Barq’s Root Beer is a New Orleans classic that, despite being long synonymous with the Crescent City, was born on the Gulf Coast in Biloxi, Mississippi.

In 1890 New Orleans–born brothers Edward and Gaston Barq began bottling carbonated water and soft drinks in the French Quarter. Edward had recently returned from France, where, according to a 1935 Times-Picayune report, he had lived in Bordeaux for thirteen years “engaged in the flavoring industry.”

Barq Brothers Bottling Co.’s first successful product was Orangine, a sparkling, orange-flavored beverage that won a gold medal at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. In 1897, five years after his brother’s death, Edward moved to Biloxi with his new bride, Elodie Graugnard, and opened the Biloxi Artesian Bottling Works.

Edward first bottled his eponymous root beer in 1898 (some sources date its beginnings to 1900). Brewed from the sarsaparilla vine, Barq’s root beer had a bubbly, caffeinated kick. His operation spread across the lower South, with distribution points throughout Mississippi and bottling plants stretching from Mobile, Alabama, to Helena, Arkansas. Beginning in 1934 Jesse Robinson owned and operated a New Orleans facility, Cascade Bottling Works, located on North Lopez Street in Mid-City. Over the years newspaper accounts have referred to Robinson as Edward Barq’s adopted son, foster son, and child born out of wedlock.

Robinson’s New Orleans–based brand, sold under the names Barq’s Sr. and Barq’s Root Beer, had its own distinctive recipe and bottle designs—red in New Orleans, blue in Biloxi. The original Barq’s of Mississippi was simply known as Barq’s, never root beer, to avoid legal conflict with Hires Root Beer, a Philadelphia brand that had sought and failed to trademark the term “root beer.”

In 1976 New Orleanians John Oudt and John Koerner purchased the Biloxi Barq’s brand and moved the company’s headquarters to New Orleans. Twelve years later, Coca-Cola began a takeover of the geographically dispersed Barq’s brands, a process that extended through the century’s end.

Today the unified Barq’s label is headquartered in Atlanta. The soda lineup includes the classic root beer flavor, zero-sugar root beer, red creme soda, and creme soda French vanilla. For many New Orleanians, a Barq’s is best enjoyed ice-cold with a po-boy sandwich from the blue-labeled glass bottle bearing the distinct diamond-etched pattern that Edward Barq patented in 1935. “Drink Barq’s,” the bottle’s slogan reads. “It’s good.”