his larger-than-life persona, and his off-the-field antics provided constant fodder for the media, and he was often featured in advertisements, endorsements, and newsreels.

And in 1921, Schneering decided to capitalize on Babe Ruth's fame by changing the name of his confection from Candy Cake to Babe Ruth.

When asked how he chose the new name, Schneering disingenuously replied that he had named it in honor of the late daughter of President Grover Cleveland, a child who had died 17 years earlier.

To quote from my very favorite book on chocolate, The Book of Chocolate by H.P. Newquist, This was a lovely story, but many of Schneering's associates disputed it.

They claimed that the Baby Ruth bar, as many people suspected, was named after baseball icon Babe Ruth.

According to them, the star baseball player was as famous as any athlete in America, and Schneering had approached Babe Ruth about using his name for the repackaged candy cake bar.

Ruth demanded an exorbitant amount of money from Schneering, and Schneering refused.

Instead, he changed Babe Ruth to Baby Ruth and concocted the neat story about celebrating Little Ruth Cleveland, who'd passed away 17 years earlier.

Schneering stuck to his story so strongly that when, years later, Babe Ruth himself tried to start his own candy line using his own name, Schneering sued to stop him, saying the name was too close to Baby Ruth.