Edward Charles Edmond Barq – the inventor of Barq’s drink

He was born in the French Quarter of New Orleans on March 4, 1871. His mother was listed as Maria Gevrgina Savonniere, born in Paris in 1842 and his father was Jules Auguste Barq.

His father was an attorney who processed Civil War claims, and his mother was a piano teacher. Edward Barq was one of four children, with the others being Gaston, Eugenie and Jules.

His father died when Edward was two and the family returned to France in 1884.

In France, Edward and his brother Gaston began to study sugar chemistry at the University of Paris. He interested in the science and art of flavor chemistry.

About 1890, Gaston and Edward returned to New Orleans, where they opened Barq’s Brothers Bottling Company. The brothers bottled carbonated water and created soft drinks of various flavors including its own formulated citrus-flavored drinks.

Edward Barq formulated an orange drink, called Orangine, which won a gold medal at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago.

It was Edward’s invention of root beer with its own distinct flavor that brought him success. In 1898, his company began manufacturing root beer.

His soft drinks gained popularity during the temperance movement of the later nineteenth society and claimed to have health-giving properties.

By 1902, he changed of the company to Barq’s Bottling Works. He had 62 bottling plants in 22 states, mainly in the south.

Edward Charles Edmond Barq died in New Orleans in 1943 at the age of 72. Edward
Charles Edmond Barq – the inventor of Barq’s drink