Wainscott Mysteries

I was hap­py to see the Ale‑8 Company rein­tro­duce Roxa Kola.  I found it very tasty, but it won’t replace my favorite soft drink, Ale‑8, the one I grew up with.

The com­pa­ny founder, G. Lee Wainscott, is a leg­end in Clark County.  I have a thick research fold­er on the his­to­ry of Wainscott and his com­pa­ny.  Much of the infor­ma­tion comes from pub­lic records and some is from com­pa­ny lore.  In a few instances, it’s dif­fi­cult to square the two ver­sions.  This arti­cle address­es a few of these “mys­ter­ies,” and rais­es ques­tions that have no obvi­ous answers.

Roxanne—The sto­ry goes that Wainscott named Roxa Kola after his first wife, Roxanne.  Wainscott’s first mar­riage was to Sallie Miller in Waco, Texas, in 1895.  After an unfor­tu­nate shoot­ing inci­dent involv­ing her sis­ter, Sallie obtained a divorce from Wainscott in May 1904 and had her maid­en name restored:  Sarah Belle Miller.  Wainscott then mar­ried Jane Rogers in April 1906.  Roxa Kola went on sale in the sum­mer of 1908.  It seems unlike­ly he’d name a product—his first big soft drink venture—after his first wife con­sid­er­ing all the trou­ble the Miller fam­i­ly caused him, and espe­cial­ly so after hav­ing remar­ried.  This rais­es the ques­tion: Who was Roxanne? 

George Lee Wainscott—The Roxa Cola founder is some­times referred to by the com­pa­ny as “George Lee Wainscott.”  He was born in Owen County and his giv­en name was Lee Wainscott.  He appears as Lee Wainscott in the U.S. Census of 1870 and 1880 and his mar­riage license in 1895.  At some point he added an ini­tial G. in front of Lee and there­after he appears in offi­cial records and news­pa­pers as Lee Wainscott, G. L. Wainscott or G. Lee Wainscott, the lat­ter of which is engraved on his tomb­stone in Lexington Cemetery.  I have nev­er run across “George Lee Wainscott” in pub­lic records.  Wonder where the “George” came from?

Roxa Kola—Company lore gives 1906 as the date Roxa Kola was intro­duced.  However, a Winchester News arti­cle in January 1909 states that Roxa Kola “has only been on sale about five months.”  Wonder what occurred in 1906?

Ale‑8 Naming Contest—Regarding the nam­ing of Ale‑8, Wainscott report­ed­ly went to the pub­lic seek­ing assis­tance and held a brand­ing con­test at the 1926 Clark County Fair:  “We don’t know her name, but a young girl said, ‘How about A Late One,’ because it was the lat­est and great­est thing.”  Nice sto­ry, but there was no men­tion of this con­test in arti­cles about the Clark County Fair—or any­where else in the 1926 news­pa­pers.  Wainscott was a mar­ket­ing whiz.  His ads and sto­ries about his prod­ucts appeared almost dai­ly in the Winchester Sun.  It seems log­i­cal that Wainscott, a tire­less pro­mot­er, would have got­ten a sto­ry about the con­test in the paper or in his ads mar­ket­ing Ale-8-One.  If the sto­ry were true, one would think, at the very least, Wainscott owed the young girl cred­it for the name. But I could find no men­tion any­where of the con­test or the girl.  Another mystery.

Then what is one to make of the mar­ket­ing dit­ties Wainscott used to pro­mote Roxa Kola?  One of them went like this:

Ashes to ash­es, dust to dust
If cocaine don’t get you, Roxa Kola must.

Finally, while search­ing for infor­ma­tion in the Sun, I found a sur­prise.  Wainscott briefly intro­duced a prod­uct that actu­al­ly con­tained “ale.”  In December 1933, only a few weeks after the end of Prohibition, a Winchester Sun arti­cle stat­ed, “3.2 Ale Placed On Market By Winchester Man.”  This 3.2 ale pro­duced at the Roxa Kola fac­to­ry con­tained 2 grams of alco­hol per 7 ounces of gin­ger ale.  “The drink is being mar­ket­ed under the name of ALE81.”  It was said to be “the first of its kind in the state,” but it was nev­er men­tioned again.  What ever hap­pened to this ALE81?

Maybe some­one can shed some light on these “mys­ter­ies.”  Wishing con­tin­ued fan­tas­tic suc­cess for Ale‑8!

Errata:  “G. Lee Wainscott, Part 2” erro­neous­ly implied that Wainscott had a Roxa Kola fac­to­ry in 1903.  His soft drink fac­to­ry did not begin pro­duc­ing Roxa Kola until 1908.