Reminiscence & Dementia Blog

While bottle digging I still get excited to find cork top bottles with embossing. One of the more interesting bottles to find are vintage embossed medicines. Liniments are one of the types of medicine bottles that I enjoy finding. These bottles are always a nice addition to the Memory Detecting Senior Reminiscence program.

Today Ben Gay would be considered a liniment. Liniments are basically a medication that is rubbed on your body for sore and aching muscles. One of the most popular liniments pre-Ben Gay was SLOANS.

Earl Sloan was a U.S. entrepreneur who had a successful business selling his fathers horse liniment formula after the Civil War. SLOANS LINIMENT was made from capsicum and was eventually marketed for human use. He later sold his company to the Warner-Lambert which was eventually purchased by Pfizer in 2000.

Seniors may remember Sloans. This type of medicine must have been pretty popular back in the late 1800’s and early to mid 1900’s. Much of the effective medicines that we have today were not available then. Today if you have a sore back you simply take Aleve or Motrin. In 1880-1920 you had less effective medication. Many of the non-topical pain relievers were actually made with alcohol as a key ingredient.

Not only did you have less effective choices seniors had higher physically demanding jobs and lifestyles. The need for effective pain medication was high. The working lifestyle of the average man and women back in 1880-1950 era was not the same as it is today. As a whole life was harder, and pain must have been a bigger challenge.

My metal detecting finds always remind me of how living was harder back 75-100 years ago. I don’t find many chainsaws from the late 1800’s and early and mid 1900’s! However I do find plenty of axe heads as an example. Thankfully in the early stages of pain management Sloans was one choice that was available to ease those aching muscles.

Seniors may remember a soda called Moxie. Moxie has been around for over 100 years. Moxie was Maine’s favorite drink with a flavor that you either loved or hated but never forget!

Moxie Soda bottles are very interesting and the embossed vintage bottle are some of my favorites. I recently found a Moxie bottle pre 1906 that had the words “Nerve Food” on it. I have always found this to be very unique and interesting. Nerve Food? Really? many sodas during this time actually began as medicine. Moxie was no exception.

Seniors who remember this soda May describe its taste like a mild wintergreen or licorice flavor. Some often describe it as tasting like medicine or like a root beer that’s gone flat. 

It was once available in more than 30 states and parts of Canada.  However in recent years the memorable Moxie soda (or tonic, depending where in New England you’re from) has been almost exclusively found in the 6 New England states. 

The Moxie story started in 1876. While living in Lowell, Massachusetts, the Maine-born Dr. Augustin Thompson invented the original Moxie as a concentrated medicine (the name may have been inspired by Moxie Falls or Moxie Pond in Maine they say, but really nobody knows for sure) with ingredients like gentian root, wintergreen, sassafras and possibly even cocaine. Now that can’t be good for your nerves can it? In 1884 he decided to add carbonation and re-brand the product “Moxie Nerve Food” which claimed to have “cured drunkards by the thousands, made more homes happy; cured the nervous, and prevented more crime and suffering in New England than all other agencies combined” For this the price was 40 cents per quart bottle. By the early 1900s, Moxie (they dropped the “nerve food” in 1906) was the nation’s favorite soft drink, even outselling modern-giant Coca-Cola, which first hit the market in 1886.

By the 1940s, Moxie soda was especially known for its advertising gimmicks and giveaways. Many seniors may remember that Ted Williams was a spokesperson and the signature “pointing” Moxie Boy. Giveaways were common and ran the gamut from posters, bottle openers, sets of dishware, and ornate, carved clocks. Moxie was such a household name that the word “moxie” also entered the lexicon as a word meaning energy, pep, and spunk. Hey you’ve got Moxie!

Unfortunately the drink’s national popularity began to decline as tastes evolved and Coca-Cola and Pepsi (which dates back to the 1890s) grew stronger. Many New Englanders refused to give it up. It’s true that Moxie maintains a core group of loving loyalists throughout the region, but Maine is where Moxie is arguably most beloved. The state loves Moxie so much that in 2005 it became the state’s official soft drink.

Clark’s Trading Post in Lincoln, New Hampshire is one location where  the world’s only surviving original Moxie Horsemobile is on display. Also  Zeb’s General Store in North Conway, Hampshire (one of my favorite stores) and the Kennebec Fruit Co. in Lisbon Falls, Maine, have been Moxie’s unofficial ambassador for decades. 

I hope many of the seniors remember Moxie soda. Here’s hoping that they enjoyed that unique taste and maybe have memories of drinking Moxie and quenching their thirst on a hot summer day.