Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
"Dorothy Louise Molter, lived for 56 years on Knife Lake in the Boundary Waters area of northern Minnesota. She was known as "Knife Lake Dorothy" or as the "Root Beer Lady", as she made root beer and sold it to thousands of passing canoeists in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, near Ely, Minnesota. Wikipedia"
She bottled 10,000-15,000 bottles a year and cut her own ice off the lake to cool it.
I don't know if this is the real deal anymore but they still bottle her root beer:
I always wanted to meet Dorothy once I read about her after our first of many Boundary Waters canoe trips. Unfortunately that never happened, but we did get to stop and walk around where she once lived, on Isle of Pines. Pretty much all that remains is a few flowers and a couple paths where her cabin once stood. I have spoken with a few "old timers" that had the luxury of meeting her and buying some of her root beer. Must have been quite a reward after a long day of paddling!
I grew up in PA and this makes me think of a great uncle (I think? that's what the family called him) - he tried making it and it blew up.
Indeed. Each batch was guaranteed to have a few bottles explode during the night. Particularly when we made the mistake of trying to use no deposit/no return bottles.
Sometimes, when opening a bottle, the pressure would blow the cap right to the ceiling and knock the opener out of your hand.
"Dorothy Louise Molter, lived for 56 years on Knife Lake in the Boundary Waters area of northern Minnesota. She was known as "Knife Lake Dorothy" or as the "Root Beer Lady", as she made root beer and sold it to thousands of passing canoeists in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, near Ely, Minnesota. Wikipedia"
She bottled 10,000-15,000 bottles a year and cut her own ice off the lake to cool it.
I don't know if this is the real deal anymore but they still bottle her root beer:
It's the safrole that's the controlled substance (used in the manufacturer of MDMA/Extacy), which is part of the sassafras. You can get whole chunks of the Root, and make a tea (good on its own). You could then carbonate it (sodastream?) to get as close to the old time sassafras drink. Root beer is more modern, all chemicals and additives.
Years ago, I tried finding recipes for real sassafras soda and root beer and was shocked to find that the crucial raw ingredient had become a controlled substance. Birch beer, anyone?
The commercial products are too sweet and still don’t taste right. I had had one bottle of homemade rootbeer, stashed in a school classroom where our bike racing club held meetings. Someone handed me the unlabeled bottle. Heavenly stuff.
Good luck finding or making it. And let us know how it goes.
Henry Weinhard is the closest I have found to homemade. It is quite good. If you can't find it locally, Amazon sells it. They make several old-fashioned sodas. I just love their cream soda.
I always wanted to meet Dorothy once I read about her after our first of many Boundary Waters canoe trips. Unfortunately that never happened, but we did get to stop and walk around where she once lived, on Isle of Pines. Pretty much all that remains is a few flowers and a couple paths where her cabin once stood. I have spoken with a few "old timers" that had the luxury of meeting her and buying some of her root beer. Must have been quite a reward after a long day of paddling!
I find it easy to believe that there was a real Dorothy who bottled her own and enough to sell. I have a very hard time believing that a lone person, woman or man, bottled 10-15,000 bottles a year AND cut their own ice. I've bottled stuff, and that is a LOT of bottles. Just think, 12,000 would be 2,000 6-packs. That would be 500 cases. At 10"x15", by 9" tall.
So, if a tractor-trailer's trailer is 28', by 8' by 9'? You could get about 8 rows across, by 12 or 13 cases on a level. That's 96 - 104 cases, not stacked, in a space about the size of an 18-wheeler's trailer. That is a lot of space. You could fit 500 cases in there, but that's a big space.
And cutting ice! They used to use horses and sledges to haul cut ice! It's HEAVY! And it was at least a two-man job, I'm pretty sure! It was definitely known as hard and heavy work, and only strong young bucks were fit for it. Not to mention that your ice house would have to be about the size of that trailer, or better, to keep you in ice enough to cool the bottles or even just to put ice in the glasses.
Nope, not a single person. If they said somebody supervised a family operation - or a company - ok. But for a single person it sounds like somebody's gilding the lily.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
