Thursday, September 8, 2011

A Ruinous Thirst

"Have you any sarsaparilla in your store?" asked Stuart. "I've got a ruinous thirst."

"Certainly," said the storekeeper. "Gallons of it. Sarsaparilla, root beer, birch beer, ginger ale, Moxie, lemon soda, Coca Cola, Pepsi Cola, Dipsi Cola, Pipsi Cola, Popsi Cola, and raspberry cream tonic. Anything you want."

"Let me have a bottle of sarsaparilla, please," said Stuart, "and a paper cup."
E.B. White, from Stuart Little, 1945

5 maids a-milking:

Celia said...

that pipsi cola sounds fantastic. also, moxie is horrid.

lauren said...

birch beer always makes me think of the john birch society. oddfellows!

LPC said...

I went, as a kid, to some ghost town somewhere in California, somewhere hot. In the old bar they served sarsparilla. Tasted like root beer, if I remember.

Amanda said...

@LPC: It does taste like root beer.

I think @Lauren and I may have dug up a sarsaparilla root in our foraging tour of Central Park. Did we?

lauren said...

we did. i'd do it again.