Moxie bill fizzes March in Maine

When I heard that state Sen. Peggy Rotundo, D-Lewiston, had sponsored a bill that would make Moxie the official state beverage, I had to run out and buy a bottle of the stuff.

I didn’t know what to expect, actually, having never tasted the soft drink before. Mention Moxie in a crowd and some people will say they’re crazy about it while others will tell you it may be the vilest soft drink ever concocted. A colleague of mine described it recently as a blend of burnt coffee and prune juice. There seems to be no middle ground when it comes to Moxie – it’s either yummy or yucky.

One gulp of the bitter, medicinal-tasting brown liquid and I was squarely in the yucky camp.

“Pretty awful stuff,” agreed Rotundo with a laugh when I called her Monday, shortly before the Legislature’s State and Local Government Committee was to hold a public hearing on her Moxie bill. “I tried it once, a long time ago, and that was enough. But that’s not to belittle the passion that many Mainers have for this drink.”

Rotundo got a taste of that curious Moxie mystique soon after submitting the bill on behalf of a Moxie-mad constituent, who thought it was time the state officially honored the exotic old beverage that was invented by a native son and once was the most popular soft drink in America.

“After I brought this forward,” Rotundo said, “so many people have come into my life who share that same kind of passion for Moxie. It’s really been fascinating.”

Since Moxie could become Maine’s first official beverage, allow me to share a bit of Moxie history gleaned from a few of the many Web sites devoted to this strange brew.

Moxie was created by Dr. Augustin Thompson, of Union, who began producing the drink in Lowell, Mass., in 1876, about 10 years before Coca-Cola came along. The drink, first known as Moxie Nerve Food, got its strong medicinal flavor and smell from Gentian root extract, still its main ingredient. It was touted as a “nostrum” that could help cure everything from nervous exhaustion to loss of manhood, imbecility, helplessness and even insanity. Thompson, soft-drink historians say, named his tonic after Moxie Falls in Maine.

In 1884, Thompson began to bottle the stuff as a carbonated soft drink, which became a big hit at the St. Louis World’s Fair of 1904. The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 prohibited Thompson from making medicinal claims about his beverage, so Moxie Nerve Food became simply Moxie. An ambitious national advertising campaign initiated by Thompson’s partner, Frank Archer, boosted Moxie’s popularity enormously. Horses and trucks, driven by Moxie Men, hauled 8-foot bottles through some 40,000 towns. In 1916, a fleet of Moxiemobiles – each consisting of a full-sized model horse mounted on a chassis -drew crowds and made converts everywhere they went.

Four years later, Moxie was outselling Coke. As imitators cropped up – Proxie, Noxie and Toxie among them – Archer added a jingle, catchy mottoes and celebrity endorsements that eventually made Moxie a household name and a word commonly used to denote pluck and perseverance.

When the Depression hit, and the company cut back on its advertising, Moxie started losing ground to Pepsi and Coke. Sales continued to fall nationally over decades, until Moxie, now produced by the Monarch Co. of Georgia, became known primarily as a New England beverage.

Yet Moxie lovers abound, as Rotundo found out when word of her bill got out. The Moxie Congress, which has members across the country, called to voice its support. So did representatives of the annual Moxie Festival in Lisbon, which draws fans of the beverage from all over the Northeast.

“People have mailed me Moxie pins and Moxie cans and a Moxie sticker that’s on my wall,” she said. “I have a bumper sticker that says ‘Moxie Makes Mainers Mighty.’ These people are excited about this bill.”

While the drink itself might not appeal to everyone in the state, Rotundo said, its name befits the nature of Maine people.

“The word ‘moxie,’ as part of American speech, means vigor, fortitude, strength of character,” she said, “and to me that summarizes what we think about the Maine character, the moral fiber that’s part of the Maine temperament.”

She said she’s not sure how her fellow legislators will respond to her Moxie proposal. She’s heard from some who think there might be other drinks – Poland Spring water, for instance, or even milk – that deserve the official state beverage title more than Moxie, which wasn’t actually manufactured in Maine. But she argues that you can’t say that someone has enough “Poland Spring” to tackle a difficult task, or refer admiringly to a mover-and-shaker type as someone who is “full of milk.”

“So I don’t know what will happen to this bill,” Rotundo said. “But with all the budget struggles going on, it’s nice to have something on the lighter side for a change.”