This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. The specific problem is: the article is poorly written and lacks references. Please help improve this article if you can; the talk page may contain suggestions. (May 2011)

A woman blowing a bubble.

Bubblegum is a type of elastic chewing gum, designed to be blown out of the mouth as a bubble.

History [link]

In 1928, Walter Diemer, an accountant for the Fleer Chewing Gum Company in Philadelphia, was experimenting with new gum recipes. One recipe was found to be less sticky than regular chewing gum, and stretched more easily. This gum became highly successful and was eventually named by the president of Fleer as Dubble Bubble. Original bubble gum was pink because that was the only dye Diemer had on hand at the time.

To test his new recipe, Diemer took samples of the new gum over to a local store and it sold out in a single day. To help sell the new Dubble Bubble gum, Diemer himself taught salespeople how to blow bubbles so that they in turn could teach potential customers. Dubble Bubble remained the only bubble gum on the market until Bazooka hit the market after World War II.

Flavors [link]

Bubblegum is available in many different colors and flavors. A "bubblegum flavor" is the taste of the plain^{[clarification needed]} gum, and it is made from synthetic chemicals, such as ethyl methylphenylglycidate, isoamyl acetate, fruit extracts and others, the true ingredients being kept a mystery to customers.^{[citation needed]} When blended, the chemicals and extracts fuse together to make a sweet, palatable flavor. Like vanilla, coconut, peppermint and almond extracts, a bubble gum flavor oil can be purchased.

Flavors also include blue raspberry, strawberry, apple, cherry, watermelon, cinnamon, banana, peppermint,cotton candy and grape of which strawberry and banana can be achieved with ethyl methylphenylglycidate and isoamyl acetate limonene, respectively. Malic acid can be used for apple flavor, allyl hexanoate for pineapple, ethyl propionate for fruit punch, cinnamic aldehyde for cinnamon and acetophenone for cherry. More unusual ones like berry, cola, lemon lime, peach, tropical fruit, pineapple, orange and fruit punch can be found as well. They usually can only be found in special shops and the flavor is almost always cheap and artificial, as natural flavors are more expensive.

Records [link]

The 23-inch bubble blown by Susan Montgomery Williams of Fresno, California in 1996 still holds the Guinness World Record.^{[citation needed]}

Chad Fell holds the record for Largest Bubblegum Bubble Blown at 50.8cm (20 inches), without using his hands, on 24 April 2004. ^[1]

See also [link]

• Blibber-Blubber
• Functional gum
• Gum base
• Gum industry
• Inca Kola
• List of chewing gum brands

References [link]

• The Great Idea Finder: Bubble Gum Retrieved September 29, 2011

External links [link]

• FordGum.com, The Story of Gum
• IdeaFinder.com, Bubble Gum History
• bubblegumblog.com, Bubble Gum Swallowing Myth
• BubbleGumBubble.com, How to Blow a Bubble with Bubble Gum
• [1], Maple Leaf Amsterdam History