Famous Soda Pops I Have Known, Vol. V: Sun Crest Orange and NuGrape

Last week, I posted about orange Nehi and included a photo of Andy gleefully holding a bottle. As popular and ever-present as Nehi was, my guess this may well have been what Andy had in mind when he originally mentioned a “big orange drink” in his comedy monologue What It Was Was Football.

Recording as Deacon Andy Griffith, in the routine, Griffith told the story of a country bumpkin seeing a football game for the first time and not understanding what it was. For example, he described the field as “a purty, little green cow pasture” that “somebody had took and drawed white lines all over it.”

As the comedy monologue opened, the narrator said, “And we come up on a big sign,  it says, ‘Get somethin’ to eat ‘chere.’ And I went up and got me two hot dogs and a big orange drink.” He soon dropped his drink. Once inside and hearing each group of people yell, he asked a man why everyone was yelling. “Well, he whopped me on the back and he says, ‘Buddy, have a drink!’ Well, I says, ‘I believe I will have another big orange.’”

Regardless of whether Andy had Nehi in mind, once his comedy recording became a big hit, he agreed to appear in advertisements for Sun Crest Orange.

The brand Sun Crest was introduced by the National NuGrape Company in Atlanta in 1938. While I don’t have a photo of a Sun Crest pop I have tried, I have had the original main flavor of the company, NuGrape.

NuGrape Soda is a grape pop invented in 1906 and first bottled in 1921 in Atlanta. Ownership of the brand has changed hands several times but the formula remains the same, still sweetened with cane sugar. This is a very sweet and refreshing pop with a strong grape flavor that aficionados often claim as the truest and juiciest grape taste (though it contains no juice).

More than four decades after the company introduced NuGrape and Sun Crest and before it was sold the first time, it launched the previously discussed Kickapoo Joy Juice in 1965. The company was sold to another soda company in 1968 and now, like many classic pops, is bottled by different companies which recognize and preserve these older brands.