Regional Sodas (or Pops)

green river, i sure miss it here in florida

I just paid too much money to have some Boylans creamy red birch beer shipped to me.
I could only find it on the internet, and we know what rip off's they are!
I think a case of 24 set me back forty bucks. OUCH!

Tara, I will bet someone not that far from you sells it. I have strolled into several independent markets where the owner's passion (obsession) is lesser known or fallen from grace sodas. The problem I have found in searching food products is The maker only knows the distibuter's they sell to who are much less likely to provide info where they sell to.

quote:

Originally posted by Al-The Mayor-Bowen

WINK was/is a Coke product, isn't it? Or an independent bottled by our Coke Bottler?? It is better than SQUIRT! (IMHO)

Great, now I have the Wink jingle stuck in my head.....
"WINK, the sassy one
From Canada Dry.
Wink, the sassy one,
Give it a try.
Wink is so refreshing,
Man it's really hip!
Wink is so (something)
Take a sip
And you'll flip for
WINK! From Canada Dry!

Oooooooooookay.... I have now read all 17 flipping pages..... Here's my notes on the fascinating thread!

It's called POP! At least in my lexicon.

Fave sodea from childhood-- Cotton Club from Cleveland, Ohio. Makers of Hillbilly Juice.

In an Iowa City minimarket in 1978, I found a dusty six-pack of 12-ounce bottles. The holder said SunDrop but the bottles were from different decades-- Golden Girl, Golden Sun, Golden Cola, and finally Sundrop. Near as I can tell, this was the original "opaque lemon/lime plus caffeine" soda pop. Hillbilly Juice, Mountain Dew, Mellow Yellow (man, what a contradiction that name is!), and the 1964 specialty drink Goldwater were all copies of this.

About this time, Shweppes Beverages tried their own Sundrop clone, Rondo. Rondo had a sharper taste that Mountain Dew and was clearly aimed at the adult male market. "Rondo! Slams down thirst!"

In the early 90s, I was fond of a Chicago soda, Dr Bob's Vitamin Enriched Tangerine Soda. How many pops gave you your daily requirement of ZINC?!?!? And tasted dang good, too!

YooHoo and Chocolate Soldier were variations on the deli drink the "Egg Cream" which is chocolate sauce in seltzer. There is no egg, no dairy, and thus the drink could be drunk at a Kosher deli. I was surprised that coffee shops aimed at 20-somethings and teenagers have revived YooHoo. Guess it goes well with coffee (whichj I don't drink).

Cheeswit-- I agree, Grapefruit sodas were more adult as they were more tart. As a kid I used to drink Wink or Squirt for the novelty or to pretend to be adult.

Skyeblue-- I used to drink New York Seltzer a lot. It lacked the stickiness of regular pop and thus didn't cause me to get congested.

David,
I used "Bitter Lemon" by Canada Dry for the same appearance that Wink and Squirt gave.
AL

I will read all 17 pages in a minute, but has anyone said Fanta Red yet???

Not sure if this was regional or not (to Michigan/upper midwest)...But I remember when I was probably about 7 or 8 yrs old (around 1982-84) there was a bubble gum flavored pop. It was either Hubba Bubba pop, or Bubbleicious pop. It came in a pink can w/the bubble gum maker's logo on it. I only remember it being around for a little while then I never saw it again...Man that stuff was good!!!

been away a long time, but i just saw something about "Goldwater" I remember trying it (once,) just for the taste, but thought it was a little pricey for a nine-year old, all of twenty cents a can! As I recall, Goldwater was half orange, and half ginger ale. Over forty years later, I still have no desire to replicate the taste.

quote:

Originally posted by georgiadawgs

Not sure if this was regional or not (to Michigan/upper midwest)...But I remember when I was probably about 7 or 8 yrs old (around 1982-84) there was a bubble gum flavored pop. It was either Hubba Bubba pop, or Bubbleicious pop. It came in a pink can w/the bubble gum maker's logo on it. I only remember it being around for a little while then I never saw it again...Man that stuff was good!!!

It was Hubba Bubba soda. My home ec teacher in 9th grade used to keep hers in the freezer before her lunch so it was ice cold.

I remember Delaware Punch,and Dad's Rootbeer.Yes Dad's Rootbeer tasted good. I recall my dad talking about Grandpa Graf's Rootbeer in Milwaukee.Yes that's what my dad called it.It might now be known
as Graf's Rootbeer,but back in the 1930's I guess it had the name my dad called it.
I remember Mello Yello and Squirt.We had around here Jolt and OK Cola.
Both were Coca-Cola products.I only seemed to find them in places like New Braunfels and San Marcos area,not in any stores in Schertz or Converse.
I never thought Jolt or Ok Cola were great.
H.E.B.Grocery Stores has their own brand of soda called Hill Country Fare .Don't know who makes it for them. We also have Stars and Stripes soda here. Big Red is a local regional soda.
We used to buy Shasta here too,but I don't see it around this part of Texas much like I used to.
In Alaska,when we lived on Elmendorf AFB,we used to by White Rock Soda. All I have seen of it here is the club soda and gingerale.
I have seen IBC,Stewart's and Vernor's here.Also Hansen's Natural Sodas,and Jones's .

Does anyone know of a strawberry soda that was probably manufactured locally in the SE Missouri area from about 1950 until the early 1980's. It came in a glass bottle, it was almost a cream soda (probably was) and I used to drink it at my grandmas house in the Cape Girardeau area? If your not sure just throw company names out and I will research them, any help would be appreciated

quote:

Originally posted by Lunvy

I was born in 1962 in New Haven, Connecticut. I grew up in the farm town/suburb of (ironically) Orange, Connecticut. When I was young I did not like soda, but the only non-carbonated thing I remember coming in bottles was Pal. Nowadays, even milk comes in individual bottles! I have searched stores, and the web, from time to time, but I have never found any information about the stuff. The only thing I have ever found was some "Pal Ade" cardboard cutout ads for sale on antique web sites. I'm pretty sure it's the same stuff. Where did you get the Orange Green-spot? Did it come in bottles too? Do you figure these are only local brands?

Anyone living in North Jersey remember "Petersen's" soda company? They made a grape soda called Peco Punch I can almost still taste when I hear the name> I wonder if they're still in business!

Canada Dry had a flavor called "Cactus Cooler" that I used to slug on hot days.

Also, back in the 60's after Pepsi introduced Mt. Dew there was also "Kickaapoo Joy Juice" that I thought was the best.

Cactus Cooler is still around in parts of the Southwest US and Kickapoo is also still around in some places.

Kickapoo www.popsoda.com/kicjoyjuic.html

We see cans (12 pks) of Catus Cooler at the Meijer store here. No bottles though.

We had a soda in central NY called Fizz Pop, you had to buy large glass bottles of it from a package store, then bring them back empty. I can only remember tasting the grape, and ginger ale when I was sick. This had to have been at least 30 years ago when I saw it last.

Thanks for the info on Cactus Cooler And K-J-J.

Meijer here in West MI dosen't offer it but then again I have to look for diet versions of all of them now.

We received a gift of a case of Red Rock Ginger Ale this week. Our friends had it shipped from Retrosodas in Skokie,IL. We had hoarded the 6 pack we brought home from the Mobile Roadfood get-together long enough that the last one had gone flat by the time we opened it. Now we are enjoying 24 of those bottles of Heavenly Nectar. I can promise we won't let these go flat !! This is wonderful Ginger Ale.

So does anyone else remember "Carl's Roadkill Cafe"? Or maybe it was Karl's.

Back in the early 90s, maybe a little before that, when I'd go to West Virginia, some of the gas stations would have stocked Carl's Roadkill Cafe brand soft drinks (I liked the ginger beer flavor) and beef jerkey. I don't really know how good the stuff was, but as an 11 year old kid I would've liked anything with a name like Carl's Roadkill Cafe.

There's only two mentions of the brand on the internet that I found, one with each spelling.

Have to say my favorite is PA Dutch Birch Beer. Polar (Worcester, MA) makes a pretty good one, but there is something about thta PA Dutch that makes me pick up a few 12 packs everytime I am in NJ.

In New York's Southern Tier, we had a local bottler called Fawn. All flavors were great and the Orange had pulp in it.
We still order Foxon Park online!
And Boylen's is very good. I especially like thier Birch

In my Hometown, St Marys, PA we had the Crystal Beverage Company. They made fruit flavored Pops. Their Grape and Orange were the best. As a kid in the 50's, we had a baseball park complete with a covered and enclosed grandstand. A bunch of American Legion Teams would play there along with some adult teams from neighboring towns. The Pittsburgh Homestead Greys of the Negro League would come up every year and play a game against the local All-Star Team. That was a big deal! I would get paid a $1.50 a game to sell Crystal Pop during the game. Then the concessions operator would give us an extra 50 cents if we would pick up the empty bottles after the game. We also got 1 free bottle of Pop. Livin' high on the hog in those wonderful years! The Company was bought out by Pepsi.

has anybody mentioned Ski? It's a lemon/lime/citrus soft drink. I found one in the St Louis area a couple of weeks back.

In Dothan, AL, there is still a billboard for Ski on the circle around town, but haven't actually
seen the product in any of the stores I've gone to there; but today I found Dad's Root Beer in 1-liter
bottles (the "Big Daddy" size), along with diet Dad's, creme soda & red creme soda, going for $1 apiece,
in K-Mart.

Well, boy, I never thought I would see THIS one here in the middle of Kansas...but I went to our local grocery store today, and what should I see in the "pop" aisle but 12-pack cartons of Vernor's Original Ginger Soda! I may be regretting that I didn't purchase a carton -- so I should go back.

That was a welcome surprise!

quote:

Originally posted by roossy90

I just paid too much money to have some Boylans creamy red birch beer shipped to me.
I could only find it on the internet, and we know what rip off's they are!
I think a case of 24 set me back forty bucks. OUCH!

roossy....this is too FREAKY! I had scrolled down to the subject of regional sodas/pops as I had picked up a couple of six packs of some stuff I had never heard of today and wanted to post about it here. Anyway, I'm sitting here drinking a bottle of Boylan's Creamy Red Birch Beer right now! Your post from way back when was literally the first one I saw at the top of the page! From Moonachie, NJ...BTW, I got 2 six-packs for $6.00! Got a Cream Soda as well....(cane sugar, btw).

I would love to find some Faygo in Kiwi-strawberry flavor. I do remember towne club soda, They had every flavor you could think of. Living in the south now and love blenheims ginger ale, Cheerwine,and Sundrop. I have found a steady supply of Vernors, but alas not a decent selection of Faygo.....

Wabbit
The only source I have found for Faygo since leaving the West Coast several years ago, is the MEIJERS Store Chain (Michigan Based, similar to Walmart) We have a couple here in the Louisville area and I have recharged my supply of "RedPop" every now and then. I will watch for the Kiwi...I remember it from SoCal but haven't noticed it here in the IN-KY area.
Most of our groceries carry Vernors and a few have Cheerwine now and then. No Moxie anywhere here. Some of the Liquor Barns carry Sprecher Root Beer and some of the Dr. Brown Flavors.