Not To Be Confused With The The Soda Of The Same Name: This 1930s Candy Bar Disappeared In The '70s

Chances are you know the name Seven-Up, or 7Up, only as the refreshing lemon-lime soda. But did you know there was once a Seven Up candy bar that had no affiliation to the soft drink? The story of the unique Seven Up bar goes back to the 1930s, when candy maker William Widman worked at the Pearson's Candy Company. While there, he had an epiphany that could only come to a person dedicated to the confectionery arts: What if you could take the flavors of a box of assorted chocolates and put them into one candy bar? The result was Seven Up, a candy bar consisting of seven distinct sections with a different flavor filling in each.

The original Seven Up bar had the following seven flavors: caramel, vanilla cream, maple walnut, Brazil nut caramel, apple butter jelly, chocolate pudding, and coconut cream. Each section of the bar could be broken off and eaten separately, so you could delight your taste buds in each pillow as long as you desired. Of course, assorted chocolate boxes had more than seven flavors, so Pearson's ultimately added new flavors to the Seven Up candy bar, including cherry and orange. As if replacing flavors wasn't enough, the order of the flavors in each bar also changed, leading to a surprise each time you purchased a Seven Up bar.

Plenty of candy bars have been discontinued and forgotten over the years, but the Seven Up candy bar is still remembered today, with fans saying things like, "as a kid I remember one flavor as an orange. It had a striking tangy orange flavor combination with the chocolate" (via Reddit). If the bar was successful enough to last for decades, you might wonder why it went away. For starters, Seven Up bars were expensive to produce. If you remember that old "I Love Lucy" episode where she gets a job at a chocolate factory, you can probably imagine how time-consuming and expensive it must be to update and automate the process when the bar's seven flavors have to change to create different combinations. 

When the makers of 7Up soda (the refreshing drink that originally included lithium as a core ingredient) staked their claim to the name, having used it since the early 1930s, Pearson's Candy decided to discontinue the chocolate bar and relinquish naming rights in 1979. With that, the candy bar was gone for good, but you can find some images of the old wrappers at the Candy Wrapper Museum. 

The closest thing to the Seven Up candy bar today is the Sky Bar (formerly made by Necco). It consists of four sections, each with a different flavor: caramel, vanilla, peanut, and chocolate fudge. You can break off each section and enjoy it separately, much like the Seven Up bar, but the flavors never change. Sadly, the variety and sense of surprise are missing from this experience. While the Seven Up bar is long gone and unlikely to return, it's remembered for its innovation and variety. It truly was a box of chocolates in one wrapper.