Here's something interesting. 7 UP used to contain a psychiatric medication as one of its ingredients. Created by Charles Grigg of the Howdy Corporation back in 1929 and first launched two weeks before the stock market crash before the Great Depression, the drink was originally named "Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda". It included lithium citrate in its formula.

Lithium citrate is otherwise known as a mood stabilizing drug popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Today, it is sometimes used on people with bipolar disease and more.

In fact, 7 UP wasn't the only one with weird ingredients. Coca Cola originally included coca leaves (which contained a small trace of cocaine) and its formula was intended to be a coca-wine cure all. It was targeted at curing impotence, dyspepsia, neurasthenia, headaches, nausea, and morphine addiction, the latter of which was a problem the inventor of Coca Cola, Dr. John Pemberton, suffered from.

Thankfully 7 UP was named as so instead of its ludicrous sounding one. The beverage’s name was quickly shortened to “7 UP Lithiated Lemon Soda”, then chopped to just “7 UP” in 1936.

Grigg never publicly said where the "7 UP" came from, except joking that he had invented a cure to the "7 types of hangovers".

Lithium citrate stuck around for a while until 1950 when new research showed it had potentially dangerous side effects. None of that nonsense today. Phew. 7 Up!