Did you know that...

... Joseph Priestley was the father of carbonated drinks?

 

Joseph Priestley was a British philosopher, clergyman, teacher and scientist who lived from 1733 to 1804. Joseph was the oldest son of a weaver, Jonas Priestley, and a farmer's daughter named Mary Swift. Mary died when Joseph was six years old, and when his father remarried two years later, Joseph was sent to live with his aunt and uncle, the wealthy and childless Sarah and John Keighley. He attended Daventry academy and studied under tutors, as he developed a strong interest in chemistry.

His most important achievement was the isolation of oxygen by heating mercuric oxide. The gas we now refer to as oxygen was originally called "dephlostigated air".

But Priestley also discovered that the gas captured when fermenting grain (now known as carbon dioxide), when dissolved in water, produces the drink we know as seltzer. He received the carbon dioxide from a nearby brewery. Without this discovery we would not have carbonated beverages, and hence the beverage industry would not be the same without Joseph Priestley.

In 1772 Priestley released a pamphlet “Directions for Impregnating Water with Fixed Air”, describing how to carbonate water. The pamphlet was reprinted in 1945 by American bottlers of carbonated beverages who saw in it the beginning of their industry.