The Fruity Vintage Soda That Is Hard To Find Outside Of The South

Man cannot live on Coke or Pepsi alone. (Actually, they can't live on any soda alone.) Just because Coca-Cola and Pepsi are the two most popular sodas in the world doesn't mean there isn't a whole world of soft drinks to explore. There are fruit sodas, root beers (now sassafras-free), cream sodas, and so much more. For more regional sodas, you may have to do a bit of traveling to find a bottle. Consider Nehi Soda, a brand of fruity soda that's still sold in the South but is pretty much unknown everywhere else. (The name is pronounced "nee-hi" not "neh-hee" as it might seem at first glance.) 

Nehi was originally a line of sodas from a company called Chero-Cola which was run by a businessman in Columbus, Georgia named Claud A. Hatcher. He named it Nehi because he wanted consumers to know that it came in bottles that were so big they came up to your knees. (The name sounds like "knee-high," get it?) 

The original line came in orange, peach, and grape flavors and the soda proved to be quite popular. In fact, within a few years, Nehi Soda became so popular that Chero-Cola renamed itself the Nehi Corporation. This wasn't the last time the company would rebrand, either. In 1951, after another of its soda brands became popular, Nehi became the Royal Crown Cola Company, aka RC Cola.

As the 1930s began, the Great Depression sent the company's value tumbling and threatened to drive it out of business. To make matters worse, right when the company seemed to recover, Claud A. Hatcher died; leaving the company in a great deal of debt. Thanks to the Herculean effort of Hatcher's successor, H.R. Mott, Nehi found itself in the black again and were free to continue selling their wares.

Shortly after, the company began experimenting with its marketing, including ads with a woman in a knee-high skirt which visually demonstrated the pun the brand's name played off of. One variation of the ad even inspired the infamous leg lamp from "A Christmas Story." (And we thought those Carl's Jr. ads were racy.) 

Then there was the giant bottle of orange Nehi on the side of the road in Auburn, Alabama, a free-standing structure with a staircase inside where tourists could stop and take pictures. It was torn down in 1933 and the lot remains vacant, but there's a small town nearby called The Bottle, Alabama. Nehi Soda isn't as popular as it once was, but you'll still be able to find bottles of it on the shelves in the South — you'll have to tell us if they come up to your knees, though.