Tuesday, March 1, 2022

Cotton Club Ginger Ale One Cent Sale – March 3, 1971

Pop (or soda, if you prefer) has been a recurring topic on this blog for some time, with fizzy posts devoted to Canada Dry, Pepsi, Wild West Sarsaparilla, Wild West FirewaterVernors, Cherikee Red Soda, Frostie Root Beer, and Cotton Club Ginger Ale.

It’s that last one – Cotton Club – that has a lot of people upset these days, because its products disappeared from store shelves last year. It used to be easy to find, being available at Marc’s and Discount Drug Mart. But suddenly the iconic Cleveland brand just vanished.

A string of comments on Reddit includes the observation that the brand has been discontinued. But I’m not so sure.

Late last year, I was standing in front of the pop display at Giant Eagle, looking for Cotton Club products, and ended up in a conversation with a gentleman who was stocking the shelves. He told me that the company that he worked for (Keurig Dr. Pepper) had purchased the brand, and were in the process of figuring out what to do with it. He assured me that it would be back at some point.

I hope that the brand wasn’t canned, because it was still very popular in the Cleveland area, especially its mixers. We’ll have to wait and see.

Anyway, back in March 1971, a special Cotton Club Ginger Ale promotion was being advertised. The deal? Buy 3 quarts of Cotton Club Less Sweet Ginger Ale at the regular price, and get another quart for only one cent.

The Journal newspaper ad of March 3, 1971 consisted of two identical copy blocks, with one stacked atop the other. Now that’s one way to get around designing a new ad to fit the space.

If anyone knows for sure what’s going on with this brand, be sure to leave a comment. A lot of thirsty Northeast Ohioans want to know.

One of the special 1 cent bottles,
currently on eBay

****

UPDATE

Bad news. I emailed Keurig Dr Pepper this morning to ask them what their plans were regarding the Cotton Club line of beverages. I had my reply by the end of the day, when they replied that “this product has been discontinued and we won’t produce this product in the near future.”

I’m assuming they meant Ginger Ale. I’m not sure about 50/50, which might still be on the shelves in Texas. We’ll wait for an on-the-spot update from Alan or one of our other Texas blog correspondents.

6 comments:

-Alan D Hopewell said...

I wish they sold it here in Texas; I still have a crush on Big Ginger.

Mike Kozlowski said...

...I wouldn't mind seeing Cotton Club back again, they had some pretty good flavors. I don't think they'll market here in SC though. (We DO see Vernors on a regular basis)

Mike

-Alan D Hopewell said...

I actually found Vernors twice here in Texas, probably shipped by mistake.

-Alan D Hopewell said...

Dan, I've never seen 50-50 here in northern Texas, but if it turns up, I'll let you know.

Meren said...

Cotton Club is the only Ginger Ale that I know of with NO SALT and is not made with that High Fructose Corn Syrup GARBAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
These Companies are So Stupid!!!!!!!!!! The people who bought Keebler refuse to bring
back the Double Fudge Sandwich Cookies, or the French Vanilla Cremes. Yet some of the Corporate pages like the Idea. You have Cotton Club, Dan Dee, the only thing that survived from Dan Dee was the Corn Twists that are better than Cheeto's any day.
some of the best Brands go by the wayside while stuff that tastes like Crap is still on the Shelves. I tried to put up a petition on Change.org

Meren said...

Vernors Sucks it really Really Sucks!!!!!!!!!!! That is what I am talking about.
Canada Dry's Zero Sugar version guess what it has more of than the Regular Cotton Club Ginger Ale SALT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I should probably Start a Blog
I did send a bunch of stuff to the crazy people who own Keebler got the Run around
all I got was a Coupon which I used for Famous Amos.