1. Green River: Chicago’s Lime-Green Legend That Nearly Vanished
Green River soda was first created in 1916 in Davenport, Iowa, by Richard C. Jones, who owned a local confectionary shop, before Jones sold his recipe to the Schoenhofen Edelweiss Brewing Company of Chicago in 1919. From there, the bright lime-green drink found its audience in a very unusual way.
The lime-based soda with a hint of lemon was poured into old beer bottles and sold in the market, and Edelweiss closed its doors in 1950, with several different manufacturers taking over the recipe through the years. By 1992, Green River had shrunk to the point of only being sold in Chicago.
Sprecher Brewery acquired the Green River brand from Wit Beverage in October of 2021, and in addition to Sprecher Brewing, Orca Beverage of Mukilteo, Washington began production in 2025 of Green River soda under its vintage and craft sodas line. Almost a third of the green soda’s sales come in the month before St. Patrick’s Day.
2. Vess Soda: St. Louis’ “Billion Bubble Beverage” and Its Long Corporate Journey
Vess Soda has been a Midwest staple for more than 100 years, with Sylvester Jones starting the company in 1916 and the “Billion Bubble Beverage” since being made, canned, and sold in the St. Louis area. Its early history is actually tied to one of the most famous soda stories in American history.
Charles Leiper Grigg, who later developed 7UP, developed and marketed his first soft drink at Vess, called “Whistle,” an orange soda which is still sold by Vess, but eventually he and Vess came to an irreconcilable disagreement and Grigg left the company. The brand weathered the stock market crash of 1929 and went through ownership changes, but it kept going.
Vess was purchased in 1994 by Cott Beverages, and in 2017, Refresco purchased Cott and the Vess label. These changes reflect broader industry trends in the late 20th century, where regional producers like Vess faced challenges from shifting preferences toward diet and lighter carbonated options, leading to streamlined portfolios under subsequent ownership. Today, Vess is still produced and sold, mostly in regional areas, in cans, bottles, and multi-liter formats while maintaining its iconic brand identity.
3. RC Cola: The Midwest Bottler That Filed for Bankruptcy
Royal Crown Cola used to be one of the most innovative companies in the beverage industry, coming out with the first canned soda, the first caffeine-free soda, and the first 16-ounce soda, and it was the first to take diet cola mainstream and the first to stage nationwide taste tests. For a stretch, it was a genuine threat to the big two.
In 1962, they launched Diet Rite, which was essentially the world’s first commercially produced calorie-free diet soda, and while Coca-Cola and Pepsi led the market at that time, RC Cola and Diet Rite were third and fourth. That competitive edge didn’t last long.
Royal Crown did not have enough funds to compete in the market with two popular brands, Coca-Cola and Pepsi, in terms of marketing and distribution. The popularity of RC Cola products declined in the 1980s and 1990s, and in 2012, the Chicago-based RC Cola Bottling Firm filed for bankruptcy and ceased operations, with RC Cola International now based in Georgia with 10 brands in the portfolio.
4. Jolly Good: Wisconsin’s Beloved Brand That Came Back Stronger
Jolly Good was celebrated as the cornerstone of cookouts, family reunions, and get-togethers, with the cola-flavored can featuring patriotic colors and a printed joke on the bottom, differentiating Jolly Good from its competitors. It was the kind of brand that felt handmade even when it wasn’t.
By the 1980s, Krier Foods started focusing solely on soda production, developing almost 50 different flavors of Jolly Good by the 1990s, with distribution throughout the Midwestern states including Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. The soda went off the shelves in 2007 because of the competitive landscape at grocery stores: fighting against Coke and Pepsi as a small beverage brand made it hard to justify the financials.
Jolly Good Soda was named the 2024 Coolest Thing Made in Wisconsin, competing against roughly 130 nominated products statewide. The soda beat out John Deere in the final round by just 38 votes. Part of the growth strategy now includes transitioning Jolly Good from a regional soda to a national brand.
5. Dad’s Root Beer: A Chicago Basement Brew That Changed American Packaging
Born in a basement in 1930s Chicago, Dad’s quickly rose from humble beginnings to become a household name, especially throughout the Midwest. Its connection to the region ran deep, but its story is more than just nostalgia.
By the tail end of the 1940s, the beverage had solidified itself as one of the most popular root beers in the U.S., and by the 1950s, Dad’s was bottled and distributed by a network of over 160 partners, with marketing that was innovative for its time, being the first product to embrace the six-pack bottle packaging invented by the Atlanta Paper Company in the 1940s.
While this brand originally called Chicago home, it’s now headquartered in Indiana, and there’s still real Midwestern love for Dad’s Root Beer. Today, Dad’s continues to craft root beer using its original blend of ingredients including licorice, wintergreen, and vanilla.
Why Regional Sodas Faded: The Bigger Picture
The combination of corporate consolidations, competitive market dynamics, evolving consumer preferences, economic challenges, and regulatory environments played significant roles in the decline of regional and independent soda brands, collectively marking the end of an era defined by a rich tapestry of local flavors and brands.
Annual soda consumption in the U.S. declined from 49.7 gallons per capita in 2000 to 43.1 gallons in 2022. That shift squeezed everyone, but it squeezed regional brands hardest, since they lacked the marketing firepower to follow consumers as tastes changed.
The soda market in 2025 is characterized by shifting consumer preferences toward health-conscious options, functional ingredients, and sustainability, and while traditional brands like Coca-Cola and Pepsi remain dominant, regional preferences and Gen Z’s demand for low-sugar, eco-friendly products are reshaping competitive dynamics.
The Craft Soda Revival and What It Means for Legacy Brands
The global craft soda market was valued at roughly $690 million in 2024, and it’s estimated to climb toward $1 billion by 2033. This opens a real door for brands with genuine regional histories.
There is growing interest in craft sodas with unique flavors and premium ingredients, and that appetite plays directly into the hands of brands that already have decades of local identity built in. Authenticity, in this era, is worth something. It’s not a marketing layer you can bolt on quickly.
Jolly Good’s turnaround is the clearest example of this working. An overwhelming resurgence of interest in this local and unique part of Wisconsin history, as well as the national success of other Wisconsin-based brands, led Krier Foods to start reproducing and selling eight of their most popular flavors in 2015. The nostalgia was real, and the market was ready.
Vess, Canfield’s, and the St. Louis Soda Ecosystem
Vess Soda holds a prominent place as a cultural icon in St. Louis, embodying the city’s Midwestern soda heritage and frequently referenced in local media as a symbol of regional pride and continuity. Not every Midwest brand disappeared. Some just changed hands.
Canfield’s was a large-scale advertiser on Channel 9 in Chicago until 1995, when the company was sold to Select Beverages, and its largest plant, on the south side of Chicago at East 89th Place, was closed in December 1995. In 1998, Select Beverages was acquired by the American Bottling Company, a joint venture company owned by Cadbury Schweppes and the Carlyle Group, with ownership eventually taken over by Keurig Dr Pepper.
This pattern of buyout and absorption is familiar across the region. The brand name sometimes survives the sale, but the local identity rarely does. What’s left is a label without a community attached to it.
Green River’s Surprising Durability in Chicago
The lime-flavored soda quickly gained popularity during Prohibition, and in the 1950s it was nearly as popular as Coca-Cola. That kind of penetration is hard to shake, even after decades of neglect.
Though Green River is now brewed in Wisconsin by Sprecher Brewing, it remains a staple in the Chicagoland area, and Green River can be bought online and is also available at selected locations and restaurants in Chicagoland. Its seasonal identity gives it something most regional brands never had: a built-in cultural moment that repeats every year.
Few sodas can claim that kind of staying power without a massive advertising budget. Green River does it through tradition alone, which is arguably more durable than any marketing campaign.
The Role of Corporate Ownership in Changing (or Saving) These Brands
Corporate acquisition is often framed as the death of a regional brand. The reality is more complicated. Sometimes it’s exactly what kept a brand alive. In 1985, the Feigenson family sold Faygo Beverages Inc. to the National Beverage Company, based in Florida, though the Detroit plant still runs, the original flavors remain, and the brand identity hasn’t been flattened.
Private equity firm Celerant Capital purchased Krier in 2022, the company behind Jolly Good, and rather than dissolving the brand, pushed it toward national expansion. That wasn’t always the outcome with Midwest soda companies, but it shows the model can work.
What separates the survivors from the truly extinct seems to be whether the new owners understood what the product actually meant to the people who drank it. Treat a regional soda like a commodity, and it dies fast. Treat it like a community institution, and it has a fighting chance.
Where These Brands Stand in 2026
Green River is being produced by two companies now, with Sprecher leading the way in Wisconsin and Orca Beverage in Washington. Vess continued to be distributed primarily in the Midwestern United States, with its core business centering around the St. Louis, Missouri area, and recently in Canada through Dollarama and Giant Tiger locations.
Jolly Good launched on Amazon and is exploring other e-commerce retailers, with people now able to add it to their cart and get it delivered, allowing the brand to start moving forward nationally. Dad’s Root Beer continues to be sold, still carrying its original recipe. RC Cola survives internationally, though its Midwest bottling operation is long gone.
These brands carry something that can’t be recreated from scratch. The ones that survived didn’t do it by competing on the same terms as Coke and Pepsi. They survived by being exactly what they always were – something local, something specific, something that tastes like a particular time and place in American life.
