Cheerwine Review

Cheerwine was mixed up in the back of a Salisbury grocery in 1917, during a wartime sugar shortage, which is why it’s so heavily flavored it barely needs much — a burgundy-red, cherry-ish soft drink that is still family-owned by the Peeler family more than a century later. It’s a genuinely regional soda you’ll struggle to find far outside the Carolinas, and North Carolinians treat it like a birthright. Salisbury throws a festival for it, and the “Cheerwine float” (over vanilla ice cream) is a legitimate local dessert.