Triple XXX began in 1895 Galveston, Texas when a group of investors teamed with Anheuser-Busch Brewing to establish The Galveston Brewing Company. Their brewery, capable of 100,000 barrels a year, produced beer in oak barrels marked "XXX". Five years later, in 1900, a hurricane struck Galveston, killing 8,000 people. The company was lucky, in that the brewery was one of the few businesses to survive and was able to presume production. It was about this time that they also began selling a line up of soda syrups, which coincidentally were sold bearing the brand "XXX". The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office records continuous use of the "XXX" brand since at least 1908.
In 1916, the state of Texas, perhaps sensing the momentum of the dry movement, preceded the Prohibition Act of 1918 by banning alcohol production. Galveston Brewing was better suited to face the prohibition than many brewing companies of the time due to already being in the business of soda syrup sales. Other breweries of the time either shuttered completely or started soda sales once forced to. The company changed it's name to Southern Beverage Company and converted the brewing equipment to soda manufacturing. In 1918, they registered the trademark "Triple XXX".
By 1923, Southern Beverage Company had 150 distributors in several states as well as around 100 drive-ins called "thirst stations". In 1928, they finally added a cola flavor to their line up due to growing popularity of the cola beverage market. In 1932, the company reverted to it's original name and in 1924 when prohibition was repealed merged with Magnolia Brewing, of Houston and changed it's name again to Galveston-Houston Breweries. With prohibition repealed they reverted to brewing beer, though the plant in Galveston continued to make soda flavor extracts. In 1953, the company was sold to the Stenzel Corporation. A few years after this, most of the beer brewing production was sold off and root beer took center stage again. During this time however, fast food chain growth throughout the nation took it's toll on the number of operating "thirst stations".
In 1960, the FDA had banned the use of sassafras oil because it suspected safrole as being a carcinogen. Triple XXX's reverted to flavor analysts to use artificial means to keep its flavor close to the original thing. In 1969, Dr Pepper Bottling in Orange, Texas bought control of Triple XXX Corp.
Because I'm Indiana born and raised I'd like to touch on the Triple XXX drive-in in West Lafayette, which is one of only two Triple XXX restaurants still operating today. It was the first drive-in of the state in 1929 and is the oldest drive-in restaurant in Indiana. I'm happy to report that this bottle states that it was bottled under the authority of Triple XXX Root Beer Co. of West Lafayette!
Enough with the history lesson... on to the drink. The first thing I'm noting is the color of the glass bottle. While I'm familiar with using brown and green bottles to limit the amount of light affecting the drink inside... this bottle isn't brown, it's a light amber color. It's quaff is very rich and creamy. It's quite delicious as well. If you've ever indulged in a root beer float you know that creamy vanilla taste the root beer has once you've eaten all the ice cream... and that's just how this root beer tastes. It's not very carbonated for a root beer, but that creamy root beer flavor makes it a great dessert soda.
