Weird Facts about Canada Dry®

• The word Canada denotes the country of the soft drinks' origin and the word dry suggests non-alcoholic beverages.
• In 1904, J. J. McLaughlin, a Toronto pharmacist who ran a small plant to manufacture soda water to be sold to drugstores as a mixer for fruit juices and flavored extracts, developed a new “dry” ginger ale while trying to improve upon old-style ginger-ale recipes. He named his product McLaughlin's Pale Dry Ginger Ale, later changing the name to Canada Dry Pale Ginger Ale.
• McLaughlin designed the original Canada Dry trademark—a map of Canada, emblems of the Canadian provinces, and a crouching beaver (the national animal) inside a shield capped with a crown to symbolize “kinglike quality.”
• Although corner drug stores were the only outlets for distributing carbonated beverages, McLaughlin pioneered techniques for mass bottling to serve Canada Dry at baseball games and public beaches.
• In 1923, McLaughlin's heirs sold the company for one million dollars to P. D. Saylor and J. M. Mathes who founded the present day Canada Dry Corporation.
• In 1930, Canada Dry introduced Tonic Water, Club Soda, Collins Mix, and fountain syrup.
• In 1986, Cadbury Schweppes, the world's first soft drink maker, purchased Canada Dry and Sunkist.
• Canada Dry was the first major soft drink company to put soft drinks in cans (1953) and introduce sugar-free drinks (1964).