The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-08-09
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau
THE STIMULATING SMELL.
FREDERIC ]. HAsIkIN. Director.
Washington, D. C.

climb onto one of the tall stools before
a soda fountain. enclose the top of a
bottle of strawberry pop with your
lips and drink long and gurglingly, you
may think that many patient little
strawberries grew up just to give you
such a treat, but you are mistaken.
Never a strawberry went into the max
ing of your refreshing draught- Prac-
tically all you are getting is some col
ored soda water and a smell.
This is a disheartening thought in a
world where life seems to be just one
long shattering of illusions. so we
hasten to add that aItho your pop has
no relation &c the succulent strawberry
it is nevertheless a quite pure and
harmless drink, quite worthy to quench
the carefully guarded American thirst.
In fact it is much purer than If it were
favored with real strawberries, which
is why IT isn't. if you follow us.
Now that prohibition has made soft
drinks so interesting to all of us, and
SO profitable to some of us, a scien-
tific Treatise upon thefsubject will not
be out of place. YoU perhaps did not
realize that your soda consisted of
more than carbonated water and
flavoring. bu, it does. Science, psy-
cholOgy and even art go into the
making of this refreshing beverage,
and the most important of these is
psychology.
Mr.. D. W. Hutchinson, a manufac-
turer of soda water flavors and bot
ting supplies, is an authority upon
the subject, as he practically grew up
in the soda pop business heavenly
boyhood if. boys tastes in those days
were the same as they are now. 1t is
no wonder that he repays this eff
feryescent and stimulating element of
his youth with a lifelong interest.
~ The Early Soft Drinks.
Mr.. Hutchinson's father, William H.
Hutchinson, was one of the first bot
tiers of soft drinks in this country.
Way back in 1919 he started a small
beer business here, (the small" modi-
lies the beer and not the business,
small beer being another name for
root beer, birch beer, and so forth. .
He made his beverages of sugar,
herbs, yeast, and other things and put
them in stone bottles. These were
the soft drinks" of our forefathers,
and according to Mr.. Hutchinson they
We're cloudy and unpleasing to look
upon, altho good to drink, and in
nocuous enough to suit a certain Ne
braskan.
When the machinery for bott1ing
came into being. he drifted into tho
soda water business, and his enter
prise grew up with the great Ameri-
can thirst. But the way of the early
bother was not all easy, in spite of
the great demand for his wares. SIis
soda water clear and sparkling so that
1t would attract the cautious buyer
who is ever on the lookout for signs
of impurity. This is where the sci
ence, psychology and art, aforemen-
toned, enter into the story.
The bOttlers soon discovered that it
was impossible to flavor their drinks
with flaURT-s O
The f1avors made from fruit contain
pectin, albumen and other substances
which tend to separate and make lit
tie stringy particles in the soda water
after it has been bottled for a few
days. This gives, the drink a cloudy,
unpleasant look and arouses the sus-
picionsl off the cautious drinker who
of course thinks that the particles are
deadly germs Then, too, fruits such
as the apple, strawberry. cherry and
peach do not lend themselves to use in
bottled goods. Their flavor is too
form with the intensity necessary. OF
course where there is an essential oil
in the fruit, as in the case of the
lemon, orange or lime, this oil is used.
Otherwise the fruit flavors of soda
water have not quite the close rela-
ton to Mother Nature, the rains and
winds of heaven and the sunkissed
ecstatic ad writer has led us to be-
lieve they have.
But when the bottlers realized that
pure fruit flaYors could not be made
satisfactorily, nothing daunted they
decided to make imitation flavors that
would be satisfactory. Mr.. ~Hutchin-
son, and others like him, knowing
that the sense of smell is so closely
related to the sense of taste that they
are nearly one. concentrated upon the
odors of the flavors. They analysed
the real fruits, duplicated their chem
ical parts as nearly as possible, and
made extracts to stimulate them in
taste and smell-especiall in smell.
Thus it is that when you open your
bottle of strawberry pop your nostrils
are assailed by the refreshing odor
of ripe fruit, you drink off the pleas
antly tingling fluid, and go away
much refreshed. thinking you have
just imbibed some soda water favored
with strawberry juice. What you
have had was a cleverly y initiated
strawberry smell and a drink of
sweetened soda water. OF course there
is some taste of the fruit. too. but not
much.
4 Test for the Taste.
Try this test some time and you will
realize how little. Wait until you
have such a severe cold that you can't
smell at all (and we politely hope that
you will have to wait a long time),
then blindfold yourself and have
som cone give you a bottle of pop and
see If you can guess the flavor from
the taste. You will have an unusually
keen sense of taste if you can, accord
ing to Mr.. Hutchinson. He declines,
however, to put all the blame for this
form of deception upon the bottlers.
Nature herself goes in for a little of
the same kind of fooling. You could
try the same blindfold test with an
apple, a piece of row potato, and have
hard time telling which was which.
Furthermore, altho you are getting
an artificial1y colored and favored
drink, you are getting an absolutely
best sugar and flavoring. put up in
bottles that are chemically clean will
give that clear. sparkling appearance
which most soda pop has. One sure
way of protecting yourself from all
impurities in the beverage is to refuse
to drink any soda water which has a