Popsicle Invention: Frank Epperson's Accidental Creation

The Frozen Accident

Epperson founded a summertime staple when a frozen beverage comes to life. It’s easy to imagine a modern-day inventor painstakingly designing the popular treat. However, it was a child who first discovered it — not a sprawling lab but a backyard. A young Frank Epperson from US left a flavored drink mixture with a wooden rod inside overnight in 1905. The overnight freeze birthed solid bars of flavors — the pop that needed a name. Epperson patented it as the Epsicle in 1923. It was later renamed the Popsicle by children. The name change may have been personally less memorable for Epperson than the accidental origin of how it came to be. Some brand names stick better than others.

A Big Invention From a Small Mistake

The popsicle’s tale is a beacon of opportunity in our failures. But can we, as a species, molecularly freeze flavor mixtures in the present? The present freezing process doesn’t involve the child’s backyard. We can’t capture nature’s work behind the accidental origin of popsicles. Simply leaving drinks in cold weather isn’t reliable. This is even if we could comprehend how competitive the market got. Thus, we can’t recreate the Epperson discovery. Instead, it’s a commercial process engineered today. This was done to meet the supply when Europeans got their hands on ice machines.

A Booming Cold Snack

How cold beverage staples were first discovered turns out to be an 11-year-old boy. His failure isn’t the only tale when researching our modern-day treats discovered accidentally. Epperson’s popsicle is the first of many be of frozen treats. It moved from the backyard to grocery store shelves. The rest is history.