{"product_id":"vintage-1960s-1970s-coach-four-tonic-water-label-philadelphia-pa","title":"Vintage 1960s-70s Coach and Four Tonic Water Label 🐎 from Philadelphia","description":"\u003ch2\u003eWho Mixed With Coach and Four Tonic Water? 🐎 Vintage 1960s Soda Label, Philadelphia\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 3 1\/2\" x 2 1\/2\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NFSx6C0XnpU\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eOf all the Coach and Four labels, I think this Tonic Water one is one of the sharpest: that little stagecoach, those clean colors, and two words on it, CONTAINS QUININE, that carry about four hundred years of history. Here's the story.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🐎 What's on it\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCOACH AND FOUR\u003c\/strong\u003e over a black coach-and-four silhouette, \u003cstrong\u003eTonic Water\u003c\/strong\u003e across the band, then \u003cem\u003e\"Contains quinine. Preserved with sodium benzoate.\"\u003c\/em\u003e and along the foot, \u003cem\u003e\"Bottled under authority of Coach and Four Products Co., Phila., Pa. 19117.\"\u003c\/em\u003e The back is plain paper.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e👬 The people behind the stagecoach\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Coach and Four name was first used on soft drinks on \u003cstrong\u003eJune 26, 1956\u003c\/strong\u003e. \u003cstrong\u003eSheffield Bottling Co.\u003c\/strong\u003e, a Philadelphia partnership doing business as \"Coach 'N Four Products Co.,\" filed it with the U.S. Patent Office that July and had it registered on \u003cstrong\u003eJanuary 29, 1957\u003c\/strong\u003e (trademark No. 640,759, for \"maltless soft drinks and carbonated waters\"). \u003cstrong\u003eHarry Labovitz\u003c\/strong\u003e signed as a partner.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn \u003cstrong\u003eJuly 11, 1969\u003c\/strong\u003e the name and its goodwill passed to \u003cstrong\u003eCoach and Four Products Company\u003c\/strong\u003e, a partnership of \u003cstrong\u003eHarry Labovitz and Arthur Labovitz\u003c\/strong\u003e, then on North 6th Street in North Philadelphia, ZIP 19140. The trademark was renewed in 1977 and lapsed in 1997.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNow look at the ZIP on this one: \u003cstrong\u003e19117\u003c\/strong\u003e. That's Elkins Park, in Cheltenham Township, just over Philadelphia's northern city line. Most of the Coach and Four flavors carry 19140, but this Tonic Water, the Ginger Ale and the Club Soda carry 19117, so the company printed labels from two different addresses over its life. Two printings, two addresses, one little stagecoach.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe whole Coach and Four line ran to ginger ale, ginger beer, tonic water, bitter lemon, club soda, sarsaparilla and black raspberry, a full lineup of mixers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e📅 How old is it?\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA five-digit ZIP can't be earlier than \u003cstrong\u003eJuly 1, 1963\u003c\/strong\u003e, when ZIP codes began, and the name printed here is the name the Labovitz partnership carried from 1969. Late 1960s into the 1970s, a real vintage Philadelphia mixer label.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🌿 Quinine, the reason tonic exists\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eQuinine comes from the bark of the cinchona tree. The Spanish learned to use it in the 1600s from the Indigenous peoples of Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador, and it became the first real treatment for malaria. In early 19th-century India, British officers and soldiers were told to take their quinine every day, and it was so bitter that they mixed it with soda and sugar to get it down. That was tonic water.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe first commercial tonic water was patented in \u003cstrong\u003e1858\u003c\/strong\u003e by Erasmus Bond of Pitt \u0026amp; Co. in London. Soldiers were already adding their gin ration to it, and the gin and tonic shows up in print for the first time in the \u003cem\u003eOriental Sporting Magazine\u003c\/em\u003e in \u003cstrong\u003e1868\u003c\/strong\u003e. Medicine became a cocktail.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eModern tonic is much gentler than the old medicine. In the United States the FDA caps quinine in tonic water at 83 parts per million. And here's my favorite bit of tonic trivia: put a glass of it under a blacklight and it glows blue, because the quinine soaks up the ultraviolet and gives it back as visible light.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🎨 A coach and four\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA coach and four is a carriage pulled by four horses, driven four-in-hand by one driver holding every rein. Philadelphia's most famous one is in the Philadelphia Museum of Art: Thomas Eakins's \u003cem\u003eThe Fairman Rogers Four-in-Hand\u003c\/em\u003e (1879 to 1880), which shows the engineer and coachman Fairman Rogers driving a coaching party through Fairmount Park. Eakins posed the horses from Eadweard Muybridge's 1878 photographs of horses in motion, so it's one of the first paintings to get a horse's stride exactly right. There's an old legal saying too, that a clever lawyer can drive a coach and four through any Act of Parliament, meaning there's always a loophole. A good name for a Philadelphia soda.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🏡 Display\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis looks great framed behind a home bar, especially next to an old tonic bottle or a gin bottle, and it's even better with the rest of the Coach and Four flavors as a set.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1960s-1970s-coach-four-sarsaparilla-label-philadelphia-pa\"\u003eVintage 1960s-70s Philadelphia Coach and Four 🐎 Sarsaparilla Soda Label\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1960s-coach-four-sarsaparilla-soda-beverage-label-philadelphia\"\u003eVintage 1960s Coach and Four Sarsaparilla 🍺 Soda Bottle Label Philadelphia PA Coach \u0026amp; Four Products Co.\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1960s-coach-four-black-raspberry-soda-label-philadelphia-pa\"\u003eVintage 1960s - 1970s Coach and Four Black Raspberry Soda Label 🐎 from Philadelphia, PA\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42127808790760,"sku":"VAG-7480507924712","price":5.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.3501092008_kxek.jpg?v=1785356459","url":"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1960s-1970s-coach-four-tonic-water-label-philadelphia-pa","provider":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","version":"1.0","type":"link"}