The annual Moxie Festival was the weekend before last, as I recall, in Lisbon Falls, Maine. The guy who concocted the stuff apparently lived there, and I think used to produce it there early on.

Originally, it had all sorts of exotic ingredients, including as I recall opium, gentian root, and several others I've forgotten about. It was pretty potent stuff!

Moxie was once advertized as "Nerve Food" and was supposed to have some miraculous medicianal effect. Some folks opine that it does taste a little "medicinal", actually. Over the years the Government made them omit a few of the more psychogenic / addictive ingredients.

About the only place Moxie is distributed is in Maine, New Hampshire, and I think a select few places in MA - but it has a certain cult following all over. Some Moxie fans have some shipped out occasionally to wherever their fortunes may have led them away to; there ain't nothin' quite like it anywhere else.

In attempting to describe the unique taste, about the best I can manage is to suggest a mixture of cherry Coke and root beer, with about half of the sugar that is routinely dissolved into mainstream carbonated beverages.
One of the reasons I like it is that it is not as "sticky" sweet as more popular beverages. Some fellows refer to it as "Recovering Alchoholic's Beer".

Not only is Moxie a very regional phenomenon, it is certainly a "bipolar" one as well.

You either intensely love Moxie, or you utterly loathe it (as seems to be the case with Kendall, sad to say).

A couple of examples of people and things that seem to eliciet a similar bipolar reaction in others might include Rush Limbaugh or Bagpipe Music. Ye love 'em, or ye hates 'em; hardly anyone who has had contact with Rush, Heiland Piping, or Moxie is at all "iffy" about them, are they?

There was a time when I wondered mightilly if Pipers or Mr. Limbaugh liked Moxie, or each other for that matter.

If there was a pattern there, I was looking for it to emerge.

Then I thought some about applying for a Federal Grant to do a demographic survey and study this phenomenon, but then got obsessed with something else before all the paperwork was in order.

Another famous old Moxie motto: "Moxie Makes Mainers Mighty!".

Too bad that Kendall is on the "non-liking" side of the issue.
Some time back I was daydreaming about what kind of advertizement I would write for Moxie had I the opportunity. Cpt. Kendall would be perfect for the starring role, delivering the laconic, deadpan line in his famous DownEater dialect while sitting in a rocking chair on the porch of a rustic Country Store; - "Moxie; it ain't for everyone, ye know."
Of course in the background is some dandy "Summer Complaint" (Tourist) gagging, spitting, and retching like blazes after his or her first (and probably last) taste of Moxie.

Trouble is, Moxie (or one of the big beverage conglomerates that owns the franchise on it) has not bothered to advertize, as far as I know, for over 30 years (correct me if I'm wrong).

If you like Moxie, you'll want Moxie.
And you'll know right where to go to git it!

But if you are "from away", then you might just have to take our word for it.

Good luck on the bottle; some people have entire collectons of MOXIE memoribilia; bottles, posters, signs, delivery crates etc.. mostly from days gone by.