Irn-Bru: The Most Popular Soft Drink in Scotland

Irn-Bru is at the top of the rankings as far as soft drinks go in Scotland. It has the same popularity as Coca-Cola and Pepsi, and in fact it has at some point through the years over taken these drinks in the popularity department. The ingredients to the drink are a closely guarded secret. Only two chairmen of the Barr company that make the drink know what is contained within the can of soda. A..C. Barr PLC have also went as far as to put a written copy of the Irn-Bru ingredients in a Swiss bank vault.

It was first put into production in 1901 when it was called Iron Brew. In 1945 the company was told to change the name as any drink that had not actually been brewed could not contain the name Brew in it's title. The company Chairman decided to change the spelling so that the name was still pronounced the same, but the spelling was different. Low calorie Irn-Bru was put into production in 1980. In 1991 it was re-launched going by the name of Diet Irn-Bru, as opposed to low calorie. The energy drink Irn-Bru 32 was recently added to the list in 2006.

As well as the United Kingdom the soft drink is also sold in some parts of Australia, South Africa, the Middle East, Russia, Singapore, Canada, Ireland, and the US. Some people believe that two of the secret ingredients are seaweed and barley. I can see why people would say barley as it does have a barley kind of flavor to it. The A.C. Barr PLC company is based in Glasgow, in Scotland, and produces around 200 million liters of Irn-Bru per year. They also produced an orange colored candy bar that tasted very much like Irn-Bru, but stopped production in 2005. Also available in Scotland are Irn-Bru flavored ice-cream and sorbets.

The advertisements for the drink have caused some upset with many people complaining. They are meant to be funny, and most of the time that is just what the commercial is, they are fun to watch. However, people took offense to one in the year 2003 when they thought Barr's were being offensive to transsexual's as it showed a mother shaving her face at the end of the advertisement. It was meant to be a joke on how things have changed over the years, but some people didn't see it that way. I'll admit the commercials have been rather controversial over the years, but I think they were funny. Besides, it's all the controversy that sells the soft drink more. If you haven't tried Irn-Bru I would suggest you do sometime, as if you don't, you are missing out on a wonderful soda experience.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irn-Bru