I recently got a 1954 bottle from Walter, that he found at his parent’s Lawhorn Farm in Thomasville, Georgia. This particular bottle was bottled in Valdosta, Georgia. I thought I would do a little research on NuGrape Soda.
John James Mangham discovered the formula for NuGrape in 1906, along with a fellow pharmacist, in Bremen, north west, Georgia. In 1921, the NuGrape Company of America began in Atlanta. They built the National NuGrape Company building at 794 Ralph McGill Blvd. The company was unique for the time, since they made and bottled soft drinks. Other companies did one or the other, but not both.
They stored the syrup there in 50-gallon Oak barrels in the three story building. Claimed to be the truest grape flavor, at the time, by 1937 there were 600 NuGrape bottlers in the country.
In 1967, Moxie bought the company and opened the Moxie-Monarch-NuGrape Company of Doraville, Georgia. NuGrape is now distributed by Monarch Company in Atlanta.
Today, NuGrape is found around the southeastern United States. They are sold in small independent grocery stores, novelty candy stores and can sometimes be found in Cracker Barrell restaurants.
How can you tell what year bottle you have?