Vintage NOS 1980s Double Cola Bottle Cap 🥤 Chattanooga, Tennessee

Twice as Much Cola? 🥤 Vintage NOS 1980s Double Cola Bottle Cap, Chattanooga, Tennessee

Size: 1 1/4"

Double Cola got its name by giving you twice the soda for your money, and this cap still says it loud and proud: SINCE 1933, DRINK DOUBLE COLA. It's never been on a bottle, so the edges are still uncrimped.

🔍 What's on it

A red crown cap with SINCE 1933 arched across the top, DRINK above a big white DOUBLE COLA with the ® after it, and a curved line underneath like a smile. Turn it on its side and the skirt is printed all the way around: BOTTLED UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF THE DOUBLE COLA COMPANY, CHATTANOOGA, TN 37402 BY AUTHORIZED bottler. That's how the soda business worked. The company in Chattanooga made the syrup and owned the name, and local bottlers all over the country filled the bottles under its authority. The 37402 is a ZIP code, so this cap was printed sometime after ZIP codes started in 1963.

🥤 The Cola That Sold Itself on Size

Two former Chero-Cola men, Charles D. Little and Joe S. Foster, started the Good Grape Company in 1922 in Huntsville, Alabama, and moved it to Chattanooga that same year. In 1924 Little came up with Marvel Cola, the company became the Seminole Flavor Company, and Marvel turned into Jumbo Cola. Then in 1933 Little got the cola just right and put it in a 12-ounce bottle, twice the size of the other colas on the shelf. He called it Double-Cola.

They doubled everything after that: Double-Orange, Double-Lemon, Double-Grape, and in 1934 a Double-Dry Ginger Ale and a tonic water. In 1956 they came out with Ski, a citrus soda made with real orange and lemon, and in 1957 Double-Cola became the first major soft drink sold in a 16-ounce returnable bottle. Little sold the company to Fairmont Foods in 1962, the same year Diet Double Cola came out, and K.J. International bought it in 1980. The name on the rim of this cap, The Double Cola Company, is the one the business took in 1953, when Seminole Flavor finally named itself after its best seller. And Ski got its name from a contest: an employee named Dot Myers sent in "Ski" after a weekend ski trip on Chickamauga Lake.

Not everything worked. Little had Westinghouse build him a cabinet and refrigeration unit to get Double-Cola into vending machines early, but once the vending mechanism went in, it performed horribly in the humidity of the North Carolina textile mills.

📜 The Pepsi Story

And here's the one the company still tells about itself. In the hard years, Pepsi-Cola was in the same tight spot as Seminole, and Little had the chance to buy Pepsi. He turned it down because he'd rather keep pushing the cola he already had. Pepsi got out of bankruptcy and went on to pass them by. Imagine how different the soda aisle would look today.

🏙️ Chattanooga

Chattanooga was a soda town long before Double Cola. It's where Coca-Cola was first bottled under franchise, back in 1899, and Double Cola grew up right there next to it. The company celebrated its 100th year in Chattanooga in 2022.

📏 Details

• Vintage Double Cola crown bottle cap, red, SINCE 1933 / DRINK DOUBLE COLA
• Bottler's line printed around the skirt, with the Chattanooga ZIP code
• About 1 1/4" across, New Old Stock, never crimped onto a bottle
• You'll get one cap like the ones shown

🖼️ Drop it in a shadow box with your other soda caps, pin it on a board, or give it to the Double Cola fan in your life. They'll know exactly what it is.