Tizer

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Can of Tizer

Tizer is a red soft drink from the United Kingdom with a very sweet and slightly fruity taste. The name comes from the word appetizer. It was launched in 1924 by Fred Pickup of Manchester. After the death of Pickup it was owned by the Armour Trust before being sold to A.G. Barr plc (the makers of Irn-Bru) for £2.5 million in 1972.

Tizer famously produced a product called 'Tizer Ice' in the late 1990s. The concept of Tizer Ice was that the drink would taste ice cold even at room temperature. This was done by adding menthol to the product to create a cold sensation in the mouth whilst drinking. Tizer Ice didn't sell well and was swiftly removed from sale, despite being rebranded "Ice by Tizer" towards the end.

Tizer and Scottish soft drink Irn-Bru are both manufactured by A.G Barr. Tizer sponsors a funfair ride in Southport called the 'Traumatizer'.

The drink was promoted in the early '90s through a memorably surreal, minimalist series of TV and cinema adverts. A character filmed in black and white would wander onto a background of bubbly red liquid and mutter a few words. The ad would conclude with half-words such as 'appe', 'chas' and 'adver' voiced, often in an electronically-distorted manner. It was left up to the viewer to realise that the word 'tizer' had to be added to these half words to make the whole word, which then made sense of the character's pronouncements.

The exact recipe has not been made public (as with Barr's other famous drink Irn-Bru), although a list of ingredients and nutritional data is available on the product itself.