Saturday, January 23, 2010

Eventyr Brus


Eventyr Brus (I've also seen it as Eventyrbrus & Eventyr-Brus) is currently bottled by Ringnes in Norway. (Ringnes is also a Pepsi product bottler and distributor in Norway as well as the largest brewer of beers.) It's a soda* marketed once again for children and has a fairy tale pictured on its label. I haven't found a description of taste, but it appears to be fruit flavored.

The image above is apparently of the original bottle from the 1950s, perhaps even 1948 when the brand first appeared on the market. I imagine most of us can identify the tale as The Three Billy Goats Gruff since it is one of the most famous fairy tale exports from Norway along with East of the Sun and West of the Moon.

From what I can tell--and I could be completely wrong--this label is still in use or was until fairly recently. It is the one I've seen the most often around the web, but the Ringnes site has a different image, the one below which I had to screen capture. It's not very big and the illustration is hard to see, but it is obviously not the same label. Perhaps they rotate through a few illustrations but the label remains essentially the same otherwise.


That said, the image at the top of this entry came from a graphic design project entry on the Behance Network in which two students, Sofie Platou & Moa Nordahl, redesigned the label for a class project and I think did a wonderful job of updating the brand even if they left out the overt fairy tale references. I'm married to a graphic designer so these types of projects are always fun for us to look at together and share. Do click through to see the student designs. I'm not sharing them here to avoid confusion with the real thing versus a student concept project.

Once again, thanks to Eirin for sharing these brands with me and you...

*Soda, Pop, Coke or Other: What region of the U.S. do you live in? I'm a Southerner, raised by a Midwesterner who has lived in California, so I use soda and pop interchangeably. In Nashville, "cold drink" is also popular with some groups as a generic term for a carbonated drink. I personally don't use that one or coke since they are too confusing in most contexts. Nashville is too much of a melting pot for one term to be considered the dominant one anyway. But "pop" produced giggles whenever I said it in California.

4 comments:

  1. Cool. Well...um...I guess we Marylanders say soda then...at least in the north central region.

    I lovev East of the Sun and West of the Moon. I never heard it as a child, and I've gobbled up two retellings by Pattou and George.

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  2. Both labels are still in use. We have one of each in our frigde this very moment. The taste is refreshing and sweet. A hint og red raspberry.The other label shows little red riding hood. It is a bit strange that it is one norwegian tale, and one from Grimms on the labels, I think.

    I am amazed of how much information you´ve found.

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  3. In Pennsylvania where I grew up, it was "pop," and when I moved to New York it was "soda," and the years I lived in New England I often heard it referred to as "tonic." But nowhere, sadly, have I ever seen such intriguing labels as this one (Jones Soda Co. notwithstanding).

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  4. It was originally made by Nordlandsbryggeriet in Bodø.

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