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7 Up

American sweet carbonated drink

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 23, 2026
Entity authorityQ270059
Source-derived summary

7 Up (stylized as 7Up) or Seven Up, is an American brand of lemon-lime–flavored non-caffeinated soft drink released in 1928. The brand and formula are owned by Keurig Dr Pepper in the US, and PepsiCo in international regions. Although also distributed by PepsiCo in most regions, the beverage is distributed in the UK by Britvic, PepsiCo's designated UK distributor. The brand competed primarily with The Coca-Cola Company's Sprite and PepsiCo's Starry.

History

7 Up was created by Charles Leiper Grigg, who launched his St. Louis–based company The Howdy Corporation in 1920. Grigg came up with the formula for a lemon-lime soft drink in 1928, and the product was launched a year before the Wall Street crash of 1929. The trademark "SEVEN-UP" was granted in 1928, and a 1929 taste test advertisement featured a flying "7up" logo. The name became "7up Lithiated Lemon Soda" in 1930–1931, as indicated by the use of a logo with tilted "up" and historical paper labels.

An oft-repeated story is that the drink was originally called "Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda," but investigative reports find little or no evidence that a drink with this name ever existed.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “7 Up” as american sweet carbonated drink. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1928, 1920, 1929, 1930—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1936, 1929—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. The account is most persuasive where American, sweet and carbonated can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as american sweet carbonated drink. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q270059. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1928, 1920, 1929 and 1930.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “7 Up”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow 7 Up primary sources, 7 Up archive and American research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “7 Up”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from 7 Up” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.