Vintage Advertising: Lemon, Lime, Lithium

It’s not unusual for brand names to be shortened over time. Coca-Cola became Coke, Blue Ribbon Sports became Nike. And Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda became 7-Up.

It was created by Charles Leiper Grigg, who’d previously created two orange-flavored soft drinks: Whistle and Howdy. For Bib-Label, he took a different direction by using a lemon-lime flavor. He also added lithium citrate, a mood-stabilizing compound that today is used to treat bipolar disorder. In this regard, it was following the example of Coke, which originally contained small amounts of cocaine. Lithium wasn’t dropped from the formula until 1948, when the FDA took it off the market.

The drink’s revised name might have referred to the seven ingredients in the drink, but the word “Up” would have referred to the lift that its lithium salts gave consumers. Its arrival was well timed because two weeks after its introduction the Stock Market crashed and the national Depression began.

The label of the early 7-Up bottles made all sorts of claims: “Slenderizing … neutralize[s] free acid … Dispels hangovers.” And, in a reference to the mood-lifting features, the bottle claims it “takes the ‘ouch’ out of the grouch.”

This article is featured in the September/October 2023 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Subscribe to the magazine for more art, inspiring stories, fiction, humor, and features from our archives.