St. Louis Magazine – July 2019

đĐĔ stlmag.com July 2019 Illustration by Britt Spencer

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OU’VE USED IT. We know you
have. Chilling the bowl and
beaters and dashing just
enough powdered sugar
into that heavy cream and whirring it into
stiff peaks of deliciousness is too daunt-
ing when your company’s in the next room
waiting for pie. Far easier to sneak that
red-and-white can from the fridge and
squirt a dollop of Reddi-wip, which was
invented by a St. Louis Bunny.
Aaron “Bunny” Lapin (lapin being
French for “rabbit”) started by selling
Sta-Whip, a World War II substitute for
whipped cream that relied on vegetable
fat. For bakers, he provided the Fount-Wip,
a refillable aerating gun. After wartime’s
deprivations, he transformed that impro-
visation by injecting real whipped cream
into a newfangled seamless lined spray can.
“Gentlemen,” he announced to skepti-
cal manufacturers, “this is the beginning
of pressure-propelled packaging.”
In 1948, St. Louis milkmen began deliv-
ering his Reddi-wip to eager housewives,
and distribution soon spread across
North America. The stuff was iconic, a
readymade symbol of the postwar appe-
tite for ease and domestic gadgetry. By
1951, annual sales had topped $7 million.
A St. Louis Post-Dispatch feature that
year described Lapin, just 37 years old,
“bellowing orders from a deep, leather-
covered swivel chair in his offices at 3938

Lindell Boulevard, ‘Bunny,’ his nickname, stitched in red letters

on his expensive white-on-white shirtings.”

Promotions began in the next decade, with ads in national

magazines offering a tiny plastic Doll of the World in exchange

for Reddi-wip pull tabs and a few bucks. The stuff ’s fame crossed

oceans. A German article is hysterical when filtered through

Google Translate: Reddi-wip is described as “a culinary heavy-

crime” and “a true party for windbags” yet defended, because

after all, who says whipped cream must “always be beaten newly”

rather than pressed “as gekringelte sausage from the can”? The

article praises Lapin’s “cream-mixture of the laughing gas”—

indeed, a guy was arrested in 1986 for huffing nitrous oxide from

five cans of Reddi-wip and refusing to pay for them.

One of Lapin’s later projects, a cinnamon-flavored margarine

called Touch ’N Spred, was less addictive, and we’re especially

glad he never fulfilled his dream of foaming up ketchup and

mustard. No need. In 1998, on the strength of Reddi-wip alone,

he made Time’s list of Business Geniuses of the Century.

Not bad for a guy who left the Washington University School

of Law to sell clothing. Bunny Lapin wound up with homes in

New York, Miami, and Los Angeles, where he died—of heart

failure—in 1999.

His obit picture? The iconic red-and-white can.

ĒŲĚŲ

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ORIGINAL

15 calories,

1 gram of fat

EXTRA CREAMY

15 calories,

1 gram of fat

CHOCOLATE

15 calories,

1 gram of fat

NON-DAIRY

ALMOND MILK

10 calories,

0.5 gram of fat

NON-DAIRY

COCONUT MILK

10 calories,

0.5 gram of fat

FAT FREE

5 calories,

0 grams of fat

Was Reddi-wip

invented in

St. Louis?

ST. LOUIS SAGE WWIP IT OOGOOD