Soda fountain

A soda fountain is a device that dispenses carbonated soft drinks, called fountain drinks. They can be found in restaurants, concession stands and other locations such as convenience stores. The machine combines flavored syrup or syrup concentrate and carbon dioxide with chilled and purified water to make soft drinks, either manually or in a vending machine which is essentially an automated soda fountain that is operated using a soda gun. Today, the syrup often is pumped from a special container called a bag-in-box (BiB).

A soda fountain is also referred to as a postmix machine in some markets. Any brand of soft drink that is available as postmix syrup may be dispensed by a fountain.

The term may also refer to a small eating establishment, soda shop or luncheonette, common from the late 19th century until the mid-20th century, often inside a drugstore, candy store or other business, where a soda jerk served carbonated beverages, ice cream, and sometimes light meals. The soda jerk's fountain generally dispensed only unflavored carbonated water, to which various syrups were added by hand.

The soda fountain was an attempt to replicate mineral waters that bubbled up from the Earth.^{[citation needed]} Many civilizations believed that drinking, and bathing in, these mineral waters cured diseases. Large industries often sprang up around hot springs, such as Bath in England (43 AD) or the many onsen of Japan.

Although vessels to bottle and transport water were part of the earliest human civilizations, bottling water began in the United Kingdom with the first water bottling at the Holy Well in 1621. The demand for bottled water was fueled in large part by the resurgence in spa-going and water therapy among Europeans and American colonists in the 17th and 18th centuries. The first commercially distributed water in America was bottled and sold by Jackson's Spa in Boston in 1767. Early drinkers of bottled spa waters believed that the water at these mineral springs had therapeutic properties, and that bathing in or drinking the water could help treat many common ailments. Many types of mineral water are sparkling, and thus so were they when bottled.

Early scientists tried to create effervescent waters with curative powers, including Robert Boyle, Friedrich Hoffmann, Jean Baptiste van Helmont, William Brownrigg, Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, and David Macbride. In the early 1770s, the Swedish chemist Torbern Bergman, and (separately) the English scientist Joseph Priestley invented equipment for saturating water with carbon dioxide. In 1774, John Mervin Nooth demonstrated an apparatus that improved upon Priestley's design. In 1807, Henry Thompson received the first British patent for a method of impregnating water with carbon dioxide. This was commonly called soda water, although it contained no sodium bicarbonate.

The soda fountain began in Europe but achieved its greatest success in the U.S. Benjamin Silliman, a Yale chemistry professor, was among the first to introduce soda water to America. In 1806, Silliman purchased a Nooth apparatus and began selling mineral waters in New Haven, Connecticut. Sales were brisk, so he built a bigger apparatus, opened a pump room, and took in three partners. This partnership opened soda fountains in New York City and Baltimore, Maryland. At roughly the same time, other businessmen opened fountains in New York City and Philadelphia. Although Silliman's business eventually failed, he played an important role in popularizing soda water.

In 1832, John Matthews of New York City and John Lippincott of Philadelphia began manufacturing soda fountains. Both added innovations that improved soda-fountain equipment, and the industry expanded as retail outlets installed newer, better fountains. Other pioneering manufacturers were Alvin Puffer, Andrew Morse, Gustavus Dows, and James Tufts. In 1891 the four largest manufacturers—Tufts, Puffer, Lippincott, and Matthews—formed the American Soda Fountain Company, which was a trust designed to monopolize the industry. The four manufacturers continued to produce and market fountains under their company names. The trust controlled prices and forced some smaller manufacturers out of business.