Visit Twig’s ‘Sun Drop Museum’ in Shawano, Wis.

You might say that Shawano, Wis., is the “second home” of the eclectic soft drink named Sun Drop.

While C.P. Nanney was fine-tuning the Sun Drop recipe in his bottling plant in Gastonia, N.C., in 1953…Charles Edward Lazier of St. Louis, Mo., the inventor of Sun Drop, was reaching out to also contract with bottling operations in other sections of the country.

Lazier struck gold in Shawano, Wis., in 1953 when he hooked up with Floyd C. Hartwig, who had opened a soft drink bottling business in Shawano in 1951.

It’s an interesting story that goes back to the Korean War, which began in 1950. Hartwig was drafted into service with the Army. As an expert marksman, Hartwig was positioned on the frontlines. Unfortunately, he suffered gunshot wounds to both knees during combat.

 

While Hartwig, a Purple Heart recipient, was recovering in a hospital bed, “he formed his idea to start a soft drink bottling plant after returning home to Shawano.”

Hartwig sent his military paychecks home to his mother, so she could begin to purchase an inventory of glass bottles. Friends who had played softball with Hartwig began a fundraising effort to buy the necessary machinery and equipment.

The guys had nicknamed him “Twig.” Hence, the business would become Twig’s Beverage, Inc. The first products were Bullseye Root Beer and Goody Orange.

 

Ben Hartwig, a grandson of Floyd, who is now the company’s vice president, said: “The creator of Sun Drop, Charles Lazier, talked to my grandpa and asked him if he could produce and distribute Sun Drop up in this area. It’s been our main product ever since.”

 

What makes Twig’s Sun Drop “unique,” according to Ben, is the use of “two special ingredients – real sugar and refreshing Wisconsin water.”

Located on the Wolf River, about 40 miles northwest of Green Bay, the water in Shawano is pure…and definitely cold. (The community of about 9,235 people takes its name from a former chief of the Menominee tribe of Native Americans.)

Another distinction is that Twig’s is believed to be the only bottler in the country that is still using returnable Sun Drop glass bottles. Ben Hartwig said: “We’re keeping that going. We have 16-ounce and 12-ounce bottles, and some are dated from the ‘50s and ‘60s, so they’ve been going through our washers ever since then.”

 

Then, there’s Jaime Lee, a Shawano-based broadcast journalist and yoga studio owner, who flits about town in her “Sun Drop Girl” costumes to promote Twig’s products throughout the region (Zip Code 54166).

 

Dan Hartwig (Ben’s father) took over operation of Twig’s in 1986, and he had the bright idea to open Twig’s Museum & Gift Shop in 2015, adjacent to the bottling operation. The place is filled with an array of Sun Drop artifacts. Admission is free.

 

Patrons can visit the soda fountain and get their fill of Sun Drop as well as sample about 20 local Twig’s brands, ranging from “Rhu-Berry” (a rhubarb-strawberry blend) and “Butterscotch Root Beer” to “Forget-Me-Not Grape” and “Peach Cobbler.”

 

Twig’s strives to fulfill its original objective, and that is to be “Tops in Pops.” In the Midwestern states, soft drinks are known as “pop,” shortened from “soda pop.”

For a real good time, visit Shawano during “Sun Drop Dayz,” a weekend festival held on the first weekend in June. The annual event is organized by the Leadership Shawano County Class of 2016, a cooperative effort between Shawano’s chamber of commerce and University of Wisconsin-Extension. 

Enjoy live music, arts, crafts, kids’ activities, a flea market and a lumberjack competition.

Here is Jaime Lee...again...broadcasting live from the Festival.

Sun Drop finds its ‘soft drink home’ in Gastonia, N.C.

Sun Drop wasn’t born in North Carolina, but the citrus-flavored soft drink was perfected – beginning in 1953 – in Gastonia at a bottling company owned by Charles Pinkney “C.P.” Nanney.

The Charlotte metropolitan area continues to this day as a regional hotbed of Sun Drop sales. The beverage is a “trifecta of lemon, lime and orange,” plus it’s loaded with caffeine, according to local resident Chris Crunkleton.

“Sun Drop was the mixer of choice,” he said. “You never went to Myrtle Beach (in South Carolina) without a couple of liters. And if you ran out, you called home to find out who was coming to the beach and have them bring more.”

Charles Edward Lazier of St. Louis, Mo., invented the original formula for Sun Drop in 1928. At the time, he was a salesman for a manufacturing firm owned by his father, John Frederick Lazier, who folks called “Soda Jack.”

Soda Jack’s company was a successful enterprise, specializing in bottling equipment sales and repairs as well as “bottler consumables, including extracts and concentrate in various flavors.”

And that boy, Charles Lazier, could flat-out “sell.” A large-framed lad, Charles formerly worked as a circus strongman and carnival sideshow barker. He was known to promote “cure-all” properties that he believed were present in the company’s liquid products.

 

Charles (shown above) convinced his father that they needed “to start creating brands rather than just selling nameless, generic flavors,” according to Joseph T. Lee III, a beverage industry historian.

“The first specific brand that I have found being registered by J. F. Lazier Manufacturing Co. is the ‘pure orange extract’ named ‘Cinderella Orange’ in 1921 and marketed as ‘The Drink of Fairyland,’” Lee said.

Soon, other flavors joined the Lazier lineup, such as “Peter Pan Strawberry,” “Little Boy Blue Grape” and “Little Red Riding Hood Cherry.”

The Sun Drop product that was invented in 1928 was “the first soda to use orange pulp and the oil of orange peels,” Lee said. It was just one of several flavorful concoctions that Charles Lazier tinkered with throughout the 1920s-1940s.

In 1949, Charles E. Lazier Jr., just in his early 20s, was working as a technician in the company laboratory. He began to “reformulate” the Sun Drop brand, and it was “reintroduced” in 1951 by his father as a “golden citrus cola” at the American Bottlers of Carbonated Beverages Conference in Washington, D.C.

 

Lazier shared the formula and samples of Sun Drop with his friend C.P. Nanney, who took the concentrate back to his bottling plant in Gastonia. 

Nanney tweaked the taste a bit and looked around for a place to test-market the new version, which was known as “Golden Girl Cola.”

“He picked Red Bridges Barbecue Lodge in Shelby, run by his old friend Red Bridges,” wrote David P. Nanney Jr. of Raleigh, a great nephew of C.P. Nanney. “In July 1953, for a promotion of Bridges’ new restaurant on the U.S. Route 74 Bypass, Bridges gave away free barbecue, and C.P. Nanney provided free 7-ounce glasses of Sun Drop.”

 

“The new soft drink was a hit. Later that year, Nanney’s Gastonia plant began bottling it” and distributing the product throughout a broad geographic region, David Nanney said.

 

In effect, Gastonia was a surrogate “headquarters city” for Sun Drop, as home of its premier bottler, an arrangement that lasted more than 65 years.

The company that C.P. Nanney formed, Choice USA Beverage, announced in 2019 that it had reached an agreement with Independent Beverage Company (IBC) to move all its bottling operations, including Sun Drop, to IBC’s Charlotte facility.

…But the Sun Drop Museum is in Shawano, Wis.

This is where you can learn about all things associated with Sun Drop. 

“In the 1970s until the early 1990s, Sun Drop was promoted in the American South by NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt.”

“On Feb. 18, 2001, Earnhardt died as a result of a basilar skull fracture sustained in a last-lap crash during the Daytona 500. He was 49 years old.”

“His son Dale Earnhardt Jr. was also sponsored by Sun Drop, beginning in 1993.

‘Squirt’ burst onto the soft drink scene in 1938

Warmer weather calls for cool and refreshing beverages. Raise the curtain on Squirt – America’s favorite grapefruit-flavored soft drink.

 

Surely, you remember the cool green bottle with the wavy swirls…and the adorable chap, “Lil’ Squirt,” who served as the company mascot.

 

Squirt was invented by a pair of grapefruit orchard growers near the White Tank Mountains in Maricopa County, west of Phoenix, Ariz.

Edward Walsh Mehren created a non-carbonated grapefruit soda product in 1936 that he had labeled “Citrus Club.”

With input from Mehren’s business partner H.B. “Herb” Bishop, the drink was improved with carbonation, requiring less fruit and less sugar. The beverage was rebranded in 1938 as Squirt, because Bishop thought the drink “tasted like a slice of grapefruit exploding in the mouth,” with “grapefruit squirts” becoming the “freshest, most exciting taste” around, he said.

 

Squirt contains only a minimal amount of grapefruit juice – less than 2% of its total composition – but just a little packs a big taste punch.

Mehren and Bishop leased a five-story factory – constructed in 1906 as a sugar beets processing plant – in Glendale, Ariz. They made Squirt concentrate from the juice and oils of Arizona-grown grapefruit and shipped the concentrate in bulk to as many as 385 North American bottling companies.

 

“Squirt’s staying power stems from its distinct taste – sharper than lemon-lime sodas, mellower than pure grapefruit juice,” commented Tyler Muse of HistoryOasis.com. Squirt developed an instant following, especially in the American Southwest and along the West Coast.

 

Mehren and Bishop understood the need for promotion and advertising to compete in the soft drink marketplace. In 1941, they created a likable character named Lil’ Squirt to personify the brand and become Squirt’s official ambassador.

The character of Lil’ Squirt was designed by Bruce Bushman, a layout artist with Walt Disney Studios and the son of silent-film star Francis X. Bushman.

(While at Disney, Bruce Bushman helped develop Disney’s signature theme park, Disneyland. He designed the Fantasyland Castle and the overall layout of the park itself. Later, he served as art director for a new Disney TV show – The Mickey Mouse Club.)

 

Squirt grew market share during World War II, because its low sugar content was an asset to bottlers restricted by sugar rationing. After the war, Squirt continued to experience an uptick in popularity.

Kids weren’t the only ones drinking Squirt. During the 1950s, bartenders discovered Squirt’s potential as a cocktail mixer. The bright, grapefruit flavor enhanced both classic and innovative drinks, “transforming Squirt into a vital ingredient behind the bar.”

It was especially popular in Mexico, where Squirt became the key ingredient of the legendary Paloma cocktail. It’s quite a simple blend of tequila, Squirt, fresh lime and salt.

 

Robert Simonson, a contributor to Imbibe magazine, which promotes “liquid culture,” said Squirt print advertisements in the 1960s were rather direct, pitching: “Squirt treats whiskey, gin and vodka with respect, gentles them with the fresh, dry taste of sun-ripened citrus.”

Amy McCarthy (shown below), who toils as a pop culture reporter at Eater.com, says: What emerged was a plethora of home recipes for cocktails like “the Squadka (Squirt and vodka) and the Squiskey or Squirbon, which, of course, is a combination of Squirt and rye whiskey or bourbon.”

 

“My favorite comfort cocktail is the Squirtarita,” McCarthy said. “Technically, it’s a simplified version of the classic Paloma, but the Squirtarita does not require juicing any limes.”

“All you need is a bottle of the fizzy, citrusy soda Squirt and some passable tequila. Pour over ice in the heirloom plastic cup (bearing the logo of your favorite sports team) and drink until….”

 

Roy Park’s ‘media empire’ continues to benefit N.C. State

Returning to the story of Roy Hammond Park, who was introduced to readers on April 11, 2025….

Experiencing a rapid rise in popularity of its Duncan Hines cake mixes, the business partnership between Duncan Hines and Roy Park – known as Hines-Park Foods – was in high cotton in the mid-1950s…and ripe for the picking.

 

Duncan Hines

The Procter & Gamble Company of Cincinnati, Ohio, stepped up in 1956 to acquire Hines-Park Foods and the rights to the Duncan Hines brand name.

 

Hines and Park were rewarded handsomely. Hines chose to retire and return to his hometown in Bowling Green, Ky., where he died from cancer three years later in 1959, at the age of 78.

Park was in his mid-40s when the P&G buyout occurred. He opted to stay on as a Procter & Gamble senior executive…but eventually got the entrepreneurial itch to strike out on his own.

 

Roy Park

He used his nest egg to launch a new venture in 1962, known as Park Communications, Inc. He embarked on a journey to purchase local radio and television stations as well as newspapers in small- and mid-sized media markets. He saw the importance of local news and invested in community journalism.

Park’s first acquisition was WNCT-TV and its related radio stations in Greenville, N.C. By 1977, Park had become the first broadcaster to own what was then the legal limit of seven television stations, seven AM radio stations and seven FM radio stations.

 

When Roy Park, at age 83, died in New York City in 1993 due to a heart attack, the Park Communications media empire included 22 radio stations, 11 television stations and 144 news publications. These media outlets combined to reach nearly one-fourth of all American households.

Park bequeathed more than 70% of his holdings for the creation of the charitable Park Foundation, Inc., which is dedicated to primarily supporting educational and environmental interests.

(Private investors reportedly paid $710 million to purchase the remaining assets of Park Communications. Shortly thereafter, the properties became part of Media General, only to be sold in 2017 to the current Nexstar Media Group.)

Park’s biographer said: “While Roy Park’s media influence was felt across the nation, his personal influence was always felt in North Carolina and especially at North Carolina State University, his alma mater.”

 

Park grew up in Dobson, a small community in rural Surry County, N.C., and graduated from N.C. State in 1931. 

He continued to maintain close ties with the university and offered his services in the arena of public relations.

In 1951, Park helped create and promote a “Nickels for Know-How” program, which allowed North Carolina farmers to donate 5 cents on each ton of feed and fertilizer purchased to support the university’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

In 2025, the program is still going strong, with farmers continuing to invest in the self-assessment program. (A referendum is conducted every six years. The measure passed with “a nearly 96% favorable vote” on the last ballot in 2022.) Nowadays, the rate is 15 cents per ton.

 

Receipts total about $1.4 million annually to help fund agricultural teaching, research and extension projects as well as internships and scholarships.

In 1996, the Park Foundation established the Park Scholarships program at N.C. State to award outstanding incoming freshmen. To date, more than 1,200 students have been selected to participate. This year, about 38 full scholarships are expected to be awarded.

 

William C. Friday (shown below), president of the University of North Carolina System from 1956-86, remarked: “Among North Carolina’s illustrious achievers…none stands taller than Roy Park. Always of good humor and with a generous heart, he moved among his peers sharing of himself gladly in the service of others.”

‘Biscuit revolution’ stirred up a tasty competition

When General Mills of Golden Valley, Minn., launched its Bisquick brand of boxed biscuit mix in 1931, it created a “biscuit revolution” in the United States, according to Bryn Gelbart, a writer for The Daily Meal food and drinks website.

 

A bunch of competitors scrambled to introduce similar products, but none was successful in toppling General Mills from its perch of supremacy as market leader.

Meanwhile, also in 1931, Lively Burgess Willoughby received a U.S. patent for the manufacture of refrigerated biscuit dough. Willoughby operated a wholesale bakery in Louisville, Ky., and began experimenting with dough, cardboard and tin foil.

 

Willoughby cut and formed his biscuits using Fleishmann’s baking powder, packaged them in foil, loaded them into an Epsom salt-lined cardboard tube and glued lids on both ends.

Served 10 biscuits to a tube, these oven-ready jewels offered an easier alternative to homemakers, Gelbart wrote.

Marketed as “oven-ready biscuits” that were “ready to bake when you awake,” Willoughby’s “Ye Olde Kentuckie Buttermilk Biscuits” brand was acquired in the 1940s by the Ballard & Ballard Flour Company of Louisville (formed in 1880 by brothers Samuel and Charles Ballard).

 

The Ballards’ vast milling operations were purchased by Charles A. Pillsbury & Co. of Minneapolis in 1951. Pillsbury was the nation’s dominant flour milling enterprise at that time, having roots that dated back to 1855 when John Sargent Pillsbury opened a mill on the Mississippi River at the Falls of St. Anthony.

John Pillsbury’s milling enterprise was struggling financially in 1869, however. His nephew, Charles Alfred Pillsbury (shown below), arrived from New Hampshire to rescue the business by modernizing equipment and improving the milling process.

 

Charles Pillsbury established the “Pillsbury’s Best” brand and boasted it was the finest flour in the world, which quickly captured a majority share of the high-quality flour market.

 

Pillsbury had great success in perfecting Willoughby’s invention of cylindrically packaged biscuit dough, which would become “one of the company’s most important and profitable product lines.”

 

Opening the Pillsbury biscuit tubes is another matter, said Lena Abraham of the Simply Recipes website. “You have to smack them on the corner of a counter to get them to open…with a loud bang.”

Kim Ranjbar, a contributor to the Chowhound food website, said: “The pop is caused by a combination of the spiral cardboard design and half-risen dough.” The resulting slit releases built-up pressure inside the container, revealing perfectly shaped premade biscuits or rolls.

 

“The package was an ingenious design that revolutionized the industry, evidenced by the fact that we still see the same packaging today, nearly 70 years later,” she said.

Born from within one of those Pillsbury packages in 1965 was “Poppin’ Fresh,” the Pillsbury Doughboy. The mascot character “popped out” in the imagination of Rudolph Perz and Carol Williams, members of the creative team at Pillsbury’s Leo Burnett advertising agency in Chicago.

Milt Schaffer was the designer who helped the Pillsbury Doughboy take shape, careful not to strike a resemblance to “Casper the Friendly Ghost.” The anthropomorphic Poppin’ Fresh was given a scarf, a chef’s hat, two big blue eyes, a faint blush…and a soft, warm chuckle when gently poked in the belly.

 

Ordinarily, Poppin’ Fresh is a wee 8 ¾ inches tall (with his chef hat on), but in 2009, he was expanded into a 54-foot balloon, so he could “fly” in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City. He has been a regular parade participant ever since.

 

Poppin’ Fresh celebrates his 60th birthday in 2025, representing one of the brands in the General Mills family of products. Surely, a big party is in order.