Frostie
In 1939 George Rackensperger needed a bottling plant and rented an abandoned jailhouse outside Baltimore. The garage that had housed police wagons took the bottling line; the cells held sugar and bottle crowns. Frostie Root Beer went national from there.
The story
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1939
The jailhouse plant
George Rackensperger opens his bottling operation in a rented former jailhouse in Catonsville, Maryland. Bottling equipment goes in the police-wagon garage; the cells store sugar and crowns.
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1940s–50s
Frostie the Elf goes national
Root beer dwarfs every other product in the plant. Frostie grows into a national franchised beverage company, its bearded, icicle-hatted elf appearing on caps, labels, and signs in most of the country.
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2009
Acquired by IDI
Leading Edge Brands sells the Frostie line to Intrastate Distributors of Detroit, where the root beer is still made with cane sugar and the flavor range has expanded into cream sodas and lemonades.
Frostie flavors
Availability varies by retailer and season.
- Root Beer
- Vanilla Root Beer
- Diet Root Beer
- Blue Cream Soda
- Cherry Limeade
- Concord Grape
- Orange
- Pink Lemonade
- Strawberry Watermelon
- Green Apple
- Category Root beer, cream soda, lemonade
- Heritage Est. 1939
- Sweetener Pure cane sugar
- Ownership IDI house brand since 2009
The rest of the family
Want Frostie in your store?
We run our own trucks on our own routes across Southeast Michigan. Getting stocked is a phone call.