root beer

Root beer is a sweet North American soft drink traditionally made using the root bark of the sassafras tree Sassafras albidum or the vine of Smilax ornata (known as sarsaparilla, also used to make a soft drink, sarsaparilla) as the primary flavor. Root beer is typically, but not exclusively, non-alcoholic, caffeine-free, sweet, and carbonated. Like cola, it usually has a thick and foamy head. A common use is to add vanilla ice cream to make a root beer float. Since safrole, a key component of sassafras, was banned by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1960 due to its carcinogenicity, most commercial root beers have been flavored using artificial sassafras flavoring, but a few (e.g. Hansen's) use a safrole-free sassafras extract. Major root beer producers include PepsiCo, Coca-Cola Company, Dad's, Keurig Dr. Pepper, and A&W. History Root beer has been drunk in the United States since at least the eighteenth century. It has been sold in confectionery stores since at least the 1840s, and written recipes for root beer have been documented since the 1860s. In the nineteenth century, it was often consumed hot. It was combined with soda as early as the 1850s; at that time it was sold as a syrup rather than a ready-made beverage.