Canada Dry Gets Sued—again—for Not Having Enough Ginger In Its Ginger Ale

Canadian man of and for the people Victor Cardoso and his family had been drinking Canada Dry ginger ale for the health benefits of ginger. But they didn't taste any ginger. To be honest, when I drink the kind of ginger ale that comes in two-liter bottles, I, too, barely detect a ginger flavor, and I have often felt betrayal, deep within my upset stomach. But Cardoso is a bigger man than me, so he hired a big-time attorney in Vancouver to tackle Big Ginger Ale for purportedly not just being stingy about the amount of ginger in Canada Dry Ginger Ale but also for using a highly adulterated version of the product.

Despite the bottles labeling says "Made with Real Ginger" on them, Cardoso's lawyer, Mark Canofari, argues that this is misleading, reports Food & Wine. "They do buy actual ginger, but then what they do is they boil it in ethanol, and that essentially destroys any nutritional or medicinal benefits," Canofari said. "One drop fills 70 cans [...] and a drop is .05 ml. So that's how little, even of the concentrate, is actually in one drink."

After twenty months of legal wrangling, the lawsuit was settled for $200,000, but Canada Dry Mott's (the Canadian division of Canada Dry's manufacturer Keurig Dr. Pepper—I know, confusing) states it "expressly denies liability and is not required to change its product labelling or advertising for products marketed in Canada." Half of the money went to the attorneys involved, and Cardoso and another plaintiff are taking $1,500 each. The rest is being donated to a nonprofit.

Here in the States, the same company had to yield the phrase "Made From Real Ginger" for marketing purposes after similar lawsuits.

The facade of Big Ginger Ale continues to crumble.