Lauren, I gave you the explanation for why they call it Root beer on the OT thread before we did the Bates watch.
Back in the old days when fathers were still allowed to bring their sons into bars(before they began checking ID's), the father would order a beer and he'd order a "soft drink" for his son. Soft drink meant non-alcoholic beverage, which is why sodas are called soft drinks today. The reason a root beer was called that was because it has a thick foam top like a real beer, even though it's actually a root extract-flavored soft drink.
And for your information, Coke(Coca Cola) was originally made to be a less-dangerous alternative to morphine, because Coke contained codeine, which is a drug that comes from cocoa beans. Cocaine and coffee also come from cocoa beans.
They eventually had to remove the codeine from Coca Cola because people were getting high off of it.
I like the sound of all those places you mentioned, Lauren,
