Maxwell House is an American brand of coffee manufactured by a like-named division of Kraft Heinz in North America and JDE Peet's in the rest of the world.

Introduced in 1892 by wholesale grocer Joel Owsley Cheek, it was named in honor of the Maxwell House Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee, which was its first major customer.

In 1892, Cheek approached the food buyer for the Maxwell House Hotel and gave him 20 pounds of his special blend for free.

[7] Later, Maxwell House distanced itself from that 1930s advertising claim, admitting that the slogan was written by Clifford Spiller, former president of General Foods Corporation, and did not come from a Roosevelt remark overheard by Cheek-Neal.

In 2009, Maxwell House ran a commercial featuring Roosevelt repriser Joe Wiegand, who tells the "Last Drop" story.

[8] In 1942 during World War II, General Foods Corporation, successor to the Postum Company established by Charles William Post, contracted to supply instant coffee to the U.S. armed forces.

[9][10][11] In 1935, Arbuckle Brothers Company, the first merchant to sell packaged coffee, was merged with Maxwell House, later, General Foods.

Meeting and falling in love with "Princess Purity" and fighting the dragon "Old Hat", the young man emerges as "Prince Granulo", heir to the Kingdom of Maxwell.

This show was written by Michael Ingrams, produced by the Mitchell Monkhouse Agency, and designed by Malcolm Lewis and Chris Miles of Media.

Although this method, too, has been eclipsed, the Max-Pax concept was subsequently adapted as Maxwell House Filter Packs, first marketed by this name in 1989, for use in automatic coffee makers.

In recent years, the names of these products have been modified by the company to present a more uniform Maxwell House brand image.

A further modification of the decaf theme, Maxwell House Lite, a reduced-caffeine blend, was introduced nationally in 1992 by Kraft General Foods and in its instant form the following year.

[20] Maxwell House was the sponsor of Maxwell House Coffee Time, which ran from 1937 to 1949 and featured Baby Snooks (a character portrayed by Fanny Brice), Charles Ruggles, Frank Morgan, Topper, and George Burns and Gracie Allen over the years in a predominately radio comedy and variety format.

This was perhaps the first example of product placement on a TV show, as the family frequently gathered around the kitchen table for a cup of Maxwell House coffee, though these segments, aired toward the end of each episode, were usually kept separate from the main storyline.

As this practice became less common in the late 1950s, Maxwell House, like most national brands, turned to "spot" advertising, with agencies creating sometimes long-running campaigns in support of their products.

The publication of its Passover Haggadah by the Joseph Jacobs Advertising Agency, beginning in 1932,[21] made Maxwell House a household name with many American Jewish families.

Its enormous rooftop sign, proclaiming the brand name and a dripping coffee cup, was a landmark visible in New York City across the Hudson River.