Cheerwine

Cheerwine is a soft drink produced by the Carolina Beverage Corporation of Salisbury, North Carolina. It has been produced since 1917.

Overview and History

When the Maysville Syrup Company of Maysville, Kentucky went under in 1917, L.D. Peeler and other invested businessmen moved the company to North Carolina and renamed it the Carolina Beverage Corporation. That same year, Peeler purchased a recipe for a cherry flavored soda from a Saint Louis flavor salesman, which eventually became Cheerwine. Though it had been around since 1917, Cheerwine first became a registered trademark in 1926.

Notable for its fairly unusual "cherry taste and rich burgundy color," Cheerwine has a very sweet cherry flavor and an unusually high degree of carbonation compared with many other soft drinks. Named for both its color and taste the company website explains that “it made sense to name a burgundy-red, bubbly, cherry concoction—Cheerwine."

Availability

Cheerwine is available in most of the southeastern United States, from West Virginia south to Georgia, but is better known and has been a longtime favorite in the Carolinas and Virginia. It is famous in Charleston, South Carolina and along the Carolina coast. We have not seen it lately in Cincinnati at Jungle Jim's, but the Party Source in Bellevue, KY does carry it by the bottle. Other spots to find Cheerwine are the many "specialty soda" stores throughout the country, such as The Fondren Beverage Emporium in Jackson, Mississippi. However, as of late 2002, the beverage is now also distributed in Norway through Oslo-based American Marketing. There are plans to expand distribution to the rest of Scandinavia in coming months. In April of 2005, other regions of the United States began to bottle Cheerwine; mainly through Pepsi distributors. The first area outside the traditional market area was Quincy, Illinois. Other areas added recently include Burlington, Iowa; Duluth, Minnesota; Chattanooga, Tennessee (in certain stores); Tulsa, Oklahoma; Topeka, Kansas; Rolla, Missouri; and South Yankton, Nebraska. It can be found in vending machines in eastern Ohio and in Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology of Terre Haute, Indiana, and in some restaurants in San Francisco, California.

However, these recent moves to expand outside of the southeast are not new. In the 1970s Cheerwine could be found in the Chicago area, for example.

Sponsorships

For 2007, Cheerwine sponsors an elite women's professional cycling team that competes in UCI Women's Road World Cup and USA Cycling National Racing Calendar events.

In 1994 and 1995, Cheerwine sponsored Morgan Shepherd's #21 Ford in the NASCAR Busch Series.