Is Vernor's "overrated"?

[Downriviera]

Its true, Vernors is not nearly as good as it used to be, but it still beats all the others imho. Blenheims from South Carolina is really good and gives you the old Vernors cough. Boylans ginger ale is good too. I still drink Vernors hot with lemon in the winter. City Coffeehouse in Allen Park serves hot Vernors as well as Vernors with cream and Vernors with chocolate, just like they used to serve it at the factory soda fountain. And Gannon, you say Vernors was never made with sugar, but according to a Vernors book I have it was made with sugar for a time either before or after the stevia was used.

[Gannon]

Yeah, no doubt during wartime Stevia might've been tough to get...but it is the original sweetener that they aught to get back to using. They'd have the mother of all PR stories, and be at the lead of the health trend now that Stevia is unrestricted.

[Hamtragedy]

Vernors is the active ingredient nearly everyone we know uses when making punch. Diet or regular.

[Detroitnerd]

It used to be so effervescent you'd sneeze loud and clear, and whatever food was unlucky enough to be in your mouth [[atomic Better Made chips, perhaps?) was sure to end up in supersonic flight. Really, man, you had to exhale slowly through the nose to get low over that pop can and then you could safely drink. Today's Vernors? An enjoyable but pale comparison of a wilder concoction.

[mikefmich]

Am I the only one....or did anyone else on the board drink hot Vernor's with a slice of lemon when they were sick kids???????? I still warm it up sometimes......Maybe it was just a 48210 thingy.....

No you're not.....and I grew up 36....as in before the zips.

[gcalan]

I love me some Vernors! But it's even better with Maker's Mark!

Why chase the Maker's Mark? So much better straight.

[Detroitgayhistoryguy]

oh man, Vernor's with vanilla ice cream....

[beachboy]

Am I the only one....or did anyone else on the board drink hot Vernor's with a slice of lemon when they were sick kids???????? I still warm it up sometimes......Maybe it was just a 48210 thingy.....

Yep, Mom would add whisky, honey, and lemon to hot Vernor's ... that medicine went down in the most delightful way!!

[Downriviera]

Why chase the Maker's Mark? So much better straight.

I agree. Makers is a wheated bourbon which makes it soft and smooth, perfect neat or with an ice cube or two. It doesn't stand up well to Vernors. Try Vernors with Wild Turkey 101.

[hermousefriday]

I used to love it, too. Real Sugar was never in Vernor's. It was among the first soda-pops to use STEVIA, the all-natural sweetener from South America.

That substance was basically outlawed in 1984, when the corn lobby succeeded in twisting the entire government in their favor to force that poisonous chemistry experiment of High Fructose Corn Syrup upon us all.

That ruined Vernor's completely. Totally. Vernor's has been over-rated ever since.

The only way Vernor's could ever regain their mystique would be to return to the original formula. Stevia is no longer considered a pharmaceutical additive, so food producers don't have to get FDA approval to use it.



Cool backstory on American Motors. My father always reminisced whistlfully over his old Nash Rambler. Said it was the smartest car, but it was tiny for its time. By the late 60s, he was driving a Beetle to Fleetwood. Made quite a splash with the fellows who made the Cadillac coach bodies!

Cheers

That's interesting, I wish I could go back in time and taste the original formula. I love Vernors! It's the best part about getting sick. You get to drink soda without guilt...because ginger ale cures everything!

[Herman Krieger]

We used to stop off at Vernor's on lower Woodward for a chocolate cream Vernor's. It was abolutely delicious. A photo of the old Vernor's shop in the web site at:
www.efn.org/~hkrieger/detroit.htm

[highjinx]

I read the comments on this page in concerns to Vernors Ginger Ale.
Now two things I must call to your attention those who grew up in Detroit, and drank Vernors Ginger Ale.
1) Vernors before it was hijacked as one person put it, was made with real fresh grated ginger root and cane sugar.
2) It came in Glass bottles sealed with pressed on bottle caps; or heavy cans that had to be open with a can opener.
Being of the baby boomer age, both of these are the sources of Vernors that were available to me in my youth.
Vernors is no longer made by Vernors on Woodward Ave. in Detroit Michigan; [in fact, the building is gone and a newer apartment building is in it's place] though the may be an address in Detroit for those who hold the trademark and recipe pattens, so technically, it would still be currently considered to be in Detroit.
Pepsi Cola is the company who is licensed to make and distribute Vernors, a former adversary in the soft drink war.
Vernors is no longer sold in glass bottles with pressed on caps; nor in heavy metal cans that require a can opener [church key] to open both types of containers.
Since the transition to Pepsi, things have changed to make Vernors a more profitable product at lower production costs.
Cane sugar has been replaced with corn syrup; pure ginger root has been subsidized with artificial flavors.
That under the current means of aluminum canning or plastic bottling, the amount of carbonation pressure is less to accommodate the modern weaker storage vessels of aluminum and plastic.
Also, next time you tip a can, or pour from a plastic bottle, read the front logo label, it no longer states "Vernors Ginger Ale"; because of all the substitutes and changes made, it is now called: "Vernors Ginger Soda"; and there is a big difference in an Ale and Soda soft drink process; Ale is natural process with higher carbonation; soda is man made mass production with tons of additives to increase shelf life.
Now you know why, the Vernors Ginger Ale you recall as a kid, is different from the Vernors Ginger Soda you drink these days; it not time passing by and memories expanding the truth, it's like all things, greed for profit that kills quality.
Thank God Faygo stayed Faygo and in Michigan; and Hires still taste the way I recall it tasting over 40 years ago.

[Downriviera]

Vernors is no longer sold in glass bottles with pressed on caps; nor in heavy metal cans that require a can opener [church key] to open both types of containers.


If you look online you can find Vernors made with real sugar in glass bottles. Not sure what distributor is doing it this way but there are some online soda shops selling it.

[Wheels]

I read the comments on this page in concerns to Vernors Ginger Ale.
Now two things I must call to your attention those who grew up in Detroit, and drank Vernors Ginger Ale.
1) Vernors before it was hijacked as one person put it, was made with real fresh grated ginger root and cane sugar.
2) It came in Glass bottles sealed with pressed on bottle caps; or heavy cans that had to be open with a can opener.
Being of the baby boomer age, both of these are the sources of Vernors that were available to me in my youth.
Vernors is no longer made by Vernors on Woodward Ave. in Detroit Michigan; [in fact, the building is gone and a newer apartment building is in it's place] though the may be an address in Detroit for those who hold the trademark and recipe pattens, so technically, it would still be currently considered to be in Detroit.
Pepsi Cola is the company who is licensed to make and distribute Vernors, a former adversary in the soft drink war.
Vernors is no longer sold in glass bottles with pressed on caps; nor in heavy metal cans that require a can opener [church key] to open both types of containers.
Since the transition to Pepsi, things have changed to make Vernors a more profitable product at lower production costs.
Cane sugar has been replaced with corn syrup; pure ginger root has been subsidized with artificial flavors.
That under the current means of aluminum canning or plastic bottling, the amount of carbonation pressure is less to accommodate the modern weaker storage vessels of aluminum and plastic.
Also, next time you tip a can, or pour from a plastic bottle, read the front logo label, it no longer states "Vernors Ginger Ale"; because of all the substitutes and changes made, it is now called: "Vernors Ginger Soda"; and there is a big difference in an Ale and Soda soft drink process; Ale is natural process with higher carbonation; soda is man made mass production with tons of additives to increase shelf life.
Now you know why, the Vernors Ginger Ale you recall as a kid, is different from the Vernors Ginger Soda you drink these days; it not time passing by and memories expanding the truth, it's like all things, greed for profit that kills quality.
Thank God Faygo stayed Faygo and in Michigan; and Hires still taste the way I recall it tasting over 40 years ago.

Vernor's is owned by Dr. Pepper. Snapple Group and never used cane sugar.

Hires is owned by the same group and quit using sassafras in the 60's and switched to high fructose corn syrup sometime later. [[They also are not from Detroit).

Faygo also uses corn syrup.