The Old School Soda Company That Was First To Bottle Shirley Temples

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

When in a bar that doesn't have a fancy mocktail list, there's one nostalgic drink you can almost always depend on. And when the kids want something fun to sip on, like the adults, the same drink is the perfect order. The Shirley Temple is one of the most widespread non-alcoholic drinks in the United States, a dependable way to sip on something fizzy and flavorful without an ABV. To make this drink conveniently available to sip on at any time, one company came up with the clever idea to bottle it in the 1980s.

Hollywood's Original Shirley Temple Soda Pop is a family-founded business that started in Santa Rosa, and can be considered a regional soda of the West Coast. The brand, founded in 1986, packaged the iconic drink into colorful pink and aquamarine blue cans, making it accessible outside of restaurants and bars.

The original drink recipe is a base of ginger ale or Sprite with grenadine syrup and a maraschino cherry, and the ready-to-drink soda more so emphasizes the cherry flavor. The soda now comes in bottles, and instead of grenadine syrup, natural flavors and cane sugar are used to achieve the correct taste. It has an ideal level of carbonation, and a user on the r/Soda subreddit reported that it has a lighter, less sweet flavor than restaurant versions.

Hollywood's Original can be found on several online retailers, including Amazon. Once Shirley Temple Soda Pop appeared on shelves, other soda producers wanted to capitalize on the idea. No single company or restaurant owns rights to the beverage recipe, and so now, there are multiple store-bought versions, from mainstream companies to smaller craft soda producers. For example, Spindrift now offers a cherry lime Shirley Temple flavor, as does 7Up.

Despite the star's name being attached, the Shirley Temple drink was never trademarked or patented. This left the door open for companies to bottle and sell their own versions. However, the actress was quite protective of licensing her name for the use of products, and in 1988, she tried to put a stop to another company trying to use her name to brand their cherry-flavored soda.

The irony is that the child actress didn't actually like the drink, especially made for her, because it was too sweet. That said, you can always make a Shirley Temple at home with a true grenadine syrup, which is actually supposed to be pomegranate, not cherry.