Royal Club is a Dutch brand of

soft drink A soft drink (see #Terminology, § Terminology for other names) is a class of non-alcoholic drink, usually (but not necessarily) Carbonated water, carbonated, and typically including added Sweetness, sweetener. Flavors used to be Natural flav ...

s 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 ( , ; ; ) is the second-largest List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city in the Netherlands after the national capital of Amsterdam. It is in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, part of the North S ...

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

tonic water Tonic water is a carbonated soft drink in which quinine is dissolved. Originally used as a prophylactic against malaria, modern tonic water typically has a significantly lower quinine content and is often more sweetened than the original medic ...

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 is water containing dissolved carbon dioxide gas, either artificially injected under pressure, or occurring due to natural geological processes. Carbonation causes small bubbles to form, giving the water an effervescent quali ...

. 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 Hillegersberg () is a neighbourhood of Rotterdam, Netherlands. Primarily a green residential area with lakes, canals and parks, it was incorporated into the city of Rotterdam in 1941. Settlement around its Hillegonda church was first established ...

. 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 (), or simply Heineken (), is a Dutch 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 February 1864, ...

-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 flavoured beverage, usually half lemonade and half beer or cider, resulting in a lower ABV for the finished drink. Shandies are popular in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the Caribbea ...

(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. Modern ginger beers are often mass production, manufactur ...

, 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 Heineken brands Soft drinks Dutch brands