Root Beer

Now a sweet soft drink flavored with a mixture of herbal essences, root beer was originally a real beer and a tonic health drink. Small beers, or low-alcohol beers carbonated by the action of yeasts, had been traditional and nutritious drinks for children, women, and the elderly in England and Europe for centuries. Although many of these small beers were flavored with ginger or lemon, another common flavoring and one popular for its anti-scurvy properties was that of the bark of spruce or birch trees. When colonists arrived in North America, they found new varieties of the traditional spruce and birch for their beers, but discovered Native Americans using such novel flavorings as the roots of sarsaparilla (Smilax ornata) and sassafras (Sassafras albidum) as well. Both of these were similar to spruce and birch in taste, and the colonists soon learned to use them in their small beer, often with molasses as a sweetener and fermenting agent.