SOMETHING NEW UNDER THE SUN

I always celebrate the fifth of July, because on that day in 1883 the U.S. government granted patent #278967 for a formula of something that had never existed in the world before. The patent was granted for an invention that every one reading this has probably used at least once in the past year, and if you haven’t used,  you really ought to. It was the brainchild of an energetic young marketing genius with some help from his brother, and the invention made them both rich – even though their original idea was pretty much an also ran.

Out story begins with a pharmacist in London named Gustave Mellin. Like many other pharmacists of his day, Gustave was looking for a magic elixir that would make him rich. In the second half of the nineteenth century, all over Europe and America, ambitious young men were throwing chemicals into pots and kettles and selling the resultant concoctions to unsuspecting guinea pigs (aka customers). Some of these latter day alchemists killed people. A few got very rich.

It was an Atlanta pharmacist, Dr. John Pemberton (above), who cooked up Coke-a-cola in his back yard in 1886. 

And Caleb Bradham (above) of New Bern, North Carolina invented Pepsi Cola in his pharmacy during the summer of 1893.

But the guiding light for Gustave Mellin was Henri Nestle (above), a Swiss citizen who in 1867 made his reputation and his fortune by saving a premature infant with his own recipe of powdered milk and ground up wheat and barley.

You see, allowing the wheat or barley to sprout opened the seeds and made their protein which the plant used to grow,  available to humans. Reducing the sprouts in water stopped fermentation and produced a syrup which was called a malt. Reducing malt made a powder, which could be combined with powdered milk which made the milk sugars easily available to human digestion , and, Poof!  The formula for baby food. 

Gustav’s Mellin’s version of Nestle’s formula, which he inventively called “Mellin’s Food” would eventually become Nestle’s principle competitor.  And the success of Mellin attracted the attention of a young, dashing, handsome, ambitious Englishman from the tiny village of Ruardean, in Gloucestershire. 

James Horlick (above) began as an apprentice at the feet of the master, and what he learned from Mellin was that marketing was at least as important as the invention itself. Nestle’s warned that “impure milk is one of the chief causes of sickness among babies.” But Mellin fought back with free samples, and a pseudo-scientific booklet convincing new mothers his formula was better for their babies than even breast milk. But working for somebody else was no way to get rich. 

So, in 1873 James quit his job and immigrated to America, to join his younger brother William Horlick (above) in Chicago. And he took with him what he had learned from Mellin. Within weeks the brothers set up J&W Horlicks to market their new baby wonder food, “Diastroid”.  Okay, terrible name. Marketing problem. But the manufacturing had to come first.  

The perfect location was Racine, Wisconsin (above). Property values were cheaper than in Chicago, but the town was only about 75 miles to the north. Wisconsin was already famous for dairy herds. And wheat and rye were readily grown in Minnesota and both Dakotas. The town had plenty of clean water, an already industrialized work force, and easy access to railroads and shipping routes, via Lake Michigan. 

So, in 1877 the Horlick brothers opened their single story factory in town, making "Horlick's Infant & Invalids Food" and got ready for success.It was a little slow in coming. By now the baby formula business was very competitive and not the rocket to success that James had dreamed about along the banks if the River Wye, back in England. Still, in 1883, James’ preeminence in the field of baby food in America had been confirmed with the new patent. 

In 1890 James returned to England to be closer to the banks they needed to invest and to handle the international marketing of their infant cuisine empire. In 1908 James Horlick opened a new, much larger plant in Racine (above).

The publicity breakthrough came in 1909 when explorers Robert Peary, Amundsen and Scott all three picked Horlik to supply protein for their assaults on the North and South Poles (above). Overnight Horlick's food was in the forefront of the new "health food" craze. And it remains a popular health food item to this day. That same year, 1909, the brothers opened a new plant in New Zealand, to supply mothers and explorers down under with portable protein. But that was not the advancement that changed human life. Not my life, anyway. And this story is not about either health food or baby food.

You see, it was in the early years of the 20th century that the great revolutionary event happened. It’s unclear who did it first, but my bet is it was the new player on the stage. They were called "soda jerks" because in the early years they were required to jerk on the levers to dispense the carbonated water that was the main ingrediant of their trade. I doubt that it was an employee of Horlick who first made the discovery, else their name would have been enshrined in company legend. Besides, after all, it was a small step and may have been taken in several places at about about the same time.

Remember the Horlick formula was a concoction of dried just-sprouted barley malt and powdered milk, to be mixed in water or milk. And then somebody added ice cream, and thus was born the malted milk shake.

I doubt that most people realize that everything “malted” can only be made under license from Horlick’s, including malted milk, malted milk balls, malted tablets or disks and malted “shakes”. Malted is a flavor that is owned. It was invented. It does not appear anywhere in nature. 

It started out as baby food, then became a health food before it was added to ice cream to become a treat of magical proportions. And it gave all those soda jerks something to serve with the ice cream Sundaes they had invented, because carbonated water was considered too racy a drink to be served on the Lord's day.

But surely, before the judgment of God, the invention of the cold, frothy and thick Malted Milk Shake will count on the plus side for humanity come the judgement day.

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