Dr. Nut was a once-popular New Orleans soft drink produced by the World Bottling Co. beginning in the early 1930s. Similar to the locally cherished wedding cake snoball flavor, the almond-flavored Dr. Nut brand enjoyed a brief reign as a city favorite before going defunct in the late 1970s.

Owned by the Gomila family, the World Bottling Co.—headquartered in the Faubourg Marigny at the corner of Elysian Fields Avenue and Chartres Street—produced several sodas, including the lemon-flavored Double L and the Besmaid line of sparkling beverages: ginger ale, sarsaparilla, celery phosphate, and others.

Dr. Nut stood out as the star of the company’s lineup, marked by its cheaper price than national soda brands and unconventional advertising campaigns. The latter included Dr. Nut–sponsored local sports teams, snappy slogans (“Delightful, Wholesome” and “It’s Delicious”), and, most notably, an unusual pair of mascot characters. Ads from the 1940s featured a man running down the beach, wearing only a monocle and bathing suit and holding the hand of a squirrel. In later ads the monocled man—reminiscent of Mr. Peanut but with an almond-shaped head—was dressed nattily and had his pet squirrel on a leash. More modern ads dropped the man and featured just the squirrel, which sometimes happily sipped on a bottle of Dr. Nut. It remains unclear whether Dr. Nut referred to the man or the squirrel.

In 1951 the World Bottling Co.’s assets were seized by the IRS for nonpayment of taxes. Dr. Nut subsequently disappeared from store shelves and coolers. Evans Howell, a soda distributor out of Baton Rouge, purchased and revived the brand in 1963. The new owner launched a cherry-flavored version of Dr. Nut, which did not find an audience. Dr. Nut appears to have again faded away by 1967.

A decade later, Jennings beverage distributor Fred Trahan of Bayou Bottling Inc. granted Dr. Nut a third act. Trahan introduced a new logo design and a low-calorie version, Dr. Nut Lite. However, by the end of the 1970s, the Dr. Nut brand ceased to exist.

Today Dr. Nut is best remembered as the favorite beverage of Ignatius J. Reilly, the protagonist of John Kennedy Toole’s canonical New Orleans–set novel A Confederacy of Dunces. However, before the novel was published in 1980, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction the following year, and gained legions of fans, Dr. Nut was no more. Thus, to enjoy a taste of the past, one must turn to Reilly, who wrote in his journal, “It is here in the Crescent City that I am assured of having a roof over my head and a Dr. Nut in my stomach.”