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Bottled in Biloxi by Dominic Massa

quick following across Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and Arkansas. Barq, who died in 1943, would share his business acumen with a young apprentice, Jesse Robinson. In 1909, Robinson moved to New Orleans and opened his own bottling business. By 1934, having shared the secrets of his successful formula, Barq agreed to let Robinson exclusively bottle Barq’s Root Beer in Louisiana, while the founder would retain the business in Mississippi and elsewhere. Longtime drinkers will remember the way you could tell the difference: Barq’s bottles from New Orleans featured red labeling, while Biloxi bottles were blue. Robinson and his wife operated their New Orleans plant, Cascade Bottling Works, on North Lopez Street in the Mid-City neigh borhood. “You are assured of a sanitary and healthful drink when it bears the Cascade label,” claimed one newspaper ad. “Many call for Barq’s by name when they ask for a root beer. It is suggested that you do this.” The Barq’s product line would grow to include creme sodas — a golden French vanilla one and a red one, called “red drink” by many. In addition to its unique flavor, early television ads for Barq’s touted the root beer’s health benefits — even if, these days, the FDA and your doctor might disagree. In one 1950s commercial, a booming narrator boasts that “Barq’s sparkles and bubbles, it quenches thirst and refreshes. It’s the root beer for today’s taste!” Follow that with a shot of two genteel ladies on a settee,

“Drink Barq’s. It’s good.” You really don’t need more than those four words to sum up the appeal of our New Orleans hometown root beer, but we’re about to pour you a few more. It’s easy to see why those simple sentences have been embla zoned on the brand’s longneck glass bottles and shiny silver cans almost since 1898, when Edouard Barq — sometimes spelled Edward — began bottling his beloved brew. I t is good, and many of us wouldn’t want to be without it. Those competi tors with just two letters or a mug in their name may have meaningful market share — but around here, we know Barq’s is better. It’s the only thing to drink with a fried shrimp po-boy at Domilise’s, alongside a roast beef po-boy at Parkway Bakery, in a frozen mug at Liuzza’s, and in a root beer float with vanilla ice cream from K&B or Brown’s Velvet. Those last two ain’t dere no more, but Barq’s still very much is. The root beer brand whose ad campaigns now tout its “bite” may have gone national when Coca-Cola bought it 30 years ago, but its roots are definitely local, with a history that includes both Biloxi and New Orleans. That’s where the soft drink’s founder was born in 1871. When he was two, New Orleanian Edouard Barq’s family (which included three siblings) returned to his mother’s native France following her husband’s death. In Bordeaux — better known for wine than root beer — Barq learned the fine art of flavor, later studying sugar chemistry at the famed French university, the Sorbonne. By 1890, a family business was born, and the Barqs moved back to the Crescent City. According to family historian Veni Harlan, the family began selling cordials, mineral waters and flavored drinks on Royal Street under the name Barq’s Brothers Bottling Company. An early creation was an orange colored soda called Sparkling Orangine. It gained fame at the 1893 World’s Fair in

Chicago and 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. According to Harlan, following the deaths of Edouard’s brothers, the New Orleans company went bankrupt and Barq moved to Biloxi. In 1897, he married Elodie Graugnard, and in 1898 the couple purchased Biloxi Artesian Bottling Works; he was eager to rebuild his business based on the skills he had acquired. “Over a period of years, Mr. Barq worked on a formula for root beer, calling upon his full store of knowledge that he had gained upon the flavoring extract industry,” explained a 1935 New Orleans States newspaper article. “He adhered to the thought that the sense of smell is just as important as the sense of taste in a beverage and eventually announced that he had developed a root beer formula.” Newspaper reporters explained that the “exceptional quality” of Barq’s root beer, first bottled in a one-room building, earned it a

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