Although he had built a network of nearly 400 bottlers by the mid-1920s, Howdy struggled, overshadowed by the rapid rise of Orange Crush, a rival orange soda from Chicago.
Grigg found his beverage under attack from rivals for its lack of juice and new laws forced him to label Howdy an orange-flavored drink rather than an orange drink.
Grigg spent more than two years experimenting with over 11 different formulas, all in search for lemon-flavored drinks before finalizing on Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda. The drink contained lithium citrate a mood stabilizer.
Manufactured by Grigg’s Howdy Corporation, this soft drink appeared for sale in the fall of 1929 in St. Louis, Missouri, just two weeks before the great stock market crash.
Initially available in St. Louis and successfully despite the poor timing, the name soon changed to 7-UP.
The lithium citrate was abandoned in the drink in 1950, as lithium was found to cause side effects such as dizziness, nausea and thyroid problems.
The origin of the 7UP name is disputed. Some theorizes that it came from the number of ingredients in the soda, while others say it came from the size of the 7-ounces in which the drink was first sold. Also there were a theory said that the name came from a popular card game at the time called 7UP and form a cattle brand Charlie Grigg saw one day.
In 1933 syrup sales topped 174,000gallons shooting up to 2,074,000 gallons a year by 1936, after Grigg’s post-Prohibition decision to start promotion his soda as a mixer that ‘tames whiskey’ and ‘glorifies gin’.
In the 1940s, 7-UP had successfully moved to the number three sales among soft drinks; only Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola outranked it.
Invention of 7 UP by Mr. C.L. Grigg