From my perspective as a member of the press, soda people seem to come in two varieties. There are the little guys who have no idea why a reporter would want to talk to them about their product. These people are charming, because they are rarely interviewed. Therefore, their answers are direct and fresh and often funny. And there’re the big guys who don’t want a reporter nosing around their business under any circumstances. These people are the interview equivalent of trying to get blood from a stone.
I have some thoughts on this odd subject because, over the past two years, I’ve unexpectedly found myself on the soda beat from time to time. It’s a lonely beat. If there are other soda reporters, I haven’t met them.
I mainly write about cocktails, spirits, bars and bartenders. Some of that writing is for Imbibe, a bi-monthly magazine out of Portland, Oregon, which has functioned as a drinks-industry bible for the past 12 years. But—as Imbibe writes about all things liquid, including wine, beer, coffee and whatnot—every now and then my editor assigns me a soda story. Since the pandemic began, I’ve written three such articles: one about the history of the Arnold Palmer; one about birch beer; and a long piece about regional citrus sodas, which is in the current issue. (There was going to be a story about Manhattan Special, the New York-made coffee soda, but, well, let’s just say that’s a long story.)
Reporting on soda presents unique challenges. It’s quite unlike writing about booze. Distillers are more than happy to talk to the press. The mushrooming public interest in spirits and cocktails over the past twenty years, and the craft distillery boom, has made sure of that.
That is not the case with soda, which has experienced no similar blossoming, either in terms of public excitement or a proliferation of craft soda makers. At this point, just a handful of corporations own most of the major soda brands you see in the store, and they’re not exactly excited to get a call from any journalist. Corporations never are. Talking to the big soda boys—that is, if you hear back from them at all—is like talking to the Kremlin. In most cases, you never get past the company publicist.
Why is this? Well, my suspicion is soda people don’t see any upside of speaking to the press. Soda, as popular as it is, suffers from a bad public image. The regular stuff is derided as sugar water that leads to all kinds of health problems. The diet stuff, meanwhile, is bad for you in a different way. In other words, soda is very difficult to spin, news-wise.
Booze has a difficult reputation, too. It, too, is not good for you. But there are discernable pluses to chasing press coverage. There is a definite and admirable craft to making good spirits, and the consumption of fine liquor is wrapped up in centuries of romance.
I personally think a soda story can also be told with an appreciation of the product. But I’ve had difficulty communicating that idea to soda reps. A representative from Squirt I communicated with was so dodgy in her answers that I doubt she would have committed to the idea that Squirt was yellow-green in color.
Soda has played a role in my life since before I was born. My grandfather Odin Simonson ran an A&W Root Beer stand in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, in the 1930s. It was one of the first such stands in the state. Back then, A&W was a summer business and the stands sold only ice-cold root beer.
I grew up with regional Wisconsin and Illinois brands like Grandpa Graf’s Root Beer; Canfield’s 50/50, a local grapefruit-lime soda; and Jolly Good, a Wisconsin company that had a snappy graphic design, was super cheap and made every flavor under the sun. Growing up on an isolated farm, we kids waited anxiously for the weekly visit from the local dairy truck, which would deliver milk, cream, and ice cream. The driver also sold an anonymous brand of soda (we called it “pop” in Wisconsin), which my parents bought by the crate during summer. Usually, the crates contained two glass bottles of each available flavor. I went to great lengths to make sure I got my share of grape, lime and black cherry (my favorite), leaving the cream soda behind for some other poor sap.
When I started writing about cocktails, I began to learn about soda in a different way—as a mixer. Those Brandy Old-Fashioned everyone drinks back in Wisconsin are topped with either 7-up or Squirt. Squirt was also necessary to complete a Paloma. I found out about Mexican Coke through bartenders, who insisted it was the only good expression of Coca-Cola, and would smuggle it back to the U.S. on their many trips to Oaxaca. I came prize it just as they did, and hunted it out. Now, I don’t have to; you can get Mexican Coke at any deli or gas station.
While working on these soda stories, I always end up learning things about alcoholic drinks that I would never have found out otherwise. For instance, that there is a drink called the Snoot Shooter, and that the Snoot Shooter has a specific glass, sort of like an hourglass. And, furthermore, the Snoot Shooter, made of Ski soda (very popular in Evansville, Indiana, and very unknown everywhere else) and whiskey, has an official home. It’s a bar called the Turf Bar in Breese, Illinois.
I discovered that George Dickel, a whiskey I’ve written about many times, and Sun Drop, a soda I often buy in Wisconsin, where it has a strong following, are often combined in Tennessee, sometimes in a frozen version. This mixture is called Dickel Drop. Charlotte, North Carolina, meanwhile, decided to improve Sun Drop by adding lemon juice and cherry syrup, making something named, rather prosaically, Cherry Lemon Sun Drop—a name right up there with Rum and Coke in terms descriptive imagination.
Birch beer was an exception to the booze rule, because the wintergreen-flavored soda doesn’t mix well with alcohol. I know. I tried it with every spirit I could think of. It doesn't mix—with a-ny-thing.
Because birch beer is intensely regional, largely made and consumed in the Northeast, the makers are mainly small operations. The small family soda makers are by far the best people to talk to. Because they are rarely interviewed, they are unguarded in their responses. One birch beer producer told me he didn’t actually like the taste of birch beer. Another said he was interested in selling the business, and did I know anyone who was interested.
Still another was convinced he had once aided the state in some detective work. He was at the state crime lab, where a citizen had sent a bottle of ginger ale he believed was tampered with. The citizen thought some Aqua Velva aftershave had found its way into the bottle, and suspected foul play.
The birch beer maker knew exactly what had happened and told the crime lab examiner. Birch beer is tricky to make. It leaves behind pungent oils that stick to stainless steel. If you don’t thoroughly wash out your equipment before you do a run of another soda flavor, the wintergreen flavors will carry over.
What the lab had on their hands was an inadvertent bottle of ginger birch beer ale.
Author’s Note: Beginning next week, there will be a change in the subscription packages. Paid Subscribers will continue to get access to all posts, reports, recipes and field reports. Free subscribers will continue to get access to the Monday newsletter, but only every other Monday (that is, two posts a month), as opposed to every Monday.
Odds and Ends…
You’ve heard of Negroni Week, Old-Fashioned Week and Martini Week. Well, Bee’s Knees Week is now a thing. Barr Hill, a Vermont gin distilled from honey, is holding the event Sept. 23 to Oct. 2. Each year, individuals are invited to order a Bee’s Knees Cocktail, snap a photo and use the hashtag #beeskneesweek, and for every photo, Barr Hill partners with a non-profit organization to plant 10-square feet of pollinator habitat in order to save the endangered bees and pollinators…. The Clam Bar, in Somers Point, NJ, will be around for its 50th anniversary next summer. The Smith family, who own the seafood landmark, had put the property up for sale, but they recently worked out a deal with their partner-operators, securing the clam shack’s future for at least another year… The MOMA show about creation and history Matisse’s famous 1911 work The Red Studio painting will close on Sept. 10. Run, don't walk… The Morgan Library’s show “100 Years of James Joyce’s Ulysses,” about the history and impact of Joyce’s monumental novel, will run through Oct. 2… The popular new Brooklyn Italian spot Spaghetti Cafe has a mixture of the amaro Cardamaro and lemon ice that it describes as a boozy Arnold Palmer. Be sure to order one… Thanks to Publisher’s Weekly for their positive review of Modern Classic Cocktails, which comes out Oct. 4 … The Apparatus Room inside the Detroit Foundation Hotel will debut a few great new cocktails this coming week, including a house made Rock and Rye and a Negroni featuring aquavit and Pasubio Amaro… If you’re looking for signed copies of my books 3-Ingredient Cocktails and The Martini Cocktail, the gift shop at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water has a few!
How about Moxie? I kind of grew up with it. The Negroni of sodas.
And, birch beer will pair with gin and a splash of lemon juice wonderfuly.
I enjoyed seeing the photo of your grandparent’s stand. I stopped drinking soda a long time ago. Really can’t stand the stuff. Too sweet, and I don’t much like anything else about it, either. However, I do have fond small town childhood memories from the 1970s of my father taking me to the local A&W (a few blocks away) for a root beer float. I even remember the first time, being fascinated (and a little baffled) by the foam on top. That A&W (long gone) was already a drive-in with shade structures and order-from-your-car intercoms. It already sported a version of the hyper-corporate bi-color oval logo emblazoned on, well, all the things.