The Vintage Soda That Was All Over 1940s Hollywood

Some drinks are pure nostalgia in a bottle; they instantly take you back to the good old days. Slice soda is one such soft drink (which, by the way, is making a comeback). But there's another vintage soda that taps into even older memories, by nearly a century. We're talking about Nehi, the colorful soft drink with a logo featuring a woman's legs — because the drink is pronounced "knee-high," as it's served in tall bottles.

That branding might raise eyebrows today, kind of like the old Tab cola ad that gave us the heebie-jeebies. While Nehi wasn't quite as problematic, it definitely made a splash in 1940s Hollywood. And we mean that literally. "Splash something great, splash a little Nehi," the jingle for Nehi Cola went, and Hollywood happily obliged. The drink quickly became a fizzy fixture in pop culture.

Hollywood's love affair with Nehi soda started with some of the biggest names in the industry, including Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Joan Crawford. And it became evident that the soda had captured the zeitgeist in a big way when the stunning Hedy Lamarr was featured drinking Nehi in huge ads across the country's drugstores. From there, Nehi was no longer just a soda; it became a star in its own right. 

Nehi's camaraderie with Hollywood continued long after the '40s, and the soda kept popping up across pop culture for decades. On TV, one of Nehi's more memorable cameos was in the hit series "M*A*S*H," in which the character Radar O'Reilly, played by Gary Burghoff, was often seen sipping a grape Nehi. Perhaps Millennials would be better able to remember the soda from the film "A Christmas Story," in which the iconic leg lamp was a cheeky nod to Nehi's original logo. 

The fizzy high of Nehi gradually flattened with time, as more competitors with some of the best soda flavors around entered the market, stealing the spotlight. You'll rarely find a mention of this drink in pop culture today unless the story or song itself is set in a bygone era. What's unique about Nehi, though, is that while most vintage sodas become a fading memory then completely disappear, Nehi soda continues to survive, though not thrive, in the mass market of sodas today.

Previously owned by Royal Crown, one of the oldest soda brands still on the market, Nehi now belongs to Keurig Dr Pepper. If you're a nostalgia seeker, you can get a pack of six 12-ounce glass bottles of Nehi for under $30 on Amazon or Walmart. That might seem like shelling out a pretty penny, but the trade‑off will be a sweet swig of the past and yesteryear's Hollywood heartthrob.