It was created around 1876 by Augustin Thompson as a patent medicine called "Moxie Nerve Food"[2] and was produced in Lowell, Massachusetts.

[3] Thompson claimed that it contained an extract from a rare, unnamed South American plant, which is now known to be gentian root.

It likely derives from an Abenaki word that means "dark water" and that is found in lake and river names in Maine, where Thompson was born and raised.

[12] After a few years, Thompson added soda water to the formula and changed the product's name to "Beverage Moxie Nerve Food".

In a later case in New York, the Moxie Nerve Food Company won a lawsuit against Modox, which subsequently went out of business.

[15] President Calvin Coolidge was known to favor the drink, and Boston Red Sox slugger Ted Williams endorsed it on radio and in print.

[24] In its decision to step up efforts to distribute the product, Cornucopia cited increasing requests for Moxie from fans across the country.

In view of the many thousands of different opinions on this subject, we may offer a prize to the person who picks the actual boy, furnishing us photographic proofs, etc...the Moxie Boy, now a man (and some man at that), who posed for this picture many, many years ago, in fact before some of the readers of this article were born.

In 2011 the company's head of marketing, Ryan Savage, made the executive decision to bring the logo back in response to complaints from long-standing customers.

[29][better source needed] A unique advertising tool was the Moxie Horsemobile, a modified automobile whose driver sits on a large model of a horse.

Moxie ice cream is seasonally available in Maine in limited quantities[30] and is mild in flavor as compared to the soft drink.

The term "moxie", which derives from the drink name, has the approximate meaning of "energy, determination, spunk, daring courage, nerve, spirit, guts".