Meet the Smith Brothers - William Wallace and Andrew Smith

The legend of the first cough drop in America begins in a family-owned, small-batch candy store in 1847 and continues with soothing relief that has remedied sore throats and coughs for generations.  Smith Brothers Cough and Throat Drops are a great tasting way to find comfort when you need it.

I have a tickle in my throat today and I wish I had a box of Smith Brothers Cough Drops; well, now they are no more and at the end they came in bags. Bags don't cut it. Though born in Poughkeepsie, Smith Brothers died right here in on the south side of Chicago. The box made them.

At one time, James Smith, a Poughkeepsie, NY candymaker from Fife, Scotland, kept his tasty remedy in sealed glass jars.   Smith had purchased the recipe for the cough drops from a peddler by the name of Sly Hawkins - if ever there was a great name, Old Sly had it nailed down.  However, he had a price for his healthy confection.

James Smith had cherry-flavored gold mine and two sons with canny marketing and public relations skills.  William Wallace and Andrew Smith took Faither's legacy on one very wild ride - from 1856 New York State to 2015 Brighton Park, Chicago:

The last Smith Bros. cough drop rolled off the factory line on Sept. 23, when an equipment malfunction shut down dwindling production for good. Smith Bros. was placed into assignment for the benefit of creditors on Sept. 25, an insolvency proceeding under state law that facilitates liquidating and distributing assets. Chicago Tribune

Back in the day, Smith Brothers dominated the market glutted with Ludens, Halls, Sucrets,  Cepocal, and others, especially the Swiss Ricola.  I loved Smith Brothers. Ludens did nothing for me. Cepocal meant you were dying of TB and Sucrets would gag a maggot.

The Smith Brothers were a testament to soothed toncils and as effective as crossed candles at  the wind pipe of the Feast of St. Blaise. 

I am sorry that this iconic box with the bearded Bros is thing of the past.

Perhaps, we might resurrect the brand. Write screenplay about the adventures of tee-totalling, pinch-penny William Wallace and his whisky tolerant and jovial sibling Andy during the 

• Civil War Camp Douglas - cough drops denied to Confederate prisoners
•  the Cross-Continental Railways competition
•  the Reconstruction of the South with carpet-baggers seeking to foist Ludens on driven-down Dixie
•  the Plains Indians Wars
•  the Rise of Captialism, and the coughing children of Mother Jones' March on the White House
•   Boxes of Smith Brothers in the haversacks of Marines defending the Legation at Peking from the Boxers
•  Smith Brothers and fellow Scot, Allan Pinkerton, unmask  and hang the Molly Maguires - no Green Lives Mattered back then
• Smith Brothers and the Knights of Labor 
• Smith Brothers sent to Panama Canal workers by Teddy Rex
• Jane Addams gives an Italian child Ludens cough drops and he dies and haunts Hull House to this day
•  Smith Brothers Cough Drops aid strikers  in the Stockyards Meat-cutters Walk-outs of 1904 and 1912.

Have Mel Gibson take namesake brother William Wallace, as he played Braveheart already and his little brother, the merry wee-Andy, could be played by the Wolverine - Hugh Jackman

William Wallace Smith - Mel Gibson





Andrew Smith - Hugh Jackman


How's that for Marvel-ous treatment.  Perhaps, Hollywood could do something useful for a change and get a good American product developed by an immigrant and his boys back on the shelves.  Look what movies did for comic books.  But, Please God, NO Stan Lee cameo.  The guy creeps me out. 

Smith Brothers, we hardly knew ye!