Yes. Well I don't know where the best flavour of lemonade in an aluminium can has gone. All I can tell you is that I am devastated. Anyone with info can email me, gwizau (remove this antispam bit) @ yahoo.com.au
An update.. it seems that for now at least we can all happily drown in Tarax black label... the supermarket still stocks the larger varieties, albeit tained by plastic bottles rather than pristine aluminium.
Let us see if we can trace the mysterious disappearance then...
I haven't been able to find out when Tarax was founded yet. The earliest reference I have found was on the Bourke's Backyard site which mentions that aussie native lemon myrtle was used to flavour the lemonade during WWII.
Actually I have now found an earlier reference, this guy seems to think Tarax Sarsaparilla existed way back in 1912.
Another reference, in a webpage now taken offline but cached here appears to support this.
But wait, there's more... this history of Numurkah in Victoria mentions a cordial factory which existed there... "until 1902, when it moved to Bendigo and became Tarax drinks."
ASIC record searches indicate only that the business name has been registered since at least 1952, and possibly as early as 1937.
At some point around 1957 the CSIRO and Tarax worked on better cans, resulting in an Austrlian Institute of Food Science and Technology Award being scored by them.
Ah for the good old days when Australia was a nice place with a generous economy.
Also around this time a TV show called `The Tarax Happy Show' launched in oz. Originally I thought this show had been the one on which a 16y.o. Olivia Newton-John had appeared on, but a wealth of new information from one Chris Keating has changed all that.
Check out my new mystery of the Olivia Newton John Happy Show appearance page for exciting new revelations....
It all gets a bit corporate after that. In 1961 Tarax bought out the Consolidated Beverage Company, followed by Ecks Holdings in 1962. There is still an add for Ecks lemonade outside of an old milkbar in Prahran that I have to get around to photographing before it disappears... The next listing on the Australian delisted company website is for the takeover of Tarax by Cadbury-Schweppes in 1972. Before even this crusty x-gen was born! Anyway, this is supposed to be about the wonderful lemonade that suddenly disappeared from quality eateries everywhere sometime in mid 2003... In December 1998 coke set about purchasing Schweppes, under a deal in which Solo, Passiona and Tarax were to be sold off to some other entity. The ACCC opposed this acquisition. They did not oppose a subsequent aquisition, that of pepsi by schweppes, in 2000. (see here).
...but does anyone know what has happened to tarax black label lemonade? I am down to my last one, and things are getting pretty desperate i can assure you.
Rationally, one would have to consider that CS is quite heavy in lemonades. They have 7-up with their pepsi agreement, and their own schweppes lemonade to promote.. so it doesn't really make sense for them to be selling three versions of lemonade... but surely they could have scrapped the schweppes variety instead of the fair dinkum aussie taken over by massive multi-national tarax version!
Anyways, a phone call to cadbury-schweppes here in melbourne revealed absolutely no knowledge on behalf of those whose job it is to answer phones... i was informed that tarax was in fact another company, not affiliated in any way with Schweppes. dunderheads. I'll try them again next week...
Tarax Soft Drinks Main Road (Cnr Mc Arthur Ave) St Albans 3021 (03) 9367-6683
Why is it even called Tarax anyway? According to the 1989 OED: taraxacin is a bitter crystalline substance obtained from the juice of dandelion-root. So taraxacerin, resin of taraxacum.
From the treatsandtreasures website I have obtained this picture.
Interestingly, no black label. So when did it appear on the market?
Geoff Brooks from NSW sent me the following picture of a Tarax bottle he discovered near an old gold mine, with the follwing description:
"Tarax is spelled on the square dimples running down the bottle. The photo may not show it but the two white stripes above and below the label ( which seems to be part of the bottle or very good ceramic paint not really sure) the top line says “Greater Measure” and the bottom line says “Greater Pleasure”. The main logo says “Drink Tarax Icy Cold”
On the bottom of the bottle I believe it says ISV-550 and also has a picture of a crown, although it is a bit hard to read."
A picture of a rather nice old Tarax add turned up on Anthony Malloy's blog which appears to show the bottle Geoff found.
From various ebay postings, including from the Taiwanese ebay, I have managed to source these pics of Tarax bottletops and a glass mug...
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this page last updated 19th March 2004