This vintage ad for 7-Up is a great illustration of how our ideas about what sounds tasty is culturally and historically contingent.
For other great examples, see these posts on soup for breakfast, spam, poop coffee, the rise and fall of aspic, and prunes (they’re for kids!).
From Found in Mom’s Basement.
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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
Comments 56
enable — August 5, 2009
I have a feeling this is a clever bit of PR. Apparently coca cola are launching fizzy milk- could this be a way of getting us talking about it? Damn, it worked.
Here's the original story in the times
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/drinks/article6727700.ece
Pearl — August 5, 2009
Well, it sounds horrible on first glance, but it's pretty similar to an egg cream, no? (BTW, for non-New Yorkers, an egg cream is chocolate syrup, seltzer, and milk.)
Andree — August 5, 2009
My mom made us 7-up floats when we were little (7-up and vanilla ice cream) and it's way better than you'd think. I've made it for my kids, but have to call it Sprite floats because they'd never heard of 7-up.
Also, Laverne and Shirley used to drink Pepsi and milk. That always horrified me as a kid.
Cute Bruiser — August 5, 2009
It's not really that strange, is it? I like cream soda and milk! Don't knock it 'til you try it.
edward — August 5, 2009
At a chocolate dinner at my dorm (don't ask), they made virgin chocolatinis - sprite and chocolate milk.
another constellation — August 5, 2009
I just asked my aunt, who is in her mid-fifties, if she ever heard of this. Her response was "well... you know, it sounds like maybe I have, but it feels like maybe I blocked it out."
I could almost see the Sprite and chocolate milk, but to me, carbonation is for sugary things. I don't even like tonic water.
Enable: I wonder what it "a birthday party for a polar bear" tastes like...
jfpbookworm — August 5, 2009
It's not the carbonation that bothers me, it's the citrus.
mordicai — August 5, 2009
Isn't that half-way to an egg cream? & ALL the way to a "Vio"?
Annebonannie — August 5, 2009
Sounds like a quickie version of a virgin milk punch. Info I found about milk punch recipes date back to the 1800s. You can find recipes on line and are often described as New Orleans Milk Punch (no lemon, usually), Brandy Milk Punch and English Milk Punch (with lemon).
larry c wilson — August 5, 2009
The story goes that Zachery Taylor died as a result of drinking too much milk punch and eating too many fresh cherries at a 4th of July Picnic.
Sara — August 5, 2009
I remember my dad making me "moo juice" when I was little- fruit punch mixed with milk. I loved it at the time, but there is no way you could get me to drink it now!
Village Idiot — August 5, 2009
The original name of 7-Up all by itself sounded even less appetizing than the thought of mixing it with milk: "Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda."
It's interesting to note that there were apparently many soft drinks and lithia beers on the market containing lithium citrate and that 7-Up was originally marketed as a patent medicine introduced in 1929 (a few weeks before the stock market crash). What an amazing coincidence; anti-depressant soft drinks suddenly appear right on the cusp of a Great Depression! Also handy at that time was one of the side effects of consuming too much lithium: memory loss.
Mad Man — August 5, 2009
I recall seeing an episode of Mad Men where a character is mixing Vodka with his milk, replying to his wife on the phone "yes, Dear, I'm drinking my milk right now."
rachel — August 5, 2009
I know it seems like the super-health consciousness of today is new...but really, looking at the ad made me think that perhaps 7-up people realised that their product was nutritionally sh*t, and so they slapped it together with the idea, "Milk is healthy!" (in itself an advertising gimmick), and presented 7-up as a milk sweetener, you know, to get your kids to drink milk. cause lordee knows milk is not creamy and fat and sugary enough on its own to be delicious...well, 2% and whole milk, in any case....
i wonder if the milk peeps and 7-up peeps were in cahoots for this...
Cycles — August 5, 2009
That image comes from a cookbook titled "Fresh up" familiar foods and party treats ... with that famous lively Seven-Up flavor.
It includes recipes for glazing ham with 7-Up, and using it in place of water in a cake.
Seems the company was trying to get people to buy more soda by presenting it as a whimsical ingredient to add to common homemade foods.
http://www.lileks.com/institute/gallery/sevenup2/index.html
In "The Boxcar Children" the kids make Coke Punch at one point (coke plus orange juice) (yes! This person remembers it too: http://cookbookjunkie.blogspot.com/2009/05/another-surprise-hit.html?showComment=1242411000000#c7696969086069950491)
My mom's old Betty Crocker Children's Cookbook had a recipe for Purple Cow (milk + grape juice)
At the end of "Cannery Row," the doc enjoys a beer milkshake. Despite the loud gagging sounds coming from my direction, this site says it's not all that bad: http://www.34st.com/node/4374
Bagelsan — August 5, 2009
i wonder if the milk peeps and 7-up peeps were in cahoots for this…
Oh god, now there are peeps involved too? That's going to be the nastiest beverage ever! :D *imagines their little indestructible eyeballs floating around in the liquid...*
Kristi — August 5, 2009
Reminds me of Calpico...which I enjoy, though it's certainly not wholesome.
Men's Pocky — August 5, 2009
Kristi beat me to my comment.
Colette — August 6, 2009
Ok, someone try it right now and tell us how it is. No "I had it when I was little." or "I give it to my kids." :)
Leigh Barlow — August 6, 2009
Just found some 7-Up in the vending machine and work, mixed it with milk as directed. Rather nice actually. It is a bit like creame soda or milk punch.
Scare yourself a bit, go try. ;)
(Although you keep in mind that I was the only person in the office willing to try coffee and tea (which is not nice).)
Meems — August 6, 2009
I always loved eggcreams, but this just doesn't sound good. I'd agree that it's really the citrus with milk that sounds ew.
Sue — August 6, 2009
When I was five I convinced my usually rigid grandmother to allow me to pour milk into my Coke. Man, did I think she was cool!
I'm REALLY sorry that my curiosity got the better of me and I clicked on the "Poop Coffee" link. *Sigh.*
Sue — August 6, 2009
Does this blog ever get entered into any blog award contests? I would definitely vote for it.
Sue — August 6, 2009
I once told a foodie with some entrepreneurial ambitions to try opening a natural soda bar, e..g, good seltzer with homemade syrups like elderberry (I have no idea what that taste like), rootbeer, etc.
Sounds better than 7-Up and milk.
sully — August 6, 2009
oh man, I poured 7up into the milk at the bottom of a bowl of applejacks once, it was awesome
BeccaTheCyborg — August 10, 2009
One of my best friends (now departed) was exceedingly fond of a mix of root beer and soy milk, which I'd always make fun of him for. He got me to smell it once, but that was as far as I was willing to go.
ih — August 11, 2009
Yeah, reminds me of Coca Cola's Vio which they were giving out in Battery Park a bit ago. Fizzy milk drinks.
Craig — September 4, 2009
Scotch and Milk is a workable highball from days of yore (Dizzy Gillespie is reported to have enjoyed them), although it's not really to my taste. And of course the Central Asian cultures ferment milks into a variety of pungent alcoholic beverages: Keffir, Koumis, and so on.
Milky Milky « Being Blunt and Erratic — September 8, 2009
[...] drinks, mixing tastes 7-Up with milk. I came across an advert from the 1950s for this drink (here)and it’s not as bad as you would expect. In fact it’s rather nice. A bit like cream [...]
fifi — September 16, 2009
ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.....................even though i dont have to try it. i can just imagine in my head. that's so disguesting!! ... >.<
Ham and Jelly, Together at Last » Sociological Images — March 17, 2010
[...] For more fun food-related examples of social construction, see our posts on meat-flavored gelatin, savory veggie jell-o, vitamin beer, cucumber flavored soda, soup for breakfast, and 7Up milk. [...]
Alice — April 25, 2010
What the... ew! Wouldn't it curdle?
Baxter — June 1, 2010
it's actually pretty good. and no, i've never found that it curdles, but maybe i don't wait long enough for it to happen.
Jessica — August 19, 2010
We were a big fan of cola+milk and rootbeer+milk when I was little, my mom and I. I thought we invented it! We called it 'sodamilk' and made it our mission to convert everyone to the idea. Don't recall ever having someone try it and not like it. It's a taste sensation! :)
At this point, only drink soda about once a month, so gone are the days of soda milk, alas!
Daizy4sweet — May 12, 2012
oh god...dnt u knw that ths can cause extraction of calcium from bones......nt healthful at all
I Love Libertarians — October 30, 2017
People were doing this in some version in the 1800's so its suddenly corporate propaganda?
This looks like another 'PC' article intended to divide and sneer from an ignorant PhD who never left their echo chamber..
At least libertarians are truly multicultural and let people be themselves...and understand things can indeed proceed from reality, not 'social constructions' assumed by pseudo-scientists...
We've been having soda, milk, and lemon and/or ginger flavorings for generations in New England.
Anonymous — February 28, 2020
In Canada when I was a child..we would drink 7up n milk for a Xmas drink
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