From Wine To Juice?

Have you ever had Welch’s Grape Juice? Well in the 1800 the churches had quite a problem. At that time during Communion the blood of Christ was represented by red wine. However alcoholism had reached epidemic proportions. What to do?

Grape juice seemed the obvious solution but back then there was no way to keep the juice from fermenting into, you guessed it- alcohol!

Enter Communion Steward Dr. Thomas Welch. He followed the scientists of his day including Dr. Louis Pasture. Starting with Pasture’s method of pasteurization Welch perfected the method for grapes. It was in 1869!

There was, at first, resistance however to the juice… But after giving away free samples at the World’s Fair and after the Conference changed the Book of Discipline to say that only unfermented grape juice could be used, Welch’s juice became the juice of choice for Communion!