Root Beer: From Root to Beer? – Unknown Plant Flavors Series

Have you heard of root beer? I get the impression that it’s less popular than it used to be… Or maybe this sweet drink appeals more to children? In any case, imagine my surprise when I came across this beverage while doing my research for this series on little-known plant-based flavors and learned that it REALLY comes from a root!

But wait, Audrey! This is a Christmas series, right?

Marshmallows are Christmas treats. Coke, at a stretch, is still closely associated with the big red guy who invades homes on the 25th and who we’ve never caught! But root beer, what does it have to do with Christmas? Well, I’d like to tell you that it’s a good story to hear, quite simply! It’s incredible: trees that were almost wiped out, pirates (yes, really!), fortunes made and lost, and even a government ban!

Get comfortable with your favorite drink and your Christmas blanket: it’s story time!

Sassafras: the tree that was worth its weight in gold

Let’s start at the beginning: what is sassafras? (Yes, the final “s” is pronounced; no, it’s not a magic spell in Parseltongue.)

Sassafras, cherry laurel, or Sassafras albidum, is a medium-sized tree belonging to the ancient laurel family. What makes it unique? Its leaves! On the same tree, you can find leaves of three different shapes: simple ovals, mitten-shaped leaves (with a thumb!), and three-lobed leaves like a bird’s foot. It’s the only tree that does this, making it easy to identify.

But it was mainly its root that changed the course of history. When you scratch the bark of the root, the air fills with a spicy, almost sweet vanilla scent. This smell comes from safrole, the essential oil that gave root beer its characteristic taste.

In the wild, sassafras grows naturally in eastern North America, from Florida to southern Ontario.

The European sassafras trend

In 1586, Sir Francis Drake (THE English pirate/explorer/hero) returned from America with a cargo of sassafras roots. At the time, Europe was in the grip of a terrible syphilis epidemic and desperately seeking a cure. The indigenous peoples of America had been using sassafras as a medicinal plant for thousands of years, and Drake realized there was a fortune to be made.

And what a fortune it was! In England, sassafras became THE fashionable drink. It was called “saloop,” a dark, spicy tea that was drunk in all the cafés of London. It was credited with miraculous properties: it cured syphilis (in reality, not at all), it purified the blood, it cured just about everything!

In 1602, the price of sassafras in London reached the staggering sum of £336 per ton. To give you an idea, a small farmer earned around £2–£8 per year at that time. A ton of roots therefore represented between 42 and 168 years of work! A single shipment of sassafras roots could make a captain a rich man.

From piracy to extinction

Can you guess what happened next? It was a brown rush! Entire expeditions were organized solely to collect sassafras roots. In 1603, an expedition from Bristol set sail with two ships for the sole purpose of bringing back as much sassafras as possible. They found phenomenal quantities along what is now Connecticut. It was an enormous treasure: all you had to do was bend down or look up to find sassafras.

But here’s the problem: what people were interested in was the bark. And not just any bark: the bark from the roots! The colonists dug around the trees with shovels to pull out the roots, or they simply dug up the entire young shrubs.

Each sassafras tree could only be harvested once, after which it would die. The English settlers in Virginia shipped huge quantities of roots to England to meet demand… and get rich!

The result? Sassafras disappeared at an alarming rate. In 1602, the first shipment weighed a full ton. By 1626, just 24 years later, sources report that the colonists were struggling to find enough to make a decent shipment.

This great tree, master of its forests, was decimated, uprooted to the point of near extinction in many regions. It was an ecological disaster before the concept had even been invented.

From tree to bottle: the birth of root beer

But how did sassafras evolve into the root beer we know today? We have to wait until the 19th century, when the trees had grown back a little, and the arrival of a pharmacist from Philadelphia named Charles Hires.

In 1876, Hires presented his creation at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. The story goes that he discovered “root tea” during his honeymoon, a traditional Native American drink made from roots and herbs. Hires saw enormous commercial potential in it.

But here’s the thing: “root tea” didn’t sell well. It was his friend, Reverend Russell Conwell, who gave him a stroke of genius advice: “Call it root BEER! It’ll appeal to the miners of Pennsylvania!” And ta-da! Root beer was born. (And obviously contained no beer!)

Hires’ original recipe was complex and secret. We know it contained: sassafras (obviously), wintergreen (some of you mentioned root beer in the comments on the article about paparmanes: you were right, after all!), vanilla, licorice, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and a dozen other ingredients. Each family that brewed its own root beer had its own personal recipe, jealously guarded.

Hires, who was a marketing genius, claimed that his drink was The Greatest Health-Giving Beverage in the World. He sold it as The Temperance Drink, perfect for those who wanted to avoid alcohol. And you know what? It worked! In the early days, he mainly sold sachets of powder that people brewed at home. The company claims to have sold over a million packets by 1891, with ready-to-drink bottles of root beer only appearing in 1893.

1960: the safrole drama

Everything was going well in the best of all possible worlds… until the 1960s. Studies on laboratory rats showed that safrole, the precious oil found in sassafras roots, causes liver tumors. In 1960, the FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) made a radical decision: safrole was banned from all commercial foods and medicines.

Bam! Overnight, the main ingredient in root beer became illegal. Imagine the shock for producers!

But wait, there’s more! It was also discovered that safrole can be used to make MDMA (ecstasy). Sales of sassafras therefore became highly monitored. Today, if someone harvests large quantities of sassafras, the authorities will want to know why!

Is sassafras really that dangerous? For rats that receive massive doses injected directly into the abdomen, yes. For humans who occasionally drink sassafras tea? The risk is probably minimal. But the FDA isn’t taking any chances. And honestly, that may be just as well for this tree, which has already come close to extinction!

So how is root beer made today? There are three solutions:

Solution 1: Deafroled sassafras

Safrole can be extracted from sassafras using a chemical process. What remains retains some of the original flavor, but it is expensive and complicated. Some craft root beers use this method.

Solution 2: Artificial flavors

Most commercial root beers now use synthetic flavors that replicate the taste of sassafras. It’s less romantic, but it works!

And what about here in Quebec?

We in Quebec have our own tradition of plant-based beer: spruce beer! Louis Hébert, the first apothecary in New France who arrived in 1617, is said to have brewed this drink, although the first documented references to brewing in New France date back to 1620 with the Récollets. It was our local version of root beer, if you will.

The recipe? Simple: young black spruce shoots (or other conifers), water, sugar or molasses, and yeast. It was left to ferment for a few days until the caps “popped” under pressure. That meant it was ready!

Our ancestors were inspired by annedda, a coniferous herbal tea that Indigenous peoples had used to cure Jacques Cartier’s crew of scurvy during the winter of 1535-1536. Spruce beer, rich in vitamin C, was therefore both delicious AND good for your health. No need to go looking for exotic sassafras when we have our spruce trees!

A beautiful story

From pre-colonial America to London cafés, from decimated forests to FDA laboratories, from pirates to pharmacists, sassafras has had quite an adventure! A tree that was worth its weight in gold, that nearly disappeared, and that is now protected despite itself by a government ban: it makes for a nice Christmas story, doesn’t it?

Perhaps you’ll add racinette or spruce beer to your holiday menu to fuel the conversation? I’ll be back next Thursday (Christmas Day!) with another flavor mysteriously derived from a plant… But not the one you’re thinking of!

Huh? What? What are you talking about?

We’ll talk about it next week! On that note, I’m going back to my gingerbread factory… Stay warm and see you soon!