VOA · As It Is
Intermediate · B1–B2learner speed3:532025-02-25public domain
As It Is is VOA Learning English's daily news magazine. Each report covers a current story in clear, learner-speed English with a controlled vocabulary — the closest thing to real news broadcasts that intermediate learners can fully digest, and ideal raw material for dictation.
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01Most Americans know root beer as a soft drink enjoyed by generations of children and adults.
02But not so many Americans know that root beer has also played a part in shaping the modern food and drink industry.
03Root beer even has a connection with the famous Marriott Hotel business.
04Root beer is a sweet drink that is popular mostly in North America.
05Most root beers do not contain alcohol.
06Different root beer versions can be made from at least 30 choices of flavorings.
07These include vanilla, wintergreen, cherry tree bark, licorice root, black cherry, and cane sugar.
08Brewers who make root beer can also use flavorings like nutmeg, molasses, cinnamon, clove, and honey.
09Some versions contain caffeine.
10Root beer is considered a definitive American drink.
11This is thanks in large part to one man, Charles Heyers, a druggist in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
12In 1876, Heyers presented Heyers Root Beer at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition.
13That event celebrated America's 100th birthday.
14Heyers gets credit as the first person to produce and market root beer throughout the country.
15But Charles Heyers did not invent root beer.
16The Library of Congress has cookbooks that contain recipes from 10 or 20 years before he began to sell his version.
17Over the years, America's taste for carbonated soft drinks changed.
18Colas, like Coke and Pepsi, became much more popular than root beer.
19But root beer has been at the center of some big developments over the years.
20A leading hotel group began as a root beer restaurant in Washington.
21That little restaurant in the nation's capital grew into the worldwide company of Marriott Hotels.
22Root beer is also part of the history of the Sonic group of drive-in restaurants.
23The company began as a single hamburger and root beer stand in Shawnee, Oklahoma in 1953.
24Today, it has more than 3,500 restaurants across the United States.
25And yes, Sonic still serves root beer.
26There are hundreds of different brands of root beer and English-language websites that review them.
27David Fankhauser is a professor at the University of Cincinnati's Claremont College.
28He has a webpage where he has explained a way to make root beer at home.
29Fankhauser said, Root beer can be made with the materials that are readily available in America.
30It's a homebrew American product.
31I'm John Russell.
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