Ramune Soda

Refreshing, fizzy, and fun! A Japanese soft drink in a wide range of flavors with a uniquely shaped bottle and its well known marble bottle cap!

Pronunciation: raa·moo·nay

History

Suprisingly, the history of ramune starts in London rather than Japan, with the invention of the Codd Neck Bottle by Hiram Codd around 1872.

Codd was looking for a way to lessen the demand for cork and designed a bottle that used a rubber stopper and marble to keep liquid in.

A common theory as to how the bottles made their way to Japan is that they were imported by Scotland native, Alexander Cameron Sim starting 1884. Sim was a pharmacist who used the bottles for a sweet carbonated beverage based on lemonade that was thought to prevent cholera.

The drink took off thanks to advertisements in the paper, under the name Mabu Soda (derived from the English ‘marble soda’). It was later named ramune, after the Japanese phonetic spelling of lemonade because of the original lemon-lime flavor.

Now the flavors range from familiar fruits to things like clam chowder. (Clam chowder not likely to be sold at J-Mart)