Captain Hadacol

Hadacol was a patent medicine marketed as a vitamin supplement. Its principal attraction, however, was that it contained 12 percent alcohol (listed on the tonic bottle's label as a "preservative"), which made it quite popular in the dry counties of the southern United States. It was the product of four-term Louisiana State Senator Dudley J. LeBlanc, a Democrat from Erath in Vermilion Parish in southwestern Louisiana. He was not a medical doctor, nor a registered pharmacist, but had a strong talent for self-promotion. Time magazine once described him as "a stem-winding salesman who knows every razzle-dazzle switch in the pitchman's trade".

The label on the tonic's bottle clearly stated that the recommended dosage (1 tablespoonful taken 4 times a day) was to be taken "...in a 1/2 glass of water after meals and before retiring". However, some pharmacies in dry counties were known to sell it by the shot-glass and at least one bar in New Orleans' French Quarter was known to sell a "Tassel Cocktail" with Hadacol as an ingredient. In Northbrook, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, sales of Hadacol were limited to liquor stores.

LeBlanc, a consummate salesman, created the name from his business, the Ha ppy Da y Co mpany, formerly the maker of Happy Day Headache Powders (which the Food and Drug Administration had seized in 1942, as dangerous to health, and falsely labeled ) and Dixie Dew Cough Syrup. His own last name provided the "L" (however the resultant -ol at the end of the name also was helpfully indicative of the nostrum's alcohol content). When LeBlanc was asked about the name, he would often joke "Well, I hadda' call it something!"

A two-page advertisement for Hadacol appeared in the centerfold of the 1951 edition of Grier's Almanac, an annual publication marketed to farmers in the Southern US. The ad's headline read (in very large type):