Cheerwine glass bottle next to a Cheerwine Goo Goo Cluster

Cheerwine, a North Carolina Tradition

If you grew up in North Carolina, you already know the color. It is not cherry cola. It is darker, almost burgundy, and it fizzes like it has somewhere to be. That is Cheerwine. Salisbury made it in 1917. The same family still makes it. We sell the glass original, Cheerwine Zero Sugar, and the Cheerwine Goo Goo Cluster.

Salisbury, 1917

L.D. Peeler created Cheerwine in Salisbury during a World War I sugar shortage. He was already bottling Mint Cola out of a wholesale store near the train depot. When Mint Cola’s supplier went under, he could have quit soda. He didn’t.

A salesman from St. Louis sold him a wild cherry flavor. Peeler mixed it until it worked. The name, Cheerwine says, was sitting in the glass: burgundy like wine, cheerful like the bubbles. There is no wine in it. Never was. It is a cherry soda that looks like it might be up to something.

By 1920 they needed a real bottle, not just a paper label. That year’s glass had three cherries and the name molded into the shoulder. Horse, wagon, and train gave way to a first delivery truck. Radio came next. The first slogan was “For Health & Pleasure.” It was 1920. Slogans were like that.

Peeler died in 1931. His son Clifford ran the company through the Depression. Grandsons Cliff and Mark Ritchie came in during the late 1970s. Cheerwine is still family-run in Salisbury. They say they are the oldest continuing soft drink still operated by the same family.

A nickel in a vending machine in the 1950s. A new plant on the Fourth of July, 1967. Cans in that same decade. Diet Cheerwine in the early 1970s. The last returnable eight-ounce bottles in 1989. Food Lion ice cream in 2002. A Krispy Kreme doughnut in 2010. Avett Brothers shows for charity. Then Zero Sugar in 2021, a NoDa Cheerwine ale in 2023, and a Goo Goo Cluster the same year. You can drink it without the timeline. The timeline is why the bottle feels like home.

Glass vs. the grocery can

Not every Cheerwine is the same bottle.

The 12 oz glass bottle is sweetened with sugar, just like the original! The cans, the 20 oz plastic, and the 2-liter use high-fructose corn syrup. Same color. Same name. Different drink.

We sell the glass. A bottle is 150 calories and 42 grams of sugar, with a little caffeine.

Cheerwine Zero Sugar

Diet Cheerwine was around for a long time. In 2021 they named it Cheerwine Zero Sugar. Same cherry idea, no sugar. The glass Zero is sweetened with sucralose and acesulfame potassium. Zero calories. Still has caffeine. No aspartame on that list.

The Cheerwine Festival

In 2017 Salisbury threw Cheerwine a 100th birthday party downtown. Tens of thousands of people showed up, drank burgundy soda in the street, and the city said: we should do this every year.

So they did. Every May, Main Street turns into a Cheerwine carnival. Smash Mouth has played. Sister Hazel has played. There have been Cheerwine floats, Cheerwine funnel cakes with Cheerwine icing, and — this is the one I still cannot get over — barbecue Cheerwine tacos from El Patron. Yes. Tacos. Cheerwine in the taco. I am still trying to figure that one out, and I am sad I was not there to taste it.

They say 2019 topped 50,000 people. Later years ran even bigger. Drink-sale money has gone to Meals on Wheels Rowan. 2020 went virtual. 2021 took a year off. Then the festival came back, because of course it did.

If you can go in May, go. If you can’t, the glass bottle is the next best thing.

Cook Out floats

You do not need a festival for this one.

Cook Out is Greensboro’s burger-and-shake chain. Cheerwine is in the fountain, and a Cheerwine float is on the menu: vanilla soft serve, Cheerwine on top. If you grew up here, you have probably had one in a parking lot after dark.

At home it is ice cream, cold Cheerwine, and a glass that can take the fizz. One bottle is a float. Six bottles is a weekend.

Goo Goo Cluster Cheerwine

Goo Goo Cluster is a Nashville candy from 1912 — nougat, caramel, peanuts, and milk chocolate in a round stack that never wanted to be a neat bar. Tennessee sits right next door to North Carolina. In 2023 the two neighbors did what neighbors should do: they made a delicious collab. Cheerwine cherry in the nougat and the caramel, still peanuts, still chocolate.

We sell Goo Goo Cluster Cheerwine in a 6-pack or a 12-pack. Bottles for the fridge. Candy for after.

Put it in a box

Cheerwine and Cheerwine Zero mix with the other bottles we sell. Six, twelve, or twenty-four bottles, and the box price kicks in.

Start on Fruit Soda if you want a mixed fruit box. Use Build Your Pack if you want every bottle to be your pick. The Soda Discovery Club is the monthly box we pack. Different thing.

A 6-bottle box is $29.99, which is also where free shipping starts in the continental U.S. Two Cheerwine, one Zero, three other bottles is a perfectly good mix. Cheerwine does not have to take over the whole box.

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