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Anyone remember Sarsaparilla ?


peterinfrance

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In the early 50's my parents would take me to the pictures every Saturday night. Either the Woodseats Palace, Chantrey, Heeley Palace, Heeley Colosseum or Heeley Green. But by far my favourite was when we went to the Abbeydale and called in the Sass shop for a drink beforehand. It was designed like a pub snug bar and it felt very grown up and decadent to a 6/7 year old.

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I understand that the main ingredients of Sarsasparailla have actually been found to cause liver cancer.  I drank quite a few at the Temperance Bar on Abbeydale Road in the 50s but I’m still around. Maybe that’s because I didn’t follow it up with copious quantities of WAARds’s and STUOWENses. ?    But it felt quite “grown up” to park your push bike after a couple  of hours  “tracking” in Hutcliffe Woods and order “a pint please” when you were still only 15 years old!

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It was a treat to cycle over from Millhouses and have a ⅓ or ½ pint.  Just occasionally (very occasionally) I was flush enough to have a full pint!  This would be late '60s.  IIRC it was 3d for ⅓ pint, but my memory is a little hazy.  As I recall, the important thing was the return journey, after a pint of sasp you were ready for the loo!

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Yes indeed. I used to go to the Heeley Baths with my brother and friends around 1953 to 1955 and we often used to call in for a sarsaparilla afterwards before catching the tram back to Millhouses. We would have been around five to seven years old and I remember the owners being very kind people. Were they Italians or was that my imagination because of the exotic sounding and tasting  drink ? 

 

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The old Post Office on Bellhouse Road in the 1950's across the road from our house used to have an area towards the back where Mr. Carter? (think that was his name) used to serve soft drinks especially Sarsaparilla. His son cycled and quite often there were a few bicycles outside with the lads inside sitting on bar stool type seats partaking of the drink whose name I found intriguing but was never allowed to taste. The PO moved up the road next to Hoskins Chip shop after he died. 

Still never tasted it, am I missing something? 

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I've just been checking up, and it is the natural sassafras oil that has been banned.  The oil contains safrole which was found in the 1960s to be carcinogenic in rats.  Today artificial sassafras oil is used which does not contain safrole.

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Hi Everybody,

It's interesting to note the comments about readers going to the Temperance Bar on Abbeydale Road. I remember it very well, it was possible to buy a pint or 1/2pt of sarsarilla, my last vist was probably in the early 70's? I don't know when the bar closed but the shop is now Dronfield Antiques and Temperance Bar is written on the underside of one of the bay windows.

I also remember buying draught sarsarilla from the Temperance Bar on Attercliffe Common next to Banners. There was a shop at Heeley Green which also used to sell it.

In the mid 60's there was an American Cowboy TV series called 'Tender Foot' - Tom Brewster. It came from the same producers as Bronco Lane and Ty Harding (actor's name) would sometimes guest with Tom Brewster. Tom Brewster's drink of choice was 'Sarsarilla with a dash of Cherry'!

There was company who produced sarsarilla cordial in bottles, but I've not seenit for years!

Wazzie Worrall

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1 hour ago, Paul Worrall said:

Hi Everybody,

It's interesting to note the comments about readers going to the Temperance Bar on Abbeydale Road. I remember it very well, it was possible to buy a pint or 1/2pt of sarsarilla, my last vist was probably in the early 70's? I don't know when the bar closed but the shop is now Dronfield Antiques and Temperance Bar is written on the underside of one of the bay windows.

I also remember buying draught sarsarilla from the Temperance Bar on Attercliffe Common next to Banners. There was a shop at Heeley Green which also used to sell it.

In the mid 60's there was an American Cowboy TV series called 'Tender Foot' - Tom Brewster. It came from the same producers as Bronco Lane and Ty Harding (actor's name) would sometimes guest with Tom Brewster. Tom Brewster's drink of choice was 'Sarsarilla with a dash of Cherry'!

There was company who produced sarsarilla cordial in bottles, but I've not seenit for years!

Wazzie Worrall

Thanks for the memory, that was one of the many cowboys on the tele, one for every night. If I remember right he didn't want to carry a gun and used to get tormented for ordering non alcoholic Sarsaspirilla... was he a bit good with a rope too or perhaps I'm confusing him. Theme tune was Sugarfoot. 

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I seem to remember that the 'Mikado' drink shop on Stubbin Lane at Firth Park sold Sarsperilla. My father often took my sister and myself in the mid 1950s on Saturday afternoons when we had visited Firth Park Library (then lower down Firth Park Road) and we were often spoilt for choice between Sarsperilla and Vimto!! Mmemories of Firth Park and district in my book - 'Bottle Green Knickers With Pockets - Growing Up in 1950s Sheffield' monica.dyson42@btopenworld.com

Full cover jpeg 50s (1) (1) (1).jpg

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“Aunt Gladys” together with her sister, whose name eludes me, ran the Mikado drink shop. A select bunch of youngsters would occasionally be invited to watch BBC tv children's hour…in the days when tv ownership was rare. We would be given drinks and, sometimes, home made ice lollies *Mum and Dad got their own house on Littledale in 1952 only to return to Shiregreen in 1954…when I made a re acquaintance with the Drink Shop on my way home from FPGS.

*All of this in days when such behaviour with children was considered neither as suspicious nor threatening.

 

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