From Falsipedia
Abe Nehi shortly after the incident
During the time known as the "
Roaring Twenties" a down on his luck Georgian grocery store owner by the name of Claud Hatcher mistakenly overheard a route salesman discussing a fellow co-worker who suffered from a rare skin disorder that turned his complexion a lovely shade of purple, this aforementioned man also happened to be as tall as one's knee. Now Claud Hatcher, being a part time
soda jerk was inspired by this story of the robust, stunted purple man, and felt obligated to design a grape soda as a sort of tribute to this dwarf sales man named Abe Nehi. Thus began a successful soda trade mark called Nehi™ soda. It didn't take long for the inspiration of the Grape Nehi to find out about this soda, and needless to say Abe was none to happy to be publicly mocked. After several failed law suits the situation escalated to violence when Abe decided to take the law into his own hands with a broken bottle of Grape Nehi, thus coining the popular phrase
Sour Grapes.
