Tommyknockers (root beer)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tommyknockers is a carbonated soft drink that can presently be brewed and bottled in Idaho Springs, Colorado since 1859. Tommyknockers is best known for their root beer, made with distinctive ingredients such as mountain cherry, mountain maple and valerian root. Tommyknockers still distributes their products all across the nation.
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[edit] History
Tommyknocker Brewing has been around for a long time. Ever since 1859, the Tommyknocker Brewing company has made a variety of soft drinks, rangin from sodas (root beer), bottled water, and beers. Today, their two most sold products are their beers and root beer.
In 1859, the gold rush hit Colorado, bringing in thousands of miners wanting to strike it rich in an instant. In the very small town of Idaho Springs, business was slow, and people were simple. The gold rush chancged all that. Miners came crawling in from all across the world to dig for gold in the Rocky Mountains. Idaho Springs was the perfect location for mining, and hundreds of miners would stay in the Placer Inn at the time. With all of the miners, food and drinks needed to be brought in to raise the economic status of the small town. So, in 1859 was born the Tommyknocker Brewing Company.
Today, the town is not as lively as it once was, but is a well respected town with approximatly 1,800 people living there. The brewery is still alive and well. Tommyknockers beverages are being shipped all across the nation. It was always the beer that made Tommyknockers a household name for Idaho Springs. Today both the beer and the root beer sell in great quantities. The root beer is noticed nation wide, in people's homes, on the markets, and in contests, along with the beer. [1]
[edit] Availability
Tommyknockers root beer can be found nation wide, but in select stores. It is mostly sold in Colorado (especially in the Denver areas). However, the root beer can be purchased over the internet from the Tommyknocker Brewing website.
One select location is New Age Beverage, 1700 E. 68th Ave. Denver, Colorado. They stock both the root beer and the beer. [2]
[edit] Old Tommyknocker
Back in the days of the gold rush, the miners would come storming to the mountains in search of gold. The small town of Idaho Springs experienced the tommyknocker invasion of 1859. A tommyknocker is a mythical elf like creature who lived in the cracks of mines. It is said by some of the miners that they could hear the tommyknockers singing and working deep in the dark mine shafts and cracks within the walls.
The legend of the tommyknocker was brought to the United States from the immigrants who came from Cornwall, England. They believed in the tommyknocker legend, and passed it onto us. So comes the tale of two different kinds of tommyknockers. One kind was mischievous, who dumped out the miners' lunches, blew out their candles, and hid their picks and axes on them. The other kind of tommyknocker were the "friendly" ones. They would knock on the walls of the mines to show where the richest deposits of gold were.
There are stories of tommyknockers saving the lives of miners. One such story is of a miner who was caught in a deep pool down in a mine shaft. From no where, someone pushed him out from behind, and then a boulder came tumbling down right onto the pool, where the miner had been trapped. Today, tommyknockers are hardly known, but we can still see the image of one on the label of Tommyknockers root beer. From the legend of the tommyknocker, comes the icon we see today. [3]
[edit] Achievements
Tommyknockers root beer had been selling since 1859, and accomplished some things that other root beers have not. Tommyknockers is well known for it's different ingredients to make the scent and taste of the root beer much more enjoyable. Some of these ingredients are found in the Rocky Mountains, many of the wild plants are used in the creation of the recipe. People from around the world have commented on Tommyknockers beautiful scent and sweet taste. Such ingredients include mountain cherry, mountain maple, valerian root, fenugreek, St. John's wort, melissa, birch, licorice root, hops extract, malt extract, and maple syrup. The sugar is strong in this drink, and has a definite taste of maple.
Tommyknockers have won numerous awards in their beer, and their root beer has also won various prizes from around the nation in contests, and beverage studies.
[edit] The Showdown
On March 18, 2001, six researchers tested, tasted, and compared seven different types of root beer that were produced all throughout the nation, such as IBC Root Beer, Barq's, and Grandpa Graf's. This is known as the Great American Root Beer Showdown, and Grandpa Graf's was one of them. Among all the judges, they said that Grandpa Graf's had an average taste, and not the best among the other root beers. However, they graded the root beer 2.67 points in the first round. The other root beers in the showoff were Faygo (3.24), Pirate's Keg (2.93), Stewart's (2.90), Dad's (2.74), Big Shooter / Dog-n-Suds / Virgil's (2.67), and Route 66 (2.17), and Natural Brew (2.10). With a score of 2.67, Tommyknockers finished in fourth place out of eight (not bad). [4]
[edit] Links
Check out some of these websites which feature Canfields Products and Grandpa Graf's. Plus some other brands of classic root beers!
