MEMORIES:
GuitarPlaya2000 remembers...As a kid, I didn't get the opportunity to chew Adams gum products, because my parents were Beech-Nut fans. But ... More »
Posted on 07/15/08
PHOTOS:
It’s hard to fathom childhood without chewing gum. Nostalgia just seeps out of the stuff. Maybe you recall the comic tales of Bazooka Joe, or the stick of stale pink stuff in a pack of baseball cards, or the gum that squirts when you chew it, one thing is for certain; chewing gum has its place in popular culture. Endless varieties of type and flavor are available. But you may not know how it all started, which is where Adams Gum comes in.
Actually, the story of Adams Gum (which, incidentally, is the first gum ever to be commercially produced in the United States) begins with the man who defeated the Americans at the Alamo: Mexican dictator, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. While living in exile in New York City, he decided to bring a bunch of chicle with him from from Mexico, hoping that he could sell it. A man by the name of Thomas Adams bought it from him, in the hopes that he could vulcanize it into a rubber substitute. He failed, but all hope wasn’t lost. Upon noticing that Santa Anna liked to chew the stuff, Adams deciced to add flavor to it and market it as chewing gum. The Adams Gum Company was born.
Adams started with a flavorless gum that didn’t sell too well. Undaunted, he added some sarsaparilla flavoring, which was better but still not what he was looking for. Finally, in 1884, he added some licorice flavoring and history was born. He called the gum “Black Jack” and after patenting a gum-making machine, started distributing his new product in packages containing five sticks each. He later introduced a clove-flavored gum and acquired a pepsin-flavored gum called Beeman’s, which was a favorite with pilots. Adams also introduced the first sour gums, in apple and cherry flavor. Oh, and let’s not forget another Adam’s favorite: Chicklets. This guy definitely left his mark in the chewing gum world.
For most of the century, Adams gums were widely available and quite popular throughout the country. Unfortunately, things changed in the late 70s, when an inundation of gums like Bubble Yum and Bubblicious took over the chewable market. Adams halted production of Beeman’s, Clove, and Black Jack due to slow sales. Fans of the gums were predictably devastated.
Occssionally through the years, and as recently as 2004, Adams has been known to surprise everyone and re-release some of these old flavors. So if you haven’t had the opportunity to try these distinctive flavors, or simply seek to relive some of your childhood chewing gum memories, keep an eye out. You never know when a pack of Black Jack might just pop up, ready to turn your tongue black and take you back to a simpler time in life, when there weren’t seemingly hundreds of flavors of gum.
