Dr. Wells

Ludford Fruit Products, incorporated in 1928, in Los Angeles, created Dr. Wells in 1935 as an alternative 'pepper' brand soda, like so many Dr Pepper clones. As noted in many other posts, the 1960's and 70's saw a lot of consolidation of soda brands as larger companies swallowed up smaller operations. In 1970, the Rheingold Corporation purchased Grapette. Having introduced flavors other than grape, Rheingold decided to change the name from Grapette to Flavette. This seems like a poor attempt to work in the word 'Flavor' into the branding but comes off rather hacky sounding. Flavette then purchased Dr. Wells as well as Mason's Root Beer. According to FTC papers Flavette purchased something like 81 independent bottling companies during the 1970's. PepsiCo ended up buying Rheingold, triggering the Federal Trade Commission to force PepsiCo to release some of its brands to encourage market competition since PepsiCo and Coca-Cola combined for about 58% of the soft drink market at the time. The Monarch Beverage Company purchased the Dr. Wells brand in 1987 and later sold it along with some other notable soda brands to Hedinger Brands in 2007. Today, Dr. Wells is produced by Dad's Root Beer Company, based in Jasper, Indiana.

I think the scent of this bottle is slight, but I'm picking up faint notes of cherry. There's a noticeable kick of carbonation churning up to the top with each swig, sometimes nearly overflowing from the bottle. I've also spotted that they include cane sugar rather than high fructose corn syrup. It has a smoother flavor than Dr Pepper but the "spices" or "pepperiness" is too weak, closer to drinking a cherry cola.