Vitamin C was a major topic of research back in the 1940s. This is a large part of why so many drinks from that era have been revived, such as the Moscow Mule and the Fitzgerald.
In World War II people drank things like Beaujolais Nouveau, which is a wine that has just finished fermentation and is only available for about two months each year. A lot of restaurants would push these new wines onto customers for this short period to take advantage of the excitement around them. There were also drinks like Iron Jock which was made with liquor, grapefruit juice, honey water and grenadine syrup.