“I had a little drug business in Paris, Tennessee, just barely making a living, when I got up a real invention, tasteless quinine. As a poor man and a poor boy, I conceived the idea that whoever could produce a tasteless chill tonic, his fortune was made.” —E.W. Grove

When E.W. Grove first suspended quinine in liquid form, he knew he had something big. In other words, the ingredients in Grove’s Tasteless Chill Tonic were not soluble, but suspended in the syrup. It may not have been tasteless, but his chill tonic became an overnight sensation and a household name for decades.



And make a fortune he did, although while his chill tonic was still in the experimental stage, North Poplar Street neighbors in Paris sometimes became upset with Grove as odors drifted from his pharmaceuticals bubbling in a kettle outdoors. Ironically, some of these families, including the O.C. Barton’s, became millionaires after investing in Grove’s Paris Medicine Company.