The Boost soda history begins behind a pharmacy counter in South Jersey. On April 20, 1905, Benjamin Faunce was issued a pharmacy license by the New Jersey Board of Pharmacy and opened his first shop on Scott Street in Riverside. What started there as one of several house-made remedies grew into a regional drink that outlived its inventor by generations.
The Boost Soda History in Brief
In short, the Boost soda history runs from a single Riverside pharmacy to a drink still sold by the jug today. Benjamin Faunce mixed the first batches; the name moved from Tak-A-Boost to Boost!; and the recipe barely changed along the way. The sections below trace that story in order.
Benjamin Faunce and the Riverside Pharmacy
Needing more room, Faunce moved his pharmacy to 217 Bridgeboro Street in Riverside. Alongside his own cough syrup, headache capsules, toothpaste, medicated lotion, bile ointment and a wellness tonic, he sold a recreational drink he called Tak-A-Boost. In its concentrated form it was dispensed at the pharmacy's soda fountain and, at each customer's request, mixed with water, seltzer, or milk, served in milkshakes or poured as a topping over ice cream.
From Tak-A-Boost to Boost!
The Tak-A-Boost trademark was registered with the United States Trademark Office in 1913. Boost shops began opening in neighboring towns such as Palmyra and Burlington. Over the decades the name was modified several times, from Tak-A-Boost to Drink Atoast and back to Tak-A-Boost, before settling on Boost! in 1997. Through all of it the recipe stayed the same: a dark, flat, cola-style syrup with a citrus edge, sold to be mixed at home.
What Boost! soda is
Boost! soda has been offered in four forms, Original (with sugar and caffeine), Caffeine-Free, Sugar-Free with caffeine, and Sugar-Free without caffeine. It was sold in half-gallon glass jugs, with a red label marking the caffeinated version, green for caffeine-free, and a yellow burst for the sugar-free line. Unlike the carbonated colas that came to dominate American shelves, Boost! is non-carbonated: a concentrate meant to be diluted, a habit closer to the soda-fountain era than to the modern can.
Why the Boost Soda History Matters
Most regional sodas that survived the twentieth century did so by scaling up or selling out. The Boost soda history runs the other way: the recipe stayed the same, the format stayed the same, and the geography barely moved. That refusal to expand is exactly what makes the record worth keeping. A drink that could have chased national distribution and instead stayed tied to a few square miles of Burlington County is a rare, legible example of how local American food culture used to work, before national brands flattened the map.
It is also why the Boost soda history is so closely bound to a single family and a single town. Benjamin Faunce did not build a marketing empire; he built a pharmacy, mixed a syrup, and let word of mouth do the rest. The result is documented here in plain terms, with the dates and names that can be verified and no invented detail where the record runs thin. For the year by year version, the timeline below traces the same story from 1905 to the present.
The Boost Company and a Drink That Traveled
Though it was never marketed nationally, Boost! developed a following that reached far beyond Burlington County. The Boost Company shipped jugs worldwide for expatriates and homesick customers, as far as Italy during the Vietnam War era and, later, to service members stationed abroad. For many, the taste is inseparable from a specific corner of New Jersey, which is part of why The Boost Company kept it a curiosity to outsiders and an institution to locals.
That is the Boost soda history in full: a pharmacist's tonic that quietly became a regional landmark. For the year-by-year version, see the Boost timeline. To place it among America's other local drinks, explore the regional soda map and the archive of vanished soda brands.