chapter XII - yesteryears childhood drinks

fruit drinks, soda, pop and others

Children today seem to have an endless supply of all manner of fizzy drinks. But to be honest its hard to recall what we drank on a regular basis as kids. We couldn't afford fizzy pop as a staple and I don't remember us having 'squash' on tap. I do remember we drank tea from an early age, and from about the age of five. Because I know we usually poured it over our weetabix breakfast cereal in place of milk during the winter. So I guess it was water, milk or tea (coffee was just for adults)

Of course we did have hot, milky drinks at bedtime ....

ovaltine

"we are the ovaltineys, litlle girls and boys ......" My mother was definately an Ovaltiney child. I don't think any 'food' brought back happier childhood times to her than hearing the Ovaltiney song. Baring in mind my mother's childhood memories like most of her era, were mostly filled with having to dodge Hitler's bombs raining down on her, nissan huts and her father having drowned when his ship went down in 1939, when she was just nine years old. 

Introduced into Britain in 1909, it was the creation of a Swiss chemist. It was introduced and prescribed by doctors as a hot nutritional drink, in times when the lower classes in the UK were nutritionally deficient. 

We often had a hot Ovaltine drink before bedtime, that lovely malted barley powder spooned into a mug of hot milk was certainly just what the doctor ordered to send us to sleep. 

horlicks

The main rival to Ovaltine was Horlicks. To be honest despite mum's fond memories of Ovaltine, we often had Horlick's in place of it. Probably because it was on special and cheaper than Ovaltine when mum had been shopping. 

This is the jar that I remember it always coming in. Of course these days it comes in some flash, bright jar vying for the energy drink market. 

It is an American version of Ovaltine, well when I say American the company was founded by two English brothers; William and James Horlicks. 

bournvita

Another popular milk based drink in my childhood was bournvita. This was the Cadbury's version  of a malted chocolate drink. Bit of late comer to the market compared to Ovaltine and Horlicks, as it wasn't introduced onto the market until after WWII. 

nesquick

Still popular today, but growing up this powdered addition to milk to form an instant milkshake was reserved as a holiday or special occasion treat. Not that I ever cared for it much; the chocolate was ok, but the strawberry, the banana flavours etc never did it for me. I can still recall the taste after 40 years. Maybe I should revisit it one day, to see if that flavour memory is real.

No Nesquik Bunny for us though, back in the day it was marketed by the use of some little strange cartoon man

corona 

Not the beer with a scungy piece of lemon jammed in the neck, but in the UK there used to be a soft drinks company by the name Corona. It came in these distinctive shaped bottles and they used to home deliver. The "corona man" and his van would come around once a week and 'the posh people' would stock up on their favourite flavours of fizzy soft drinks; needless to say we were not amongst the elite. My cousins down the road were the lucky ones however, they did have it delivered.

There was all the usual flavours plus the more exotic cherryade and shandy; which were always my favourites when I got the chance.

Even though we didn't have it delivered, the Corona man still hold sweet memories for me from my childhood. Mainly that familiar sound of the chinking of the bottles in the crate, meant only one thing; some kid was lucky!

The method of delivery was as follows, you made you initial purchases. Then every week the Corona man would call around, knock on your door, take your order, take back the empty bottles from last week, go to his truck and return with your new bottles filled with that glorious, fizzy, sweet, fruity drink. Then he charged you by adding up the price of the new purchases minus the 6d (six pennies) for each empty bottles returned,  you either paid cash or clocked it up and paid at the end of the month.

Because despite what people think these days, we were BIG on recycling back then, just about all glass bottles carried a refund policy on return. No small deal for any kid, because we knew finding glass bottles meant extra pocket money when returned to the shop.

dandelion and burdock
This strangest of flavoured drinks brings backs memories of my Welsh childhood. Nothing specific, just being a child growing up in a Welsh mining village, playing on the mountainsides, spending the endless days of summer chasing sheep, climbing cliffs, collecting frog spawn, catching frogs and slow worms (a type of limbless salamander.

It is, strange as it may seem, as the name suggests; flavoured with extracts from both dandelion and burdock.


vimto
Still popular today as it was when I was growing up. Created by John Noel Nichols of Manchester, UK in 1908. The name comes from a combination or shortened version of its original name; Vim Tonic

It contains juice from raspberries, grapes and blackcurrants. Well originally it did, these days like Coca Cola, it comes in a cherry version to name one, and it is also available as bon bons, lollipops, chews and all manner of sweet items

Again no specific memories of it, except it being part of my childhood

coca cola & 7 Up

Coca cola never came under my radar until approximately 1972, when my mother, myself and younger sister went on our one and only overseas holiday. My first flight ever took us to the lovely island of Malta, where we went to visit and holiday with my Uncle Vic and family (my father's brother). He was there due to a posting with the RAF. 

That flight over also started my love affair with olives, when I ate my first one as part of the inflight meal. My mother and sister didn't care for theirs, oh well all the more for me! 

But back to the coca cola. My cousin's had it so sweet I thought, besides living all around the world previously, they were now living in sunny Malta. even more to that was they had coca cola almost on tap. Well Uncle Vic & Aunty June seemed buy it like tap water, there was always bottles of it, along with 7 Up in the fridge. In individual bottles too! How lucky were my cousins? It was, from memory the first real time I had enjoyed the pleasure of ice cold pop of any kind. No one in the UK chilled their drinks. But the taste of that ice cold Coca Cola and 7 Up, when it was so scorching hot outside lingers to this day. Along with the memory of drinking it at an outdoor cafe under an umbrellad table, who eats and drinks outside? Certainly no one in the UK in the 60's and 70's, how exotic, how very European! 

tree top

One of the other beverages with bitter sweet memories was a concentrated squash by the name of Tree Top; again another one for the elite or posh people! It came in a 'futuristic' pyramid type shaped bottle, with the novel creation of a large white, plastic screw top lid, that doubled as a measure. One top full of the concentrate to one pint of cold water, or something like that.

The concentrate was sweet, very concentrated and really tasted of the fruit it portrayed. As such it was the creme de la creme of what in the UK we call fruit squash.