# Get Chummy With Rummy - History??



## shadeone (Mar 11, 2019)

An ACL bottle with a look that I really like frequently shows up at shows and antique stores around here and I decided to look up it's history. To my disappointment, there is barely any information about it out there. 
According to the few references I could find, "Rummy" grapefruit drink / soda was originally a mixer for alcoholic drinks but became a national carbonated beverage in 1948. It was produced by the Wonder-Orange Company, 223 West Erie St., Chicago.

The various small histories around the internet all say 1948 as a creation date, but I was able to find some ads from late 1947, including this one that appears to be from an industry bottler magazine stating "Rummy Goes National!"






These two 1947 ads are from California, where Wonder-Orange appears to have opened a new location:









These two ads are from 1948 and list the original Wonder-Orange company in Chicago:









I have found a paper label looks to be from the days when Rummy was just a mixer, and it lists "American Soda Water Co." in Milwaukee on it. 




The label corresponds to this die cut cardboard sign:






So what is the relation between the American Soda Water Co and Wonder-Orange?

Currently the soda still exists and is bottled by Excel Bottling in Breese, IL:
http://excelbottling.com/soda/rummy/
However, their page states "What started as our sour mix, has now become Rummy." and a page about Excel Bottling that was last update in 2015 here: http://glassbottlesoda.org/bottlers/excel.shtml , only lists "sour mix" as a flavor and not "Rummy". So the likelihood of this just being a generic sour mix where someone bought the rights to the defunct name (like Orca-Beverage constantly does) are high.

I was just wondering if anyone has any more information about the creation of this product or any of its history and transformations...

I will list all the bottle variations I have found in a post to follow this one.


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## shadeone (Mar 11, 2019)

For the bottle variant lovers, here's all the variants I could find on the internet (some from these forums so forgive me if I stole your pics):

White background:

"A Grapefruit Mixer", neck logo:





"A Most Refreshing Beverage", "A Grapefruit Mixer", no neck logo:





"A Most Refreshing Beverage", "Master Mixer", no neck logo:





"A Most Refreshing Beverage", "Master Mixer", neck logo:






Maroon background:

"A Delicious Beverage", no neck logo:





"A Delicious Beverage", neck logo:





"Get Chummy With Rummy", "Grapefruit Drink":





"Get Chummy With Rummy", "Grapefruit Soda":





"Get Chummy With Rummy", curved line:


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## bottle-bud (Mar 11, 2019)

The relationship between American Soda Water and Wonder Orange is that Wonder Orange would be the franchisee and American Soda Water being a franchiser. 
I found a local newspaper ad dated 1943 from Wonder Orange looking for franchisers here locally in St. Louis, Mo. The Rummy bottle I possess does not mention a bottler, but oddly enough I have a Wonder Beverages bottle that says it was bottled by Rummy Bottling Co. Inc., St. Louis. Notice on the bottles backside it says Wonder Deluxe Beverages rather than Wonder Orange. The bottle I have is 1952, maybe a name change took place?


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## shadeone (Mar 12, 2019)

very interesting!

I just found this newspaper article from Escabana, Michigan in 1977:






also, regarding "Rummy Bottling", this page here:
https://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/222405-rummy--wonder-beverages
Mentions the following:
"In 1952 John Triola, Nikola Jakovac, Louis Jakovac and Sam Antinora  purchased a franchise of Rummy and registered the name of Rummy Bottling  Company at 1820 Marconi Avenue in St. Louis, Missouri. One of the sodas  they bottled was Wonder Beverages."


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## bottle-bud (Mar 12, 2019)

Cool Article!
Looks like Wonder Orange / Rummy was indeed nationwide having franchises in Michigan and Missouri also.
The post you found in the CW was entered by me, I had found a Registration of Fictitous Name in the Missouri state archives and told of its contents.


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## carling (Mar 13, 2019)

Boy, a couple of those acl photos look very familiar for some reason (lol).

If interested, here's the backside of the first Rummy acl you posted.  Also a photo of the base embossing and another of the Glenshaw bottle date code on the lip of the bottle:  Letter L for 1940.


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## shadeone (Mar 13, 2019)

Interesting that its 1940 dated. Must have had an old stock of bottles lying around when they decided to start up with Rummy! I love the textured neck!

Also, got a response from Excel Bottling, the current makers of Rummy:

_[FONT=&amp]Excel  Bottling Company is an independent bottling company that has been  bottling soda since 1936.  We have continually produce soda using cane  sugar and we still do produce returnable bottles.  My grandfather  acquired franchised rights from a number of trademarked soda and one of  those sodas was rummy.  Under the franchised agreements, you would  purchase the concentrate and bottle from the syrup house and in turn  they would grant you exclusive rights to bottle and distribute the soda  in a franchised area using the formula provided.  I believe we acquired  the rummy franchise in the late 1940’s and originally bottled rummy in 7  oz and 10 oz bottles.   For bars and taverns, we bottled the rummy in a  32 oz quart bottle with a sour mix crown.  When the wonder orange  company went out of business, we continued bottling the soda with a  concentrate that matched the flavor profile  and eventually we ended up  trademarking the Rummy name under our corporate name.  Unlike some  companies that have trademarked defunct soda brands, all the brands that  we have trademarked, we have either bottled the product under a  franchised agreement, or we purchased bottles/formulas from the parent  company.  [/FONT]
__[FONT=&amp]Cheers,[/FONT]_
_[FONT=&amp]Bill Meier[/FONT]_


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## iggyworf (Mar 18, 2019)

Over the wknd at my girlfriends cottage, we hit our local antique shops, and I seen one of these bottles. It was cheap but I did not get it. It was from Cleveland Ohio.


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## Eric (Mar 26, 2019)

Orca Beverage does much of the same thing... some of the sodas are bottled under franchised agreements, We buy the rights to sodas that are long gone and in some cases where there
are no records, nothing written down, do a little detective work... go by what a bottle may have printed on it as far as ingredients to see what is used or look through old advertisements.
We've had folks write in with stories of family members that bottled or distributed these sodas (really pretty cool hearing the stories) then with trial and error, do our best to match the flavor profile to what was once bottled... we use cane sugar and the same bottling process as they did back in the 50s and 60s. 

Many of the old school sodas that are still around don't follow their formulas from "original recipes"... many use other flavor ingredients and sweeteners not cane sugar.
When I was a kid Orange Crush seemed to be "cloudy" almost and had more of a true orange taste... now it's a clear thin kool-aid consistency and the
carbonation leaves more of a bite... not the smooth orange soda I remember. 

Try our KISS ( I personally think it's better than Rummy, Rummy has a chalky, sweet tart tasting finish)... Our Brownie caramel root beer makes a killer root beer float, our O-So Grape is
delicious and our Americana line of flavored sodas are awesome.

With the thousands of sodas that have come and gone, many lost forever, I'm proud to work for a company that tries to keep these vintage sodas around. 

On another note.... went to an auction in Willisville, IL a few years back...1000s!!!! of Wonder Beverages bottles so many that the local bottle shows are flooded with them still... they had
Double Cola and Set Up bottles also... The old bottling machinery was still in the building... they sold the bottles for a few weekends... had flat bed wagons stacked with them...They just
kept adding them to other auctions. Was awesome to see.


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