Key float ingredient often hard to find

Visitors to Scott's Iconium Store in Iconium, Mo., call Peach Nehi soda pop an elixir of joy -- not too sweet, not too fizzy, a perfect pairing with soft vanilla ice cream to create the original peach float.

But Peach Nehi is hard to find, especially outside of the South and Midwest, where the Nehi brand is approaching its 80th birthday.

Peach Nehi bound for Scott's store is bottled at a family-owned soft drink plant in Paragould, Ark., where bottler Herb Bland enjoys catching whiffs of the product: "I open it and I can just smell the peach fuzz."

By the late 1920s, there were more than 400 plants bottling Nehi products. The Nehi name reportedly was inspired by a salesman's comments about "knee-high" bottles. A popular co-owned product was Royal Crown Cola, which endures today.

Fruit flavors were cornerstones of the label, including orange, grape and peach; Grape Nehi was the favorite beverage of Radar O'Reilly, the Iowa-raised company clerk on "MASH."

Today, Nehi's brands are owned by Plano, Texas-based Dr Pepper/Seven Up, Inc., which is a division of London-based Cadbury Schweppes plc.

Company spokesman Kyle Rose said the Nehi brands have "limited availability in the United States and we currently do not have any plans to put a large promotional push behind the brand."