Ale-8-One Bottling Company has become a mainstay in Kentucky over the past century.

And honestly, it's one of my most favorite things in the whole world.

Founded by G.L.

Wainscott in the early 1900s, you'd be hard pressed to find a Kentuckian who hasn't at least tried the famous drink, but not many know that Ale-8-One was not Wainscott's first soda concoction.

In fact, there's another drink behind the origin of Ale-8-One.

And after a long absence, Roxa Kola has made a comeback.

Let's explore this drink's origin and the early days of Ale-8-One.

[music playing] [bottles clinking] When you went to school in Winchester, you got an Ale before you went to school.

And then after you got out of school, you got an Ale-8.

I thought I knew everything, a lot about Ale-8, but come to find out, I didn't know as much as I thought I knew.

G.L.

Wainscott was the inventor of Roxa Kola and Ale-8-One.

He is our founder, and he started with making fruit-flavored drinks and then Roxa Cola and then Ale-8.

He set the bar so high on creating a good-tasting product that we want to make sure we stay true to that.

So, the story I always heard about why G.L.

Wainscott founded the company.

Well, first of all, he was an entrepreneurial guy.

He was always trying to make a buck somehow.

He did some distribution.

He sold some beer.

He had that business kind of going.

And then one day, he saw one of these carbonation machines that carbonated water, and he just thought it was the coolest thing.

So, we decided, I'm gonna get into the soda business and actually started bottling and then started distributing that.

We brought Roxa back because Roxa is basically the reason why we have Ale-8.

Our founder, G.L.

Wainscott developed Roxa Kola in 1906, and he was getting sued for the Kola name.

So, as a backup plan, he made Ale-8-One and developed it in 1926.

So, we always say that Ale-8-One would not be here if it weren't for Roxa.

And so, bringing back Roxa is kind of going back to our roots and what started our company to begin with.

Roxa Kola is kind of a throwback to a Kola from about a hundred years ago.

It's kind of our own flavoring to it.

It's a little bit different than most normal colas.

Colas are very similar in terms of ingredients.

A majority of colas all include similar flavors, the cola flavor, nutmeg, cinnamon, citrus oils, and also vanilla.

To make colas different, you just mainly adjust the levels of each of those flavor ingredients, and you can move one up or down and completely change the profile of the product.

Roxa Kola is different from other colas because it is full sugar, and we kind of up the citrus and cinnamon so you get a nice citrus aroma in the beginning and a good cinnamon finish.

The line starts at the depalletizer.

We have pallets of glass that come in on layers, and the depalletizer deconstructs those pallets of glass by taking one layer off at a time.

From there, the bottles travel around to the labelers and we put labels on before filling, which is different than a lot of people.

Most people fill and then put labels on.

But we put our labels on the bottles, and then they go through a rinsing process where the bottles are washed out before they go to the filler.

The filler has syrup on one side and carbonated water on the other, and it'll mix two ounces of syrup with 10 ounces of carbonated water at the filler in about 600 bottles per minute.

And at that time, immediately after filling, the filler will attach a crown to the top, and then from there, it goes through a metal detector, gets a date code printed on the neck, and then it'll go through a warmer to warm the product back up because it's bottled at 32 degrees.

And then from there, it goes to the case packer, where it drops the bottles into the cases, and then to the depalletizer where it's put on a pallet and wrapped up and ready for shipping.

[music playing] Ale-8 is a very, very good supporter of our community.

We do projects as the Heritage Commission, and sometimes they'll come and help us out.

Of course, there's a plant there currently.

Anybody that needs help, they go to Ale-8 first, and Ale-8 is always good about responding.

Our community has grown up with it.

You know, economically, it's been wonderful for our community.

There was a whole lot of history and a great story behind Ale-8.

[bottles clinking]