Guyanese consume about 1.4 litres per person a day of carbonated soft drinks, or ‘sweet drinks,’ which enabled the local industry to contribute US$668 million to the Guyanese economy between 2008 and 2018, according to United States-based Guyanese Dr Vibert Cambridge.
“That is not a chump change sector of the economy. It is a big part,” Cambridge said in an interview last week.
Cambridge, Professor Emeritus, School of Media Arts and Studies, at Ohio University in the United States, made the finding during recent research for a planned book, titled “Sweet Drink (A Preliminary Exploration of the Social History of Nonalcoholic Carbonated Beverages in Guyana, 1870 – 2020.”
His other findings include that Guyana exports such drinks to where it has a diaspora, such as to Antigua, Curacao and Suriname, and that Guyana imports sweet drinks from Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Suriname, and in recent years from Asia.
The research coincides with the 150th anniversary of the Wieting and Richter Ltd. cold storage and ice depot, which was established in 1871, and which was among the first manufacturers of sweet drinks in Guyana.
Based on feedback to his findings, which are being published in the Sunday Stabroek, Cambridge is planning to publish it in book form with additional information.
Why an interest in sweet drinks? Cambridge said that growing up in Alberttown, Georgetown, many questions about sweet drinks were always at the back of his mind. “Sweet drink was always in my consciousness whether it was small lemonade, large lemonade, I-Cee drinks or Red Spot. They were always in glass bottles, each of which was redeemable for a penny at the cake shop. As youngsters in the neighbourhood we would collect bottles from the fairs held from time to time in Woolford Avenue. It was a way of making a matinee bill,” he said.
Growing up, he remembers DIH (D’Aguiar’s Imperial House) having competitions involving the sweet drinks’ bottle corks, which people exchanged and sold.
A lot of the records of Banks DIH societal competitions were lost to a fire, he said, noting that observations about the state of the National Archives, “is another moment for us to recognise the state of evidence of the Guyana experience and think of strategies to deal with them.”
After retiring in 2016, Cambridge began the sweet drinks sojourn. He was unable to do field research in 2020 or 2021 because of COVID-19. From previous library research, he analysed photocopies of documents from Guyana’s National Library and the University of Guyana library.
“Doing a preliminary sketch of the story of sweet drink was a little bit easier in 2021 than if I had to do it in 2010. The preliminary history now represents some innovations in information gathering, particularly the use of social media, exchange of photographs, interviewing persons online and via social media, accessing archives and testing hypotheses, etc.,” he said.
Two weeks ago he requested by email, photographs of sweet drinks seen in local shops, grocery or supermarket. He received over 200 photographs which shows the sweet drinks people had access to in June of 2021 in urban, rural or hinterland Guyana.
“This is a new approach that we could adopt doing social research in studying Guyanese history and culture. The number of people I interviewed, who sent information, or clarified questions I may have had, was absolutely substantial. The voices I have heard is one of the rich elements of this project. One of the criticisms of Guyanese history, particularly the old colonial history, is that the voices of the ordinary Guyanese were never heard.”
The sweet drink story, he said, “is a testimony to the call to hear other voices that look at other sources of information.”
In the sweet drink heritage, the people involved in the business were not only Peter D’Aguiar, Clifford Reis, Komal Samaroo, Yesu Persaud and Demerara Distillers Limited (DDL) or Rahaman from Red Spot, he said, while noting that there were also ordinary people like Hamid Mohamed on Broad Street or the Jewish Eusi Willems in Golden Grove or the men at Belfield, Rose Hall or Bartica.
Cambridge noted, too, the more recent involvement of women in the industry like Banks DIH’s first human resources executive and the director of technical operations at DDL.
On Guyanese taking their tastes overseas, he said, “We see that acting out in sweet drinks found in communities with high Guyanese density.”
In Toronto, Canada, he said, “The West Indian Queen Lemonade, bottled by a Guyanese company called Bedessee, reminds you of Guyanese small lemonade. Similarly in New York Guyanese in Brooklyn and Queens could get a Tomboy small lemonade even though you stop getting it in Guyana in 2011. The family that owned Tomboy in Guyana still owns the brand and bottles it in New York.”
Looking at the Cola wars, he said, the sweet drinks story is about geo-politics. “Watch the story of Coca Cola in British Guiana or Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola in Guyana.”
Some people believed that socialism in Guyana and smuggling had an impact on the industry, particularly in the late 70s, when the economy went south, he said.
“That is sweet drinks. It is part of a tradition of my interest in those things about Guyanese life that allows us to see the common things that bind us together as opposed to the things that tear us apart. Finally it is to encourage a more nuanced understanding of our history and experiences over the long period.”
Cambridge said his interest in sweet drinks is rooted in the “long” Guyanese story and tied to his love of history and the Guyanese experience from his 1955 to 1961 school days at Queen’s College (QC).
“I had good history masters and good history experiences from masters, such as C. Yansen who stressed the importance of Guyanese Creole history in terms of the Guyana experience and what was created in the Guyana space as opposed to what was imported. Creole is not just about Black people. (Historians) Pat Dyal and Dr Robert ‘Bobby’ Moore were my history teachers.”
In Guyana, while working with the Guyana National Service and the Guyana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) between 1976 and 1986, he said, he was fortunate to have worked with the best historians and cultural thinkers like Sister Noel Menezes, Dr Jocelyn Loncke, Dr Ian Robertson, Dennis Williams, Joel Benjamin, his contemporary at QC, and Lakshmi Kallicharran, who greatly influenced his thinking on the Guyana’s long story dates back to the Ice Age for him.
“During the late 1970s and early 1980s, we were trying to understand Guyanese history and its cultural forms with projects, like the creation of the Folk Festival and national heritage days through the Guyana Commemoration Commission.
Cambridge was admitted to Ohio University in 1986 to read for his masters and Ph. D degrees, which he completed in 1989. He subsequently taught international communications looking at the role of entertainment and social change at Ohio University. He earned a bachelor’s degree in public administration at South West London College, England.
By the end of 2000, many of those he had worked with on the Folk Festival project in Guyana were in New York and had formed the Guyana Cultural Association (GCA) of New York. He joined the GCA in 2001 and was its vice president from 2002 to 2012 and from 2012 until earlier this year he was its president. He remains a member of its board of directors.
The GCA allowed him “to stay in touch and focus on things that are Guyanese that have validity or relevance in Guyana and in the diaspora.” In 2016 he received the Golden Arrow of Achievement for his contribution to the study of Guyana’s social and cultural history.
Cambridge is the author of Musical Life in Guyana: History of Politics and Control, and Immigration, Diversity and Broadcasting in the United States 1990 – 2001.
Between 2003 and 2006, he wrote a column, Celebrating Guyanese creative personalities for Stabroek News.
