Thompson's Wild Cherry Phosphate

[robertk]

Bottle Vitals​

	Date	Color	Shape	Size (Height x Diameter)	Value*
Thompson's Wild Cherry Phospgate	1890	Aqua	Rectangular	6.75" x 2.375" x 1.125"	$30.00

Bottle Views (click to enlarge):

Front	Back	Side	Side	Bottom
	Directions Use one teaspoolful Wild Cherry Phosphate Three of sugar one glass water hot or cold Drink freely as lemonade

This appears to be a very early version of the Thompson's Wild Cherry Phosphase bottles. It was originally a tonic introduced in 1887 by the Thompson Manufacturing Company, in Chicago Illinois. It was sold as a concentrate, to be mixed with water, and drank as desired.



Even though it was regarded as having medicinal properties, it was intended to be drank as freely as lemonade, so it became a popular beverage in its own right. Click any of these ads for a larger version.



Thompson ran with the success and advertised extensively, in print and using promotional items like this clock:

The "phosphate" part was phosphoric acid, which was combined with soda water and flavoring to create the kind of fizzy soda drinks that we still enjoy today. By the early 1900s, most soda fountains carried some version of cherry phosphate. Then as now, there were knock-off versions and the real thing. Real wild cherry phosphate got its flavor from wild cherry bark, while "tame" cherry phosphate used just cherry syrup, not bark. The wild version was the most popular.

Later versions of the bottle carried the Thompsons name and a cross on the front, along with the word "Hygeia", the name of a popular spring where they obtained the water to make the tonic. Here is an example of the later bottle (click to enlarge):


The bottles all carried the same instructions on the back, as you can see in this example of the current bottle and the newer version (click to enlarge)


Thompson died in 1921, and the popular beverage wouldn't last much longer. The most recent advertising I could find for it was a single ad in 1927. But the next time you reach for a can of soda, remember that it all started back in the 1800s as a medicinal tonic.

Here is the bottle before and after cleaning (just soap and water, brushes, and scrapers were used). Click to enlarge.



* Value is an estimate for a pristine example, based on sold eBay or other online listings. Value varies considerably with condition.