Irn-Bru

Did You Know?

• McCowan's produced Irn-Bru Bars, chewy, fizzy, bright orange confectionery bars which taste strongly of Irn-Bru, though production ended in late 2005.
• Irn-Bru sorbet is available in some speciality ice cream shops in Scotland.
• Barr launched an alcopop drink combining Irn-Bru and Bell's whisky, although this proved to be unpopular and was discontinued.

Overview and history

Irn-Bru is recognized for its vivid orange color and distinctive taste. According to data from 1999, its recipe included 0.002% ammonium ferric citrate, sugar, 32 flavoring agents (among them caffeine and quinine, though quinine is absent in Australia), and two contentious dyes: Sunset Yellow FCF E110 and Ponceau 4R E124. On January 27, 2010, manufacturer A.G. Barr consented to a voluntary ban on these colorings requested by the Food Standards Agency, but no timeline for their removal was given. Following intervention by Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond, a proposed limit of 10 mg/liter for Sunset Yellow was relaxed to 20 mg/liter in 2011—the same concentration found in Irn-Bru. As of August 2026, the drink still contains these additives. The original Iron Brew beverage was created in 1889 by the Maas & Waldstein chemical company in New York, sold as IRONBREW. A similar product appeared in 1898 from London essence firm Stevenson & Howell. Although Barr’s official launch date for Iron Brew is 1901, company archives show that AG Barr & Co of Glasgow and Robert Barr of Falkirk jointly released their own version at least two years earlier, with strong sales recorded by May 1899. The strongman image on Barr’s labels was trademarked by Stevenson & Howell in 1898.

Marketing

Barr's pushed Irn-Bru hard from the start, getting world champion wrestlers and Highland Games stars Donald Dinnie and Alex Munro to give personal endorsements in early ads. In the 1930s, the company launched a comic strip series called "The Adventures of Ba-Bru" that ran in local papers from April 1939 to October 1970. The final remnant of that campaign, a big neon Ba-Bru sign above Glasgow Central station, came down in 1983 and was swapped for an illuminated sign reading "Your Other National Drink". The brand has long leaned on a Scottish identity, built on the claim that it's Scotland's most popular soft drink. From the 1980s, the slogan "Made in Scotland from girders" appeared for years, often showing drinkers gaining strength, durability, or magnetism. A Spring 2000 campaign aimed to "dramatise the extraordinary appeal of Irn-Bru in a likeably maverick style." One ad had a grandfather (played by Robert Wilson) pulling out his false teeth to put his grandson off his can of Irn-Bru. Another showed an old man on a mobility scooter robbing a shop for a stash of the drink. In 2004, Barr's introduced the "Phenomenal" concept. The first Christmas ads came in 2006, including a parody of the cartoon The Snowman, which got American audiences interested. A sequel to that ad appeared in December 2018. Further campaigns tied into the 2006 launch of Irn-Bru 32.

Exports and foreign markets

In Australia, Irn-Bru was made locally by Occasio Australia under license until 2009, sold in 500 ml and 1.25-litre bottles, both regular and diet. It gained popularity, with its first ad campaign in Queensland in September 2007. It started in Coles, Woolworths, Caltex, and smaller shops, but Coles later stopped stocking it. Production issues led Occasio to end local manufacturing in late 2009. Now, British Provender imports it from the UK, and it’s back in the international aisles of major supermarkets and some convenience stores. In Canada, Irn-Bru had no caffeine until 2011. Health Canada lifted the caffeine ban on non-cola soft drinks in March 2010, allowing up to 150 ppm. Bottles now say “Now Contains caffeine.” TFB & Associates Ltd in Markham, Ontario distributes it, but A.G. Barr in Glasgow, Scotland packages it. It’s sold at Sobeys, Co-op, and Walmart. The standard Canadian version also carries a “Not a source of iron” disclaimer. The UK caffeinated version was brought in by specialty shops, thanks to Canada’s large Scottish expat community—the biggest in the world. In 2014, a false report claimed Irn-Bru was banned in Canada over its additives, but the Government of Canada clarified in October 2020 that it’s not banned and has been sold for over a decade, as long as it meets Canadian regulations. The now-defunct McKinlay soft-drink company in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, made its own unlicensed brown, fruity-cola drink called Irn-Bru, later renamed “Cape Breton’s Irn-Bru.”