Thread: Remembering Soda Pop

Michael (piedmont) wrote:
> I miss the old days of glass bottle soda pop, you could mix any flavor
> you wanted to in the 6 pack as long as it was from the same maker.


I don't miss the glass bottles. I grew up in the 50s and 60s and
remember all the broken glass. It was everywhere. People tossed pop
bottles out their car windows, kids smashed bottles for fun.

I recently started watching Mad Men. I have been getting the discs from
the library and watching them in order,since I never watched it when it
was being televised. It is interesting to see the old stereotypes; the
male executives hitting on all the secretaries, the secretaries looking
for marriage prospects, everyone smoking everywhere. Last night we saw
the episode where the Draper family went for a picnic in Don's new
Cadillac. Don finishes his beer and hurls the can away. When Betsy folds
up the picnic blanket she just shakes off all the garbage and leaves it
on the ground.

On Aug 13, 8:53*am, Dave Smith <adavid.sm...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> Michael (piedmont) wrote:
> > I miss the old days of glass bottle soda pop, *you could mix any flavor
> > you wanted to in the 6 pack as long as it was from the same maker.
>
> I don't miss the glass bottles. I grew up in the 50s and 60s and
> remember all the broken glass. It was everywhere. *People tossed pop
> bottles out their car windows, kids smashed bottles for fun.
>

Their thickness and weight meant smashing a deposit bottle was damn
hard. A quart pop bottle made a satisfactory club. The two-cent
deposit meant people took care to return them to the store. I still
miss the days when I bought beer by the heavy, waxed case, in deposit
bottles. Only with the advent of the environmental movement did
beverage packaging become disposable/recyclable instead of reusable.

On Fri, 13 Aug 2010 08:59:51 -0700 (PDT), spamtrap1888 wrote:

> On Aug 13, 8:53*am, Dave Smith <adavid.sm...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>> Michael (piedmont) wrote:
>>> I miss the old days of glass bottle soda pop, *you could mix any flavor
>>> you wanted to in the 6 pack as long as it was from the same maker.
>>
>> I don't miss the glass bottles. I grew up in the 50s and 60s and
>> remember all the broken glass. It was everywhere. *People tossed pop
>> bottles out their car windows, kids smashed bottles for fun.
>>
>
> Their thickness and weight meant smashing a deposit bottle was damn
> hard. A quart pop bottle made a satisfactory club. The two-cent
> deposit meant people took care to return them to the store. I still
> miss the days when I bought beer by the heavy, waxed case, in deposit
> bottles. Only with the advent of the environmental movement did
> beverage packaging become disposable/recyclable instead of reusable.

i'd say reusable deposit bottle definitely qualify as 'recyclable.'

your pal,
blake

blake murphy wrote:
> On Fri, 13 Aug 2010 08:59:51 -0700 (PDT), spamtrap1888 wrote:
>
>> On Aug 13, 8:53 am, Dave Smith <adavid.sm...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>>> Michael (piedmont) wrote:
>>>> I miss the old days of glass bottle soda pop, you could mix any flavor
>>>> you wanted to in the 6 pack as long as it was from the same maker.
>>> I don't miss the glass bottles. I grew up in the 50s and 60s and
>>> remember all the broken glass. It was everywhere. People tossed pop
>>> bottles out their car windows, kids smashed bottles for fun.
>>>
>> Their thickness and weight meant smashing a deposit bottle was damn
>> hard. A quart pop bottle made a satisfactory club. The two-cent
>> deposit meant people took care to return them to the store. I still
>> miss the days when I bought beer by the heavy, waxed case, in deposit
>> bottles. Only with the advent of the environmental movement did
>> beverage packaging become disposable/recyclable instead of reusable.
>
> i'd say reusable deposit bottle definitely qualify as 'recyclable.'


There "reusable" and "recyclable". Bottles are washed out, sterilzied
and reused. Cans are crushed, melted down and then new cans are fabricated.

spamtrap1888 wrote:
> On Aug 13, 8:53 am, Dave Smith <adavid.sm...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>> Michael (piedmont) wrote:
>>> I miss the old days of glass bottle soda pop, you could mix any flavor
>>> you wanted to in the 6 pack as long as it was from the same maker.
>> I don't miss the glass bottles. I grew up in the 50s and 60s and
>> remember all the broken glass. It was everywhere. People tossed pop
>> bottles out their car windows, kids smashed bottles for fun.
>>
>
> Their thickness and weight meant smashing a deposit bottle was damn
> hard.
As a kid of the era, the thickness just made them that much more fun to
break. They just had to be thrown at something harder.



> A quart pop bottle made a satisfactory club. The two-cent
> deposit meant people took care to return them to the store.

Not really. Kids did, because you could actually buy something with 2
cents. It was worth it to walk along the road and look for unbroken
bottles to take in for a deposit. It was a waste of time for adults. In
my community, most people just kept their empties until the scouts or
cubs had a bottle drive, and they would collect them and return them to
the stores and use the deposit returns to fund their activities.

>

On Aug 13, 11:59*am, spamtrap1888 <spamtrap1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Aug 13, 8:53*am, Dave Smith <adavid.sm...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>
> > Michael (piedmont) wrote:
> > > I miss the old days of glass bottle soda pop, *you could mix any flavor
> > > you wanted to in the 6 pack as long as it was from the same maker.
>
> > I don't miss the glass bottles. I grew up in the 50s and 60s and
> > remember all the broken glass. It was everywhere. *People tossed pop
> > bottles out their car windows, kids smashed bottles for fun.
>
> Their thickness and weight meant smashing a deposit bottle was damn
> hard. A quart pop bottle made a satisfactory club. The two-cent
> deposit meant people took care to return them to the store. I still
> miss the days when I bought beer by the heavy, waxed case, in deposit
> bottles. Only with the advent of the environmental movement did
> beverage packaging become disposable/recyclable instead of reusable.

No, it became too expensive to clean and re-use the bottles.
Disposable
bottles were cheaper for the bottler.

Cindy Hamilton

On Fri, 13 Aug 2010 10:18:09 -0700 (PDT), Cindy Hamilton
<[email protected]> wrote:

>On Aug 13, 11:59*am, spamtrap1888 <spamtrap1...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Aug 13, 8:53*am, Dave Smith <adavid.sm...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>>
>> > Michael (piedmont) wrote:
>> > > I miss the old days of glass bottle soda pop, *you could mix any flavor
>> > > you wanted to in the 6 pack as long as it was from the same maker.
>>
>> > I don't miss the glass bottles. I grew up in the 50s and 60s and
>> > remember all the broken glass. It was everywhere. *People tossed pop
>> > bottles out their car windows, kids smashed bottles for fun.
>>
>> Their thickness and weight meant smashing a deposit bottle was damn
>> hard. A quart pop bottle made a satisfactory club. The two-cent
>> deposit meant people took care to return them to the store. I still
>> miss the days when I bought beer by the heavy, waxed case, in deposit
>> bottles. Only with the advent of the environmental movement did
>> beverage packaging become disposable/recyclable instead of reusable.
>
>No, it became too expensive to clean and re-use the bottles.
>Disposable
>bottles were cheaper for the bottler.

IIRC I heard the bottles had to make 27 trips to break even. That was
in the late 60's

Lou

Cindy Hamilton wrote:
>
>> bottles. Only with the advent of the environmental movement did
>> beverage packaging become disposable/recyclable instead of reusable.
>
> No, it became too expensive to clean and re-use the bottles.
> Disposable
> bottles were cheaper for the bottler.

It takes a lot of energy to clean bottles. They have used very hot
water, plus detergent and chemicals, more hot water. It may have well
used more energy to heat the water than to make plastic bottles. The
amount of material in plastic bottles is minimal, but they take up a lot
of space.

On Aug 13, 10:15*am, Dave Smith <adavid.sm...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> spamtrap1888 wrote:
> > On Aug 13, 8:53 am, Dave Smith <adavid.sm...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> >> Michael (piedmont) wrote:
> >>> I miss the old days of glass bottle soda pop, *you could mix any flavor
> >>> you wanted to in the 6 pack as long as it was from the same maker.
> >> I don't miss the glass bottles. I grew up in the 50s and 60s and
> >> remember all the broken glass. It was everywhere. *People tossed pop
> >> bottles out their car windows, kids smashed bottles for fun.
>
> > Their thickness and weight meant smashing a deposit bottle was damn
> > hard.
>
> As a kid of the era, the thickness just made them that much more fun to
> break. *They just had to be thrown at something harder.
>
> > A quart pop bottle made a satisfactory club. The two-cent
> > deposit meant people took care to return them to the store.
>
> Not really. *Kids did, because you could actually buy something with *2
> cents. *It was worth it to walk along the road and look for unbroken
> bottles to take in for a deposit. It was a waste of time for adults. In
> my community, most people just kept their empties until the scouts or
> cubs had a bottle drive, and they would collect them and return them to
> the stores and use the deposit returns to fund their activities.
>

People where you lived must have been fairly well off. People did not
store empties in my community -- they took them back to the store when
they bought more. The same car that picked up new cartons of pop was
used to return the empties. Rather than tying up your cash in empty
bottles, the deposit return from one carton was used to fund the
deposit from the next. Scouts had paper drives. Beverage cans had
little intrinsic value because they were made from steel.

On Aug 13, 10:19*am, Lou Decruss <LouDecr...@biteme.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 13 Aug 2010 10:18:09 -0700 (PDT), Cindy Hamilton
>
>
>
> <angelicapagane...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >On Aug 13, 11:59*am, spamtrap1888 <spamtrap1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On Aug 13, 8:53*am, Dave Smith <adavid.sm...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>
> >> > Michael (piedmont) wrote:
> >> > > I miss the old days of glass bottle soda pop, *you could mix anyflavor
> >> > > you wanted to in the 6 pack as long as it was from the same maker.
>
> >> > I don't miss the glass bottles. I grew up in the 50s and 60s and
> >> > remember all the broken glass. It was everywhere. *People tossed pop
> >> > bottles out their car windows, kids smashed bottles for fun.
>
> >> Their thickness and weight meant smashing a deposit bottle was damn
> >> hard. A quart pop bottle made a satisfactory club. The two-cent
> >> deposit meant people took care to return them to the store. I still
> >> miss the days when I bought beer by the heavy, waxed case, in deposit
> >> bottles. Only with the advent of the environmental movement did
> >> beverage packaging become disposable/recyclable instead of reusable.
>
> >No, it became too expensive to clean and re-use the bottles.
> >Disposable
> >bottles were cheaper for the bottler.
>
> IIRC I heard the bottles had to make 27 trips to break even. *That was
> in the late 60's
>

Coke comes in deposit bottles in the Third World, so I don't know the
economics of that. Reusable bottles still exist in Western Europe.

On Aug 13, 2:18*pm, spamtrap1888 <spamtrap1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Aug 13, 10:19*am, Lou Decruss <LouDecr...@biteme.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Fri, 13 Aug 2010 10:18:09 -0700 (PDT), Cindy Hamilton
>
> > <angelicapagane...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > >On Aug 13, 11:59*am, spamtrap1888 <spamtrap1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >> On Aug 13, 8:53*am, Dave Smith <adavid.sm...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>
> > >> > Michael (piedmont) wrote:
> > >> > > I miss the old days of glass bottle soda pop, *you could mix any flavor
> > >> > > you wanted to in the 6 pack as long as it was from the same maker.
>
> > >> > I don't miss the glass bottles. I grew up in the 50s and 60s and
> > >> > remember all the broken glass. It was everywhere. *People tossedpop
> > >> > bottles out their car windows, kids smashed bottles for fun.
>
> > >> Their thickness and weight meant smashing a deposit bottle was damn
> > >> hard. A quart pop bottle made a satisfactory club. The two-cent
> > >> deposit meant people took care to return them to the store. I still
> > >> miss the days when I bought beer by the heavy, waxed case, in deposit
> > >> bottles. Only with the advent of the environmental movement did
> > >> beverage packaging become disposable/recyclable instead of reusable.
>
> > >No, it became too expensive to clean and re-use the bottles.
> > >Disposable
> > >bottles were cheaper for the bottler.
>
> > IIRC I heard the bottles had to make 27 trips to break even. *That was
> > in the late 60's
>
> Coke comes in deposit bottles in the Third World, so I don't know the
> economics of that. Reusable bottles still exist in Western Europe.

The economics of everything is different in the Third World.

Do you really think bottlers would spend more money than they
needed to? I dimly recall when disposable bottles came along,
there were ads touting the convenience to the customer.

Cindy Hamilton

Michael (piedmont) <[email protected]> wrote:
> I miss the old days of glass bottle soda pop, you could mix any
> flavor you wanted to in the 6 pack as long as it was from the same
> maker.
> Michael (piedmont)

Vess soda!

On Fri, 13 Aug 2010 13:58:37 -0400, Dave Smith
<[email protected]> wrote:

>Cindy Hamilton wrote:
>>
>>> bottles. Only with the advent of the environmental movement did
>>> beverage packaging become disposable/recyclable instead of reusable.
>>
>> No, it became too expensive to clean and re-use the bottles.
>> Disposable
>> bottles were cheaper for the bottler.
>
>It takes a lot of energy to clean bottles. They have used very hot
>water, plus detergent and chemicals, more hot water. It may have well
>used more energy to heat the water than to make plastic bottles. The
>amount of material in plastic bottles is minimal, but they take up a lot
>of space.

Most glass beverage bottles today are also disposable. Glass bottles
also require more energy to produce than plastic. However the profit
margin on beverages is so high that the cost of the containers is
inconsequential.

On 13-Aug-2010, "Nunya Bidnits" <[email protected]>
wrote:

> Michael (piedmont) <[email protected]> wrote:
> > I miss the old days of glass bottle soda pop, you could mix any
> > flavor you wanted to in the 6 pack as long as it was from the same
> > maker.
> > Michael (piedmont)
>
> Vess soda!

I used to buy the BIG bottles (quart?) of Vess sodas, especially Whistle for
days like today (96F, heat index 107 - luckily humidity is dropping).
--
Change Cujo to Juno in email address.

brooklyn1 wrote:
> On Fri, 13 Aug 2010 13:58:37 -0400, Dave Smith
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Cindy Hamilton wrote:
>>>> bottles. Only with the advent of the environmental movement did
>>>> beverage packaging become disposable/recyclable instead of reusable.
>>> No, it became too expensive to clean and re-use the bottles.
>>> Disposable
>>> bottles were cheaper for the bottler.
>> It takes a lot of energy to clean bottles. They have used very hot
>> water, plus detergent and chemicals, more hot water. It may have well
>> used more energy to heat the water than to make plastic bottles. The
>> amount of material in plastic bottles is minimal, but they take up a lot
>> of space.
>
> Most glass beverage bottles today are also disposable. Glass bottles
> also require more energy to produce than plastic. However the profit
> margin on beverages is so high that the cost of the containers is
> inconsequential.


It's been a long time, but IIRC it was not the soft drink manufacturers
who wanted the bottle deposit. It had more to do with the people who
ended up having to pay to clean up the mess.

"Michael (piedmont)" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:i43m94$ave$[email protected]..
> I miss the old days of glass bottle soda pop, you could mix any flavor
> you wanted to in the 6 pack as long as it was from the same maker.
>
> Michael (piedmont)

Not old days at all. We can still do it. One bottle to a case, your choice
to mix & match
http://www.hosmersoda.com/

Pretty good stuff too. Root Beer and Cream are made with real cane sugar.
I'm a bit too far for home delivery, but I pass the store on the way to my
son's house.

"Ed Pawlowski" <[email protected]> wrote:

>
> "Michael (piedmont)" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:i43m94$ave$[email protected]..
>> I miss the old days of glass bottle soda pop, you could mix any
>> flavor you wanted to in the 6 pack as long as it was from the same
>> maker.
>>
>> Michael (piedmont)
>
> Not old days at all. We can still do it. One bottle to a case, your
> choice to mix & match
> http://www.hosmersoda.com/
>
> Pretty good stuff too. Root Beer and Cream are made with real cane
> sugar. I'm a bit too far for home delivery, but I pass the store on
> the way to my son's house.


Remember the "Pop Shop" drive thrus in CA, USA?

Pull in, call out "Orange" and get a plastic crate of ice cold bottled
orange sodas dropped into the car and drive off.

Those were the days!

Andy

On Aug 13, 4:38*pm, "Nunya Bidnits" <nunyabidn...@eternal-
september.invalid> wrote:
> Michael (piedmont) <As...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I miss the old days of glass bottle soda pop, *you could mix any
> > flavor you wanted to in the 6 pack as long as it was from the same
> > maker.
> > Michael (piedmont)
>
> Vess soda!

Dierberg's has Vess for 16 cents a can, today only.

--Bryan

>
>"Michael (piedmont)" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>news:i43m94$ave$[email protected]..
>> I miss the old days of glass bottle soda pop, you could mix any flavor
>> you wanted to in the 6 pack as long as it was from the same maker.
>>
>> Michael (piedmont)
>
>Not old days at all. We can still do it. One bottle to a case, your choice
>to mix & match
>http://www.hosmersoda.com/
>
>Pretty good stuff too. Root Beer and Cream are made with real cane sugar.
>I'm a bit too far for home delivery, but I pass the store on the way to my
>son's house.

When I was a child in Philadelphia, we had weekly home delivery of
Frank's sodas, in quart bottles. Frank's had fantastic cream soda and
birch beer. And who could forget black cherry wishniak! It's still
sold in Philly. (I believe "wishniak" is Polish for "cherry.")

Barry in Indy