Nehi (pronounced /ˈniːhaɪ/, like "knee high") is a flavored soft drink originated in America. It was introduced in 1924 by Chero-Cola/Union Bottle Works. The "Nehi Corporation" name was adopted in 1928 after the Nehi fruit-flavored sodas became popular. In 1955, the company changed its name to Royal Crown Company, after its RC Cola brand. It was founded by Claude Hatcher, a Georgia grocer, who began bottling ginger ale and root beer in 1905. As of the middle of April 2008, Nehi had become a brand of Dr Pepper Snapple Group.
History
The Chero-Cola company added Nehi Cola to its line of sodas in 1924 in order to offer more variety of soda flavors. It offered orange, grape, root beer, peach, and other flavors of soda. Nehi was instantly successful and outsold Chero-Cola entirely. The company changed its name to Nehi Corporation in 1928. The Nehi Corp. was listed on the New York Curb Exchange. Business went well until 1930, when a major crisis occurred. Reflecting the Great Depression, which followed with the stock market crash of October 1929, sales of Nehi Corp. dropped one million dollars in 1930 from a high of $3.7 million in the previous year. Sales continued downward until the bottom was reached in 1932, the only year in which the company had ever lost money. Almost every Nehi bottling plant in the organization was in the red during the years 1931 and 1932.
By 1933, the low point had been passed and the business was just beginning to stabilize when another tragedy struck. Claude Hatcher, the company's president and guiding light from its formation, died suddenly December 31, 1933. Hatcher was soon replaced by H. R. Mott. Mott was faced with the grim depression as he took office in 1934. Mr. Mott had been vice president of the Nehi Corporation for several years, and had been associated with the company since 1920. As new president he was greeted with a great amount of debt, and his consuming ambition was to make the company free of debt as quickly as possible and keep it that way. He updated operations, obtained extensions of credit, cut expenses and within a year had reached his goal. The Nehi Corporation was debt-free and ready to move ahead once more.
In the early 20th century, the advertising logo of Nehi was a picture of a seated woman's legs, in which the skirt was high enough to show the stockings up to the knee, suggesting the phrase "knee-high". This was referenced in Jean Shepherd's story "My Old Man and the Lascivious Special Award That Heralded the Birth of Pop Art" in the book In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash, as well as in the film A Christmas Story, which was adapted from the book.
Robert Ripley helped the Nehi Corporation, when he advertised for them on his radio show "Ripley's Believe It or Not!" By 1940, Nehi products were available in forty-seven of the forty-eight states. In 1946, the pace for the Corporation accelerated tremendously. The company began to enhance its advertising by using entertainment celebrities. Bing Crosby, Joan Crawford (before inheriting Pepsi), Bob Hope and many others joined in selling the products of Nehi Corporation. When World War II was over, the company and its bottlers joined whole-heartedly in a progressive program of expansion and improvement that made 1947 one of the great years in the history of the enterprise. In that year, glamorous Hedy Lamarr was pictured in point of purchase advertising signs. At that time, Nehi Corporation offered over ten flavors. Those included Dr. Nehi, Nehi Chocolate, Nehi Root Beer, Nehi Lemonade, Nehi Wild Red, Nehi Blue Cream, and of course the classics Nehi Orange, Nehi Grape, and Nehi Peach. Many of these flavors were later dropped as their novelty and popularity waned.
The fame of Nehi Cola lived on until Nehi Corp reformulated Chero-Cola, naming it Royal Crown Cola. RC sold extremely well, so the company changed its name to Royal Crown Cola Co.
Flavors
- Dr. Nehi - pepper-flavored
- Nehi Blue Razberry
- Nehi Chocolate
- Nehi Root Beer
- Nehi Berks County Root Beer
- Nehi Lemonade
- Nehi Wild Berry
- Nehi Grape
- Nehi Peach
- Nehi Strawberry
- Nehi Orange
- Nehi Berry
- Nehi Blue Ice Cream
- Nehi Ginger
- Nehi Fruit Punch
- Nehi Blueberry
- Nehi Watermelon
- Nehi Lime-lemon ("not Lemon-lime," as Bill Bryson put it)
- Nehi Cherry [1]
Nehi in popular culture
- In the television series Welcome Back, Kotter, Mr.Woodman brings Vinnie Barbarino cases of Nehi as an "apartment-warming" gift.
- In the television series M*A*S*H, Corporal Walter "Radar" O'Reilly's favorite soft drink was "Grape Nehi," as he referred to it.
- Bill Bryson, in his book, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, talks about drinking Nehi (which he calls the most vividly colored soda ever approved by the Food & Drug Administration), and even mentions how Nehi Grape could make you hallucinate (he claims after having drunk Nehi Grape, he could see all the way to the end of the universe!).
- In That '70s Show, Fez is shown in an episode called "The Pill" drinking a Nehi Grape.
- In title song of the 1975 album Wolf Creek Pass by C. W. McCall the narrator mentions drinking Nehi while driving over the continental divide.
- In VeggieTales "Lord of the Beans," the character Ahem (played by Mr. Lunt) tells Toto that his Bean can make anything, including a fountain of Grape Nehi shooting out of the ground.
- In the 1973 film Paper Moon, set in the Depression-era, Addie (Tatum O'Neal) drinks a Nehi Grape at the diner.
- Nehi Grape Soda is the favorite drink of the She-Hulk.[2]
- In the book To Kill A Mockingbird, the scene describing the crowd gathering before the start of the trial mentions the 'Negroes' drinking "the more vivid flavors of Nehi Cola."[3]
- In Mysterious Skin, Neil McCormick uses Nehi Peach to make himself belch into a microphone.
- In the movie A Christmas Story, Nehi is the sponsor of the contest in which the Old Man wins the leg lamp. Although this is not made clear in the film, it is detailed in the original book In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash.[4], where it is also mentioned the drink's supposed volatility, referring to cases of "the bends" reported in those who drank Nehi too quickly.
- In Carnivàle, characters are seen drinking a Nehi from time to time, and on one occasion a character asks for one by name.
- In the song "No Names" by DANGERDOOM, rapper MF Doom says the lyrics "All you saw was a [edit]do a bee's line, to where she stood and sipped the Nehi Grape, the sweet kind."
- In Stephen King's The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands, Jake Chambers purchases and drinks a Nehi.
- In the 1963 suspense film The Sadist, the villain and his girlfriend are seen to drink Nehi colas.
- In an episode of Happy Days a girl asks Richie Cunningham what there is to drink. He says they have Nehi in the icebox.
- It is the favorite drink of the protagonists in the Newbery Honor novel A Long Way from Chicago.
See also
References
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Brands of citrus soda |
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| Citrus soda lines |
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| Citrus sodas |
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| Lemon-lime sodas |
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| Orange sodas |
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| Grapefruit sodas |
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| Tangerine sodas |
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