Surplus grapefruits in the Valley during the Great Depression led to a locally produced soda with purported health benefits that found nationwide success – and launched a thousand cocktails.
It might be a stretch to call Ed Dobbins a local historian, but sometimes his research does begin in his front yard. A few years ago, the Cleveland transplant and retired audiologist stepped out the front door of his North-Central Phoenix home and picked a Marsh white grapefruit off his tree for breakfast. “It produces a ton of fruit every year, and my wife and I encourage people walking by to take some home with them.”
Dobbins noticed other similarly bountiful trees nearby and pondered their significance. “After all, you can only eat so many grapefruit,” he says. So, Dobbins looked into the origins of this citrus cornucopia and uncovered a remarkable tale about a home-grown grapefruit-flavored soda that made a big splash beyond the beverage industry: Squirt. Yes, the fizzy refreshment – beloved poolside sipper and star of at-home palomas – was created right here in the Valley and, for many years, was made with local grapefruit.
The Squirt story starts with Roosevelt Dam harnessing the Salt River in 1911 to make the desert bloom. Water was diverted at Granite Reef Dam, with some feeding the Arizona Canal that arced through North Phoenix, irrigating farmland just south of Sunnyslope. When World War I erupted in 1914, cotton became king, until overproduction and an armistice in 1918 caused the market to collapse.
For salvation, many Phoenix farmers turned to a citrus fruit so named because it grew in grape-like clusters. “They planted grapefruit because it was gaining in popularity as a health food and had antimalarial benefits similar to quinine,” Dobbins says. “Plantings skyrocketed and spread beyond the citrus belt south of the Phoenix Mountains to the east and west valleys.”
But as Dobbins knows, grapefruit trees produce a heck of a lot of fruit. “It was obvious by the 1930s that the market was becoming saturated, and new outlets for grapefruit were needed,” he says. “Edward Mehren, who managed his family’s citrus ranch near the White Tank Mountains, co-founded an organization of young citrus growers to develop and promote grapefruit products.”
Two grapefruit juice canning factories opened in the Valley but were short-lived. Another venture was a grapefruit soda that doubled as a cocktail mixer created by Mehren in 1936. Citrus Club contained 1 percent grapefruit juice and less sugar than other sodas. Two years later, he partnered with Herb Bishop, and they rebranded it as Squirt because “grapefruit squirts,” and declared it “the freshest, most exciting taste in the marketplace.”
In 1938, Mehren and Bishop leased a five-story factory – constructed in 1906 and originally used to process sugar beets – at Glendale and 52nd avenues. They made Squirt concentrate from the juice and oils of Arizona-grown grapefruit. The Glendale plant shipped the concentrate in bulk to bottling plants around the country and sold the pulp and skins for livestock feed. Dobbins says that an intense grapefruit smell permeated the surrounding neighborhood. “No one seemed to really like the odor, but it was distinctive and carried mainly positive associations of the big old building when it was active,” he says.
By 1961, imported Florida and Texas grapefruit supplemented production at the Glendale plant. The Squirt concentrate supplied 385 bottling plants in North America, according to The Arizona Republic. By then, developers had transformed Phoenix grapefruit orchards into subdivisions but preserved trees on the large, irrigated lots.
“In 1977, we moved into our house that had 32 grapefruit trees – about 31 too many!” says Stephanie Foster, a retired dental office manager. “A crew picking grapefruit for Squirt came for at least two years. They only paid us a minimal amount, but I was happy to get the fruit cleared from the trees.”
Squirt had plenty of local fans, but lagged with one demographic. “I was a Dr Pepper guy,” says David Smith, a retiree who volunteers at the Sunnyslope Historical Society. “I think Squirt was promoted as a healthy drink, which didn’t appeal to kids as much.”
Local ownership ended in 1978 when a Michigan beverage group purchased Squirt. The Glendale plant ceased operation in 1981, and concentrate operations shifted to Harlingen, Texas. The brand remains popular and is currently produced by Keurig Dr Pepper.
During its 86-year reign as a pop star, Squirt briefly became the topic of political debate during two days of hearings by a U.S. Senate subcommittee on intermediate coinage in 1950. Mehren led a movement to split nickels by creating three new coins with values of 2 ½, 7 ½, and 12 ½ cents. He claimed these new fractional coins called “Bens,” “Links” and “Bits” would cut inflation by saving consumers more than $8 billion annually in overpriced goods since prices tended to jump by 5 cents.
The coinage would also make buying a soda easier. At the time, Squirt cost a nickel from a vending machine, but this price wasn’t profitable. Mehren wanted to keep it a one-coin transaction, but doubling the cost by charging a dime would hurt sales. “Mehren thought the world would revolve around vending machines,” Dobbins says. “With the new coins, he could charge a reasonable 7 ½ cents.” The proposal failed, despite Mehren giving President Harry Truman a bowtie with hand-painted images of the new coins, which included thrifty Ben Franklin on the 2 ½-cent coin and Abraham Lincoln on the 7 ½-cent denomination.
After uncovering this intriguing tale that stretches from his grapefruit tree to the U.S. Capitol building, did Dobbins kick back on his front porch, flipping a nickel into the air in satisfaction while enjoying an ice-cold Squirt? “No,” he says. “I’ve had Squirt, but it’s not one of my favorite sodas. I’ve always been partial to Fresca, with its grapefruit-lime flavor.”
Other Southwestern Sodas
Cactus Cooler
Cartoon fans cried out, “Yabba-Dabba-Doo!” when Canada Dry debuted this orange-pineapple-flavored soda in the late 1960s. In an instance of life imitating art, an episode of The Flintstones inspired the soda’s creation when Barney Rubble visited Fred Flintstone and grabbed a stone bottle of “Cactus Coola” from his refrigerator. Riffing off Fred’s favorite beverage, the can features saguaros amidst a groovy yellow and orange background. It’s still marketed in the Southwest by the Dr Pepper Snapple Group.
Phoenix Bottling Works
The company opened in 1884 as one of the city’s first beverage suppliers, bottling soda, sarsaparilla, ginger ale, syrups and cider. “There are few business houses in the city to whom the people are so grateful for their product as to the Phoenix Bottling Works, during the long hot summer months when cool drinks are as essential to their comfort,” declared The Arizona Republican in 1905. The venture had numerous owners and locations until competition from national brands led to its closure in 1938.
Valley Spring Beverage
“Don’t Be a Quart Short” was the catchphrase of this Phoenix company, which marketed soft drinks in 32-ounce bottles with an old-time prospector and his burro on the label. They produced 24 flavors, including Punch, Bitter Lemon, Lemon Zip, Sassy Grapefruit, Cola, Root Beer, Ginger Ale, Club Soda, Quinine, Cherry, Strawberry, Grape, Orange, Lemon-Lime and Cream, and nine diet varieties. The company, founded by Massachusetts native Barney Rozefsky, operated from 1949 to 1970.
