Virgil's Root Beer is a microbrewed gourmet root beer, developed by Edward Crowley and Jill Fraser Crowley, who was the company's president (and founded and serves as CEO of fashion brand Jill Milan). Virgil's Root Beer won the "Outstanding Beverage" Award at the International Fancy Food and Confection Show in 1994, 1996 and 1997. The quality of and demand for Virgil’s Root Beer prompted Whole Foods' request for a cola by the brand: “Whole Foods said, 'Give me a cola with Virgil’s, and you’re in.'”
Virgil's Root Beer contains cane sugar and a number of natural spices, including anise, licorice, vanilla, cinnamon, clove, sweet birch, molasses, nutmeg, berry oil (allspice), Balsam of Peru oil, cassia oil and citric acid. It does not contain caffeine. It has 42 grams of sugar per 12 U.S. fluid ounce serving. One 12-oz. longneck bottle has about 160 calories.
The recipe was changed in 2016 replacing the caramelized unrefined sugar with caramel color and added Natural Flavor as a cost cutting effort.
It is sold mainly in health food stores and other specialty food stores such as Cost Plus World Market, Publix, Trader Joe's, Wegmans and Whole Foods Market. It can also be found in health food sections in stores such as Kroger and Fred Meyer. In British Columbia it can be found in Choices Markets, Quality Foods, Save-On-Foods, and Thrifty Foods.
The company was acquired in 1999 by Reed's, Inc.