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 Firewater, Vernors, 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.

Cotton Club Thanksgiving Ad – Nov. 25, 1947

Thanksgiving is tomorrow, so it’s not too late for this holiday ad promoting Cotton Club Ginger Ale.

Sorry, guys, this ad doesn’t feature Big Ginger. After all, it ran in the Lorain Journal on November 25, 1947 – decades before she was even conceived by an ad-man.

But what the ad does feature is some ponderous advertising copy that lamely connects Thanksgiving to drinking Cotton Club Ginger Ale. Nevertheless it’s an attractive ad with nice typography.

However, seeing the bottle’s label – with the Cotton Club orchestra in silhouette – brought back a funny memory to me.

You see, that orchestra illustration was still on the label in the 1960s. And I remember that as a kid during that time, I used to think of The Mighty Hercules TV cartoons whenever I saw the Cotton Club label.

Why, you might ask? I asked myself the same question.

Fortunately YouTube had the answer. The super hero god appears in silhouette several times in the opening credits of the cartoon!

Say – if you’re a Baby Boomer, you might enjoy seeing the The Mighty Hercules animated opening sequence, as well as a full episode (which follows shortly after the opening). So get yourself a bubbling glass of ginger ale, settle back and enjoy! (It's actually not a bad cartoon.)

Baby New Year & Cotton Club Ginger Ale – Dec. 30, 1947

Here's a nice New Year's-themed ad for Cotton Club Ginger Ale that ran in the Lorain Journal on December 30, 1947 – 70 years ago! Looks like Baby New Year is planning on having a few highballs.

After all the posts I’ve done about Canada Dry Ginger Ale, I guess Cotton Club Ginger Ale deserves a little attention.

(When I was a kid, I didn’t realize that the image on the Cotton Club bottle's label was a silhouette of a band, or that there was a famous Harlem nightclub by that name.)

Cotton Club Bottling was originally a Cleveland company. Besides their Ginger Ale, the company also manufactured Cherikee Red, as well as 50/50, the half-grapefruit, half-lime soft drink.

Of course, Cotton Club Less Sweet Ginger Ale is well-remembered for the brand’s comely mascot, Big Ginger, whose likeness adorned the bottle’s label.

You can read more about the company's history here on the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History website.

In the meantime for your amusement, here’s a 1970s disco-themed commercial for Cotton Club Less Sweet Ginger Ale.

The Big Ginger label can be seen in this ad with a full lineup of Cotton Club mixers from November 19, 1975.