1 liter hervulbare PET-fles Royal Club bitter lemon, 1994

Royal Club is a Dutch brand of soft drinks and juices, mainly targeted at adult consumers. In commercials Royal Club products are presented as "drinks with a bite" for people with distinct preferences.

Tims

The brand was originally owned by N.V. Handelsmaatschappij v/h J.C. Tims (

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"Ne ...

). Tims produced three different flavours under the brand name Royal Club:

tonic water Tonic water (or Indian tonic water) is a carbonated soft drink in which quinine is dissolved. Originally used as a prophylactic against malaria, tonic water usually has a significantly lower quinine content and is consumed for its distinctive ...

ginger ale Ginger ale is a carbonated soft drink flavoured with ginger. It is consumed on its own or used as a mixer, often with spirit-based drinks. There are two main types of ginger ale. The golden style is credited to the Irish doctor Thomas Joseph ...

and

soda water Carbonated water (also known as soda water, sparkling water, fizzy water, club soda, water with gas, in many places as mineral water, or especially in the United States as seltzer or seltzer water) is water containing dissolved carbon dioxide gas, ...

. It is not clear when Tims started producing these soft drinks. In a 1953 advertisement Tims claimed the brand name had been in use since 1912 by Josiah Russell & Co., an English owned soft drinks company in Rotterdam- Hillegersberg. The latter company was officially taken over by Tims in 1949. Josiah Russell & Co. had a pre-war product called Club Tonic. It therefore seems plausible that the prefix 'Royal' was introduced by Tims in 1949 or shortly thereafter.

Vrumona

In 1969 Tims was taken over by the much larger

Heineken Heineken Lager Beer ( nl, Heineken Pilsener), or simply Heineken () is a pale lager beer with 5% alcohol by volume produced by the Dutch brewing company Heineken N.V. Heineken beer is sold in a green bottle with a red star. History On 15 Feb ...

-owned soft drink company Vrumona. Vrumona soon decided to extend the Royal Club product line. In 1971 three fruit based bitter soft drinks were added to the product line. One of these flavours, Royal Club

bitter lemon Bitter lemon is a bitter lemon flavoured soft drink. Its signature taste is a result of inherently bitter lemon pith being reinforced by the bitter alkaloid quinine. The principal difference between tonic water and bitter lemon is the lemon ...

, proved to be a big hit while the other two (bitter orange and bitter soda) were quickly discarded. Another hugely successful soft drink launched under the Royal Club brand name was

shandy Shandy is beer or cider mixed with a lemon or a lemon-lime flavored beverage. The citrus beverage, often called lemonade, may or may not be carbonated. The proportions of the two ingredients are adjusted to taste but are usually half lemonade ...

(1976). This product was aimed at responsible drivers who wished to abstain from drinking beer but fancied something with a beerlike taste. At that time alcoholfree beers were hardly available in the Netherlands. In the late 1970s Royal Club Shandy was also a favourite drink among kids who were not yet allowed to drink beer. Royal Club Shandy is still being produced today, though its alcohol content (0.5%) is half of what it used to be (originally 0,9%, later 1%). In 2020 the Royal Club product line was extended with a

ginger beer Traditional ginger beer is a sweetened and carbonated, usually non-alcoholic beverage. Historically it was produced by the natural fermentation of prepared ginger spice, yeast and sugar. Current ginger beers are often manufactured rather than ...

, that has a slightly cloudy appearance and a spicier flavour than Royal Club ginger ale.

Juices

In 1987 the brand name Royal Club was also attached to a product line of juices, previously marketed by Vrumona under the brand name B3. In 2001 Vrumona had to recall all 1 liter glass bottles Royal Club Fruits de Pays orange juice. These bottles contained too much yeast, thereby enhancing the risk of explosion.

Since 1939

On its website Vrumona claims that the Royal Club brand was launched in 1939. In recent years the phrase "since 1939" has also appeared on all Royal Club labels, cans, packaging and display materials. In 2018 even a line of "natural sodas" in one-way single serve bottles was introduced under the name Royal Club 1939, with the year typefaced most boldly on the labels. This claim for 1939 is derived from the Benelux Trade Marks Register which states that the word brand Royal Club was registered in 1939. There has however never been presented any factual of physical proof (in the form of bottle labels, crown corks, advertisements, etc.) of pre-war Dutch soft drinks under the brand name Royal Club.

References

External links

* {{Heineken International Soft drinks Dutch brands Heineken brands