Paso de los Toros (drink)

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Paso de los Toros (Passing of the Bulls) is a Uruguayan commercial carbonated soft drink, a brand of tonic water. It is named after the Uruguayan city Paso de los Toros and is bottled by Pepsi factories, and it was originally produced by a local company. It is also sold in Argentina, and in recent years, it has also expanded to orange and grapefruit flavored soft drinks.

[edit] History

The brand name "Paso de los Toros" comes from a drink created in the city of Paso de los Toros in Uruguay. It refers to a kind of tonic water made in part from orange peel and quinine. It was an invention by the chemist Rómulo Mangini, who created the formula at the request of his English friends who worked on the railways to the north of the country. In the beginning he made it just for them and with the passage of time the drink gained popularity in the local marketplace. He then began to sell it in Montevideo. Years later, once it had become popular and Mangini had disappeared, the drink was purchased by Pepsico, which continues to make it to this day. The Mangini family required that the drink keep its original name: "Agua Tónica Paso de los Toros". (Passing of the Bulls Tonic Water)