Grapico is a caffeine-free, artificially flavored carbonated soft drink with a purple color and a grape taste that is sold in the Southeastern United States. When introduced in 1916, the product quickly became a success, which in part was due to implying that Grapico contained real grape juice even though it contained fake juice. In the spring of 1926, J. Grossman's Sons sold the Grapico business to the Pan American Manufacturing Company in New Orleans. Pan American continued J. Grossman's Sons' improper practice of implying that Grapico contained real grape juice and lost the right to use the word "Grapico" to designate their artificial grape drink in 1929.
Although the J. Grossman's Sons line of the brand had ended, the Grapico brand continued on through Alabama businessman R. R. Rochell and his Birmingham, Alabama-based Grapico Bottling Works. R. R. Rochell had first become a wholesale syrup customer of J. Grossman's Sons in the summer of 1917 to serve the Alabama soft drink market. By the time Pan American had lost their artificial grape drink name in 1929, Rochell was selling bottled Grapico in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, and Louisiana.
Rochell received the federal trademark on Grapico in 1940, giving his Grapico Company of America the right to use the name "Grapico" everywhere in the United States. In 1955, Grapico Company of America attempted to expand its fruit-flavored brands with Orangico, a sister product to Grapico that included real orange juice. The orange juice-based Orangico did not sell well and the federal trademark eventually expired. In September 1981, both the franchising rights to the Grapico brand name and The Pepsi Bottling Group in Newnan, Georgia were acquired by Buffalo Rock, an independent Pepsi bottler based in Birmingham, Alabama. Buffalo Rock revived the Orangico trademark in 1999 for an artificially flavored orange drink and introduced Diet Grapico in 2005. Grapico is now produced at Buffalo Rock's Birmingham, Alabama bottling facility.
History
Grapico was first sold in 1914 in New Orleans, Louisiana by J. Grossman's Sons. In the summer of 1917, businessman R. R. Rochell and his Birmingham, Alabama-based Grapico Bottling Works purchased Grapico syrup barrels from J. Grossman's Sons and bottled and sold Grapico to the Alabama soft drink market, becoming the first bottler to buy the syrup wholesale. Present Grapico distributor Buffalo Rock, an independent Pepsi bottler based in Birmingham, Alabama, purchased the Grapico business in 1981. The J. Grossman's Sons' Grapico retail sales line ended in 1929 and the present Grapico traces its roots to the summer of 1917 in Birmingham, Alabama through R. R. Rochell's Grapico.
J. Grossman's Sons' Grapico
J. Grossman's Sons was a business that had been operating in New Orleans, Louisiana since at least 1884. By the early 1900s, the business was being run by both Adolph Grossman and Isidore Grossman. Prior to developing Grapico, J. Grossman's Sons served as creditors. In 1905 for example, a collection attorney successfully sued J. Grossman's Sons to recover legal fees for reducing to judgment a debt of $875 owed to J. Grossman's Sons. Also in 1905, J. Grossman's Sons unsuccessfully prevented the sale of their securing collateral, a debtor's home, to the debtor's daughter. In January 1912, J. Grossman's Sons lent $1000 to a Lewisburg, Louisiana saloon owner who they successfully sued eleven months later to recover the amount against his real estate.
J. Grossman's Sons began manufacturing Grapico in 1914. At that time, Grapico consisted of a syrup that, when mixed with soda water, had the taste, smell, and color of a genuine grape drink. The product was artificially colored and flavored with only an infinitesimal amount of grape juice or fruit of the grape.
Prior to 1916, J. Grossman's Sons contacted American jazz composers Peter DeRose and Ivan Reid to write a song about Grapico. DeRose, who would later be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, produced the piano accompanied song, Meet Me in the Land of Grapico. Meet Me in the Land of Grapico is a sentimental ballad from Tin Pan Alley that imagined a faraway Land of Grapico where love lives forever. The song (see below) and its cover sheet alluded to a grape vine-covered arbor in the Land of Grapico, even though Grapico contained no grape juice. Dedicating the song to all the drinkers of Grapico, J. Grossman's Sons published the song in 1916 and provided it free on request.