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Anyone remember Sarsaparilla ?


peterinfrance

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I am not certain but I seem to remember that this was one of the "penny drinks" available

at a local sweetshop near to Heely Bank School which I attended in the 1950's.

I have never heard or seem of it since so maybe I am mistaken. I am sure that someone

will shed some light on this.

 

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I have a vague recollection of this shop, but I was only a toddler in the early 60's. I seem to remember stopping off with my mum and the drink coming out of a tap, not a bottle.

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A group of us 15 year olds used to go to a "Temperance Tavern" near the Abbeydale Cinema for a pint of Sarsaparilla. The owner claimed he brewed it himself. It was dispensed from a hand pump like those used to dispense beer into pint glasses. I think the shop front still has "Temperance Tavern" on the front below the shop window.  

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10 minutes ago, Old rider said:

A group of us 15 year olds used to go to a "Temperance Tavern" near the Abbeydale Cinema for a pint of Sarsaparilla. The owner claimed he brewed it himself. It was dispensed from a hand pump like those used to dispense beer into pint glasses. I think the shop front still has "Temperance Tavern" on the front below the shop window.  

Temperance Bar On Abbeydale Road

 

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On 18 July 2017 at 20:46, peterinfrance said:

I am not certain but I seem to remember that this was one of the "penny drinks" available

at a local sweetshop near to Heely Bank School which I attended in the 1950's.

I have never heard or seem of it since so maybe I am mistaken. I am sure that someone

will shed some light on this.

 

I think the shop you are thinking of was roughly opposite the Roundhouse / Victoria Pub, the shop was still there in the sixties and besides Sassparilla they sold other drinks and warm salted peanuts and cashew nuts. Happy days.

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Didn't they also sell frozen Jubbly's. they were orange flavoured drinks packaged in what I think is a tetrahedron shape.  (see picture)

Jubbly.jpg

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Jacks on Langsett Road used to interest me as a kid when we sometimes walked that way after the Wednesday game.  Used to save the bus fare and walk to the station so we could buy a Green un in town.   When did it close, think it was still there in the 80's

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Aunt Gladys at her Mikado drink shop at Firth Park advertised Sarsparilla on a pre-war advert in the window but I never recall her selling any. Isn't sarsaparilla now known as root beer? 

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I well remember the sarsaparilla shop near the Abbeydale Cinema in the early 60's. I used to ride on my bike there with empty pop bottles to be filled up for my aunty and uncle who lived on Boyton Street at Heeley

There was also a sarsaparilla shop opposite the Rotherham United football ground in the late 1960's

The last time I had draft Sarsaparilla was whilst touring in America 15 years ago when I stopped at a small town in the middle of nowhere for my dinner and came across a drinks shop that sold all sorts of herbal drinks.

You can still get bottle of sarsaparilla at some garden centre in cordial bottle to dilute.

Root beer and sarsaparilla are similar, but are different drinks altogether. Sarsaparilla is much the better drink.

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7 hours ago, lysander said:

Aunt Gladys at her Mikado drink shop at Firth Park advertised Sarsparilla on a pre-war advert in the window but I never recall her selling any. Isn't sarsaparilla now known as root beer? 

I remember going into a shop at Firth Park on Stubbin Lane for Sarsaparilla it was at the side of the Fishing Tackle Shop but i dont recall the name .

 

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Mr  Norman Exley opened the fishing tackle shop in the early 1950's and it was next to The Mikado. I left Firth Park in 1952 so the drink may have gone "on stream" after I left. The Mikado used to make their own ice lollies for a few "favoured" kids...long before they were generally available...but I remember you could always get an ice Joystick at the Saturday afternoon matinee.

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Reading a little about the drink I noted that its diuretic properties was believed by Cowboys to be cure for venereal disease!

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On 7/22/2017 at 21:00, 31dec1966 said:

Jacks on Langsett Road used to interest me as a kid when we sometimes walked that way after the Wednesday game.  Used to save the bus fare and walk to the station so we could buy a Green un in town.   When did it close, think it was still there in the 80's

Take a look here

http://www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;s31299&pos=196&action=zoom&id=103685

 

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  There was a sweet shop half way up Barber Road pre W.W.2, just below Bower Road. Very convenient as we lived across in Barber Crescent. That was a regular call on a hot day. With 3d. pocket money there was some careful deliberation first though.

   Then in 1939 we moved to Hunters Bar. I never found anyone there who sold it but somebody will tell me what I missed

 

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On 19/07/2017 at 15:46, Old rider said:

A group of us 15 year olds used to go to a "Temperance Tavern" near the Abbeydale Cinema for a pint of Sarsaparilla. The owner claimed he brewed it himself. It was dispensed from a hand pump like those used to dispense beer into pint glasses. I think the shop front still has "Temperance Tavern" on the front below the shop window.  

I would occasionally walk down there at lunch time with my school mates from Brincliffe Grammar, Nether Edge, for half a pint of Sarsaparilla. It would be mid '60s. 

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I remember the Abbeydale Rd Temperance Bar, next to the cinema, it's now Dronfield Antiques - wonderful! There was also a sarsaparilla shop at Heeley Green. However the one which always sticks in my mind was on Attercliffe Common near to Banners, brilliant!

Wazzie Worrall

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On 2/14/2018 at 18:39, Paul Worrall said:

I remember the Abbeydale Rd Temperance Bar, next to the cinema, it's now Dronfield Antiques - wonderful! There was also a sarsaparilla shop at Heeley Green. However the one which always sticks in my mind was on Attercliffe Common near to Banners, brilliant!

Wazzie Worrall

Used to live on Kent Road, just round the corner from the Heeley Green 'drink shop', so went in there a few times.

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Went regularly to the Abbeydale Rd ‘ Sass Shop’ 

Often after a trip to Abbeydale Pictures, Heeley Baths or trainspotting at Millhouses Sheds.

Never seemed to have enough go buy a six penny one which was served in a dimpled, handled beer glass.

i remember years later taking my kids to an early McDonalds and saying you’ve got to try the Root Beer cos that’s Sarsaparilla like I used to have. It was vile. Tasted like mouthwash.

I once bought some cordial but that was nothing like it either. The taste of real draught Sarsaparilla is now consigned to tastes of my childhood never to be experienced again.

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We used to go to Jacks Sarsparilla shop on Langsett Road, around the top of Bamforth Street, it also had a an American Football pinball machine (think it was called Doozie), Sarsparilla  was served in dimpled glassess 

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On 14/03/2018 at 09:50, paulhib48 said:

 

i remember years later taking my kids to an early McDonalds and saying you’ve got to try the Root Beer cos that’s Sarsaparilla like I used to have. It was vile. Tasted like mouthwash.

.

You found something which you could taste in a McDonald's? Aren't you the lucky one?

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Loved it, there used to be a drinks type shop on Spital hill back in the 50's had a juke box that took theepenny bits and a pin ball machine and they sold Sarsaparilla for fourpence a pint, used to believe we were grown ups drinking pints in there.

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On 16/03/2018 at 15:52, southernblues said:

We used to go to Jacks Sarsparilla shop on Langsett Road, around the top of Bamforth Street, it also had a an American Football pinball machine (think it was called Doozie), Sarsparilla  was served in dimpled glassess 

With a shot of blood tonic.

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I remember the "Sass" shop near Abbeydale Cinema. A few of us used to walk down there from Brincliffe Grammar to sample a pint of Sarsaparilla. That was in the late 1950s/early 1960s. The taste was a sort of cross between licorice & very mild garlic. The shop closed in around 1971.

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After scouts we used to go to the fish and chip shop at Malin Bridge and they sold sarsparillo but I never had enough money to try it. Couldn't forgo the chips

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