In the Mountain West, the ‘Dirty’ Soda Rush Is On

December 11, 2021 3:24 PM

With locations now numbering in the hundreds, regional soda-shop chains are spreading far beyond Utah, where they first found popularity. “Some people say, ‘Oh well, it’s just a Utah trend,’ and we kind of proved that wrong when we went to Oklahoma, and proved people like their soda everywhere,” said Nicole Tanner, who founded Swig with her husband, Todd. “It may sound so weird to some people who have never been, but it’s happiness in a cup. I’ve always known from the start that this is something that can and should go everywhere.”
posted by folklore724 (62 comments total)

Styrofoam cups, 1000 calorie sodas, what’s to like? I feel like I am supposed to find this appalling, and I do.
posted by snofoam at 3:31 PM on December 11, 2021 [16 favorites]

Carbonated water is quite tasty. Sometimes I have it with a bit of elderflower or black current syrup, but it's very refreshing on its own. Also, fewer sugar-calories that way, without the nasty taste of artificial sweeteners.
posted by jb at 3:39 PM on December 11, 2021 [4 favorites]

There's no mention of styrofoam cups in the article, and the 1000 calorie drink is just one of the things they serve, and it's not even soda (or "pop" if you're like me). It includes HALF-N-HALF. So it's probably far closer to ice cream than anything remotely soda-like (even a float).
posted by jonathanhughes at 3:41 PM on December 11, 2021 [14 favorites]

Not too huge into super sweet things and a lot of this sounds horrifying to me, but I'm going to have to see what a soda with cream is like now, just to know?

Had no idea that the mormon prohibition was specifically hot tea and coffee rather than caffeine! How are they on frappucinos?
posted by ominous_paws at 3:42 PM on December 11, 2021 [2 favorites]

How are they on frappucinos?

Fuckin' intense
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 3:46 PM on December 11, 2021 [36 favorites]

That depends on how much the church has invested in Starbucks stock.
posted by sinfony at 3:47 PM on December 11, 2021 [3 favorites]

Carbonated water is quite tasty. Sometimes I have it with a bit of elderflower or black current syrup, but it's very refreshing on its own. Also, fewer sugar-calories that way, without the nasty taste of artificial sweeteners.

So, sounds like you aren't a potential customer of the companies profiled in the article.

There's a lot that is interesting and worth engaging with in the article, including the self-aware interplay with LDS culture and motherhood.
posted by Dip Flash at 3:53 PM on December 11, 2021 [5 favorites]

The idea for Swig came out of Ms. Tanner’s family outings to Sonic, where “they had the good pebble ice, and the good foam cup,” she said.

Some of the pictures show plastic cups, but more of them show foam cups. None of them show paper cups or cool reusable Swig mugs. As an urban stream ecologist, I can attest that trash in streams in Atlanta is 50/50 plastic water bottles/foam cups from Chick-Fil-A and Cookout. We definitely don't need more chains with foam cups.
posted by hydropsyche at 3:57 PM on December 11, 2021 [31 favorites]

Fizzy water with milk or cream and some flavored simple syrup is really good! So good, in fact, that I do not permit myself to make them at home because an occasional treat is one thing but they aren't really designed as meal replacements.
posted by Frowner at 4:00 PM on December 11, 2021 [5 favorites]

Styrofoam cups, 1000 calorie sodas, what’s to like? I feel like I am supposed to find this appalling, and I do.

I'm appalled, yet would invest if I could because selling caffeine sugar to Americans seems like a sure bet.
posted by betweenthebars at 4:04 PM on December 11, 2021 [4 favorites]

So Mormons are re-branding the egg cream?
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 4:05 PM on December 11, 2021 [43 favorites]

Half & half in soda is indeed delicious but that has been a thing in Italian sodas forever. The funny thing is that Starbucks could get into this business so easily because they already stock Torani syrups and cream! All they need is some water carbonating machines and they'd be in it.

I just feel for the prediabetic people who will be pushed over the line into full blown disease because of a soda habit they picked up in the pandemic. Usually people buy soda with a meal which might at least blunt the blood glucose spike a little bit.
posted by potrzebie at 4:06 PM on December 11, 2021 [9 favorites]

Regarding TFA, I'm fine with people taking their joy where they can get it, for the most part. I am going to have to make an exception in this next case, though.

From upthread:

bottle contains autoinjector with a single-serving syringe of insulin

Must we, really? Type one diabetes, the kind where you need insulin access to survive, is not correlated with diet. Type two can often be mitigated by diet and exercise, but it's this type that is extremely strongly genetically inherited. There is not a quantity of processed carbohydrates I can consume that will spike my actual blood glucose. I have checked. The people who got worse rolls of the metabolic dice than me are neither stooges for corporate power nor acting with reckless disregard for their own well-being.
posted by All Might Be Well at 4:06 PM on December 11, 2021 [46 favorites]

Rather than less plastic and styrofoam we need a lot more. We also need more soda shops to create a market for recovered co2. It may not be long term storage but it’s something’s. Plastics long chained carbon molecules last forever in the environment, unlike biodegradable products that are rapidly turned into methane and co2. We have a lot of co2 to sequester and there is only one sure way to get Americans into it.
posted by interogative mood at 4:13 PM on December 11, 2021 [3 favorites]

Are there many bubble tea franchises in the US? These soda stores sound like they fullfill a similar desire for sweet, colourful and customisable takeaway drinks.
posted by other barry at 4:30 PM on December 11, 2021 [4 favorites]

poterzebie, Starbucks actually tried doing ‘handcrafted sodas’ a few years back in some places. Maybe it was just an idea out of its time?
posted by Night_owl at 4:49 PM on December 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

Are there many bubble tea franchises in the US?

So many now a shortage of boba made the news a few months back.
posted by Selena777 at 4:54 PM on December 11, 2021 [4 favorites]

It occurs to me that "handcrafted" sounds a lot like "clean" and "artisan" and other snooty nonsense - this is better soda, for better people who probably pick their own elderflowers, unlike you. There's this subtext through a lot of that marketing that the food you've been eating is inferior, you cannot possibly have been making informed or acceptable choices, and I hate it very much.

Saying explicitly that this is inspired by Sonic, that this kind of soda is the name-brand stuff, like Sprite, but made "dirty" by adding syrups, explicitly refusing to position your product as elevated in any way, is more attractive the more I think about it.

If anybody gets up the nerve to market an edible item as a Dirty, Processed, Food-Like Substance, Now With Genetic Engineering, I want to try whatever that is immediately, out of sheer spite if nothing else.
posted by All Might Be Well at 5:18 PM on December 11, 2021 [16 favorites]

this is better soda, for better people who probably pick their own elderflowers, unlike you.

Hey, I've done that! Well, helped my much more crafty roommate pick the elderflowers that grew on the hedges across from our rental, and soak them in the simple syrup she made.

I can report that the syrup we made was better than BottleGreen brand, but exactly like Ikea's (though our syrup had more protein due to the tiny bugs we forgot to sieve out at first).
posted by jb at 5:30 PM on December 11, 2021 [10 favorites]

There are many bubble tea shops in the US these days, but I think they're easier to find in big cities with a substantial Chinese population like NYC, SF, Seattle, LA, Houston than in the Mountain West areas mentioned in the article (Utah/Arizona/Oklahoma/Idaho).
posted by A Blue Moon at 6:01 PM on December 11, 2021

(though our syrup had more protein due to the tiny bugs we forgot to sieve out at first).

I sense a marketing opportunity….
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:10 PM on December 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

Belvoir makes the best elderflower syrup. About half the sugar of the other brands and excellent flavor.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 6:27 PM on December 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

“they had the good pebble ice, and the good foam cup,” she said.

Styrofoam cups are mentioned in the article.
posted by snofoam at 6:28 PM on December 11, 2021 [2 favorites]

Also, the Swig cups pictured in the article are made of styrofoam.
posted by snofoam at 6:31 PM on December 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

It includes HALF-N-HALF. So it's probably far closer to ice cream than anything remotely soda-like (even a float).

Does the non-West-coast-portion of the U.S. not know about Italian sodas?? They’re creamy, but very clearly a soda and not at all an ice cream.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 6:32 PM on December 11, 2021 [5 favorites]

As to Mormons and hot drinks. The story goes that Joseph Smith read a (early 19th century) tract on the dangers of drinking hot liquids - tea and coffee - and thus it became a part of the doctrine. No, you eat soup. Caffeine was not an issue. It was heat. I had a Mormon coworker who chugged Coke.

We have a couple old time soda fountains with ice cream here in San Francisco. They have homemade tinctures and extracts as flavorings. And the jerks mix the drinks like flashy bartenders. The soda fountains are genuine antiques. Quite delicious.
posted by njohnson23 at 6:33 PM on December 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

All they need is some water carbonating machines

Or really, just a bottle of Perrier or San Pellegrino, probably in stock already
posted by Rash at 6:33 PM on December 11, 2021

Serious question: If you’re shocked by a soda with half and half, what is your position on root beer floats?
posted by Big Al 8000 at 6:40 PM on December 11, 2021 [6 favorites]

I'll just be over here, wearing a sweater with a big "L" on it, drinking my milk & Pepsi.
posted by valkane at 6:52 PM on December 11, 2021 [4 favorites]

Judy Levin, who wrote the recent book “Soda and Fizzy Drinks: A Global History,” said the shops hark back to the temperance-era soda kiosks and fountains in Europe and North America, which “were absolutely set up as an alternative to the bar.”

“To the extent that I was willing to do predictions in the middle of Covid, I sort of felt the soda fountain might come back for various reasons, because of the social function that it once had,” Ms. Levin said.

I guess it beats waiting around for the Faygo Armageddon.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:08 PM on December 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

As an ex-mormon, my understanding is that the prohibition on "hot drinks" is specifically for tea and coffee, and that's what gets asked in worthiness interviews. It doesn't matter if the tea or coffee is cold for the purposes of the prohibition, and other hot drinks (like hot chocolate) are fine.

Mormons, of course, have wildly varied degrees of understanding and adherence to this depending on the level of orthodoxy they're on.
posted by Aleyn at 7:18 PM on December 11, 2021 [2 favorites]

Now I'm curious, where is half & half in Italian soda the norm? I can't remember who taught me about adding half & half, and now I always do it (because it's delicious!), but I either have to ask for it or use the pitcher set out for coffee, and I get strange looks from people. It's not a default ingredient here (Northern CA). But Googling pictures of Italian soda, yep, a majority of them are clearly creamy.
posted by aws17576 at 7:43 PM on December 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

I lurve soda. Nothing is better to me than a cold Dr. Pepper on pebble ice (never really cared about styrofoam). In fact, today I tried a Green River soda for the first time. When we visit California, I always get a Lemon-Up at In-N-Out. I really miss Cricket Cola (RIP?). Can someone bring that one back?

That being said, my first choice for a beverage is an unsweetened iced tea. To paraphrase Cookie Monster, “Soda is a sometimes food.”

But I will definitely be trying one of these soda joints next time I visit Utah.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 7:50 PM on December 11, 2021

So Mormons are re-branding the egg cream?

Sounds like somebody's worried they won't have egg creams in the afterlife.
posted by thivaia at 8:47 PM on December 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

Interesting. I assume these shops serve diet soda and you'll be able to bring your own cup. Seems like you could enjoy it without ruining your diet or contributing to America's trash problem.
posted by michaelh at 9:34 PM on December 11, 2021

She usually orders a Save Me Jade — Diet Dr Pepper with sugar-free vanilla and coconut flavor syrups — but every now and then she’ll change her order if she wants a break from caffeine

Diet Dr Pepper has no caffeine.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 9:46 PM on December 11, 2021

Doesn't it? https://www.drpepper.com/en/faq#18 says diet and regular both have 41 mg of caffeine per 12 fluid ounces.
posted by michaelh at 10:29 PM on December 11, 2021 [8 favorites]

I can answer the question about Mormons and soft drinks in the form of an utterly crass and tasteless Mormon joke as told to other Mormons by Mormons:

How many Mormons does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Thirty-one. One to screw in the light bulb and thirty to bring refreshments.

Yeah, the question about caffeine and hot drinks is complicated depending on the locality and level of dogma, but in general Mormons do go buck wild for junk food and sugary sodas, generally uncaffeinated soda.

I don't know what Provo is like right now but when I was a kid there was a 7-11 about every other block. I remember a street on the east side where you could see the signs of about a dozen 7-11s all lined up over the gently sloping valley floor running north to south in front of the Wasatch range.

Mormons also generally go totally ham for anything that's innocent fun + old timey like soda fountains, ice cream parlors and ret-conned wholesomeness. Like 90-95% of the "fun" activities for youth and young adults seemed to involve food or desert and lots of it, whether it was taking everyone out for ice cream or going through vats of cheap ice cream, punch or other soft drinks.

I remember church picnics where they'd easily go through like 10-20 flats of canned soft drinks and end up with a small mountain of empties like a frathouse rager but without the beer.

I also remember going to friend's houses and they'd have a soft drink stash. By that I don't mean a few boxes of cans in the pantry, I mean like a shady side of the house or a major part of a parking spot in a garage with a small mountain of flats of generic or name brand soda piled up and waiting for the apocalypse or something.


Anyway this thread is weird. It's like 25% people clutching their pearls about sugary soft drinks and 25% people who haven't heard of an Italian ice and somehow another 50% of people that apparently forgot that convenience stores and fountain drinks or chain stores like 7/11s, QuickTrips, Circle-Ks, Plaid Pantries are a thing all over the US, especially in places away from coasts where it's hot, flat and people drive around a lot.

In places like Phoenix and Arizona people practically plan casual road trips based on the distance to the nearest QT because if you run out of something cold to drink you may actually burst into flames or melt without a big, sweaty cup or mug of ice, water and some crazy self-served mix of sodas and syrups going on between your legs in the car seat. Plus I think it's like state law or something.

And I miss the soda gun at the bar I was working at. There's a working drink known in the industry called a "presse" or "press" or something and it's especially popular if you're working in the kitchen. Like 50-70% or much more of soda water, with the rest being a splash or "press" of Sprite or similar over a bunch of ice. Best served in 1+ liter mason jars or even better a large pitcher. It's mostly water with a kick of sugar to keep you going.

I could drink liters and liters with that stuff, often doctored up with Mio energy drink concentrate. It was like radioactive Mtn Dew with way less sugar, more bubbles and H20 and waaay more caffeine and B vitamins.
posted by loquacious at 2:46 AM on December 12, 2021 [22 favorites]

This is right up my alley! For the Jewish holiday of Sukkot there's a tradition of Ushpizin, where every day you "invite" a different person from the Torah to your sukkah by sharing a story about them at your meal (not something we ever actually do, but it's out there). So last year, when we couldn't have anyone over because of covid, we created "U-shpritz-in", and served completely different sodas every day - the weirder the better. Something like this would have been choice.

So Mormons are re-branding the egg cream?

Cel-Ray or GTFO.
posted by Mchelly at 6:57 AM on December 12, 2021 [2 favorites]

I love the idea of interesting non-alcoholic beverages as a treat. I just wish they'd go more in a direction of something less sweet. Like proper Italian sodas, which are sweet but not overpoweringly so. Or shrubs. Shrubs are like lemonade made diverse and awesome.

How do you get to 1000 calories in a drink? 44 ounces is a lot of soda; the classic Big Gulp is only 32oz. But for Coke, say, 44 oz would be about 500 calories. There's about 40 calories in 1oz of half-n-half, so add a giant 2 ounce shot of half-n-half and we get to 600 calories for our drink. Where does 1000 come? Double the sugar?

Perhaps we could look to milkshakes. A Double Chocolaty Chip Crème Frappuccino® from Starbucks is listed at 500 calories for 24oz. So double that and we get to 1000. But while drinking a 24oz milkshake called "coffee" is somewhat normal, it's hard to imagine getting two served in one giant cup.

The other sweet drink trend to look to is Dutch Bros, which is all over the West now. Near as I can tell they're basically "what if Starbucks, but drive-through with attractive young women dressed sexy to take your order". The milkshakes are pretty good though.
posted by Nelson at 7:06 AM on December 12, 2021

As an urban stream ecologist, I can attest that trash in streams in Atlanta is 50/50 plastic water bottles/foam cups from Chick-Fil-A and Cookout. We definitely don't need more chains with foam cups.

Foam cups are horrible environmentally for exactly that reason. But I can also understand people who prefer them -- unlike paper cups, the foam cups insulate, so your drink stays cold (and less sweaty) for much longer. They are a better drinking experience, especially in hot places (like the mountain West in the summer, say).
posted by Dip Flash at 7:16 AM on December 12, 2021

Agreed on how bad foam cups are for the environment, and also agreed that they keep your drink colder a lot longer. The one thing that will make them hard to get rid of (and why more places are using them now) is simple economics, unfortunately. I used to work for a company that delivered foodservice disposables to the restaurants in town. Foam cups are far, far less expensive than paper or plastic cups. So you have something that’s not only cheaper, but also not recyclable and, yeah, well, there’s a problem there. (I will say that unloading the Dart truck was super easy because everything was so ridiculously light. You had an entire semitrailer completely full and you could just drag an entire pallet at a time out with a long crowbar if someone else had the pallet jack.)
posted by azpenguin at 7:33 AM on December 12, 2021

I’m too lazy to jump the NYT turnstile but it occurs to me that a “foam cup” might refer to a foamy drink in an ordinary cup.
posted by sjswitzer at 7:54 AM on December 12, 2021

a “foam cup” might refer to a foamy drink in an ordinary cup
It conceivably might, but here it does not.
posted by neroli at 8:20 AM on December 12, 2021 [6 favorites]

> Does the non-West-coast-portion of the U.S. not know about Italian sodas??

I was enjoying Italian (and French) sodas in Michigan in the mid-90s, so yes flyover country does sometimes have access to things without people on the coast having to make them fashionable first.
posted by ardgedee at 8:57 AM on December 12, 2021 [2 favorites]

Can confirm bookstore cafes served Italian and French sodas (the French ones had the cream) in the Midwest 90s.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 9:00 AM on December 12, 2021 [1 favorite]

a 'foam cup' might refer to a foamy drink in an ordinary cup

Yeah the 'foam' is surely styrofoam, which is what people call expanded polystyrene. More: How to Recycle Styrofoam (in California).
posted by Rash at 9:14 AM on December 12, 2021

so yes flyover country does sometimes have access to things without people on the coast having to make them fashionable first.

Sorry, I wasn’t suggesting anything about the coasts making them fashionable, it’s just that they were invented (and still visibly popular) on the west coast.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 9:16 AM on December 12, 2021

There's a working drink known in the industry called a "presse" or "press" or something and it's especially popular if you're working in the kitchen. Like 50-70% or much more of soda water, with the rest being a splash or "press" of Sprite or similar over a bunch of ice.

Oh wow, that took me back. I loved these when I was working in the industry. And even further back when I was a kid, we used to make the most diluted Tang imaginable for pretty much the same purpose.
posted by elwoodwiles at 10:01 AM on December 12, 2021

I like this idea because of its wholesome family fun-ness. It's nice to have a food outing option with my kids that isn't sitting down for a whole meal or eating ice cream or going to Starbucks. Like, I CAN take them to the local bar for Shirley Temples, but that's a little weird. Be nice to be able to take a group of junior high students "out for drinks" at something like this.

Some of those calorie counts are a little daunting, but I don't think I've ever bought 44 oz of soda in my life. I assume they have an 8-oz or 12-oz size! (And diet sodas)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:11 AM on December 12, 2021 [1 favorite]

There is a Swig about 3 miles down the main road from my house. Can attest to it's addicting nature. One of the things I miss the most about intentionally cutting way back on my soda consumption is no more Waikiki drinks (Coke mixed with pineapple juice and coconut cream). SO GOOD. They also have a Buttery Beer, which is Root Beer mixed with butterscotch syrup, my Mormon housemate loves that one.

I've driven by a couple times right after the nearby affluent High school gets out. It's a tiny parking lot PACKED full of SUVs and a drive through line stretching into the street. Crazy.

Can confirm they use Styrofoam cups. I would be just fine it they switched to recyclable plastic, but I get the feeling very few other people care.
posted by sharp pointy objects at 10:30 AM on December 12, 2021 [2 favorites]

And to respond to some questions, yes they have smaller sizes. I think it's like 12oz, 20oz, 36oz, and 44oz.

They have a Boba drinks but only in like 3 flavors. They also have shakes, lighter drinks with sparkling water, and some true abominations made with energy drinks in. Giant frosted sugar cookies.

The store is, of course, closed on Sundays.
posted by sharp pointy objects at 10:35 AM on December 12, 2021 [1 favorite]

Serious question: If you’re shocked by a soda with half and half, what is your position on root beer floats?

25% people clutching their pearls about sugary soft drinks and 25% people who haven't heard of an Italian ice and somehow another 50% of people that apparently forgot that convenience stores and fountain drinks or chain stores like 7/11s, QuickTrips, Circle-Ks, Plaid Pantries are a thing all over the US

No beef, but this is all much less surprising when you bear in mind that not 100% of people here are from the USA, yanno?
posted by ominous_paws at 11:00 AM on December 12, 2021 [4 favorites]

(despite my boorish lack of experience, i absolutely want a Waikiki drink now)
posted by ominous_paws at 11:01 AM on December 12, 2021 [1 favorite]

Yeah Diet Dr. Pepper definitely contains caffeine.

If anybody gets up the nerve to market an edible item as a Dirty, Processed, Food-Like Substance, Now With Genetic Engineering, I want to try whatever that is immediately, out of sheer spite if nothing else.

How bold. This is a marketing sub-genre in much of the anglosphere, so you shouldn’t have far to look.
posted by aspersioncast at 12:24 PM on December 12, 2021

I grew up Mormon, and remember long theological discusions of like Cocoa on winter work weekends. I miss the food, and would love swig. I sure hate people policing food here.
posted by PinkMoose at 1:49 PM on December 12, 2021 [5 favorites]

A big well insulated container, e.g. Hydro Flask Growler @64oz, or at least a liter size thermos

full of ice cold carbonated water

ideally from the tap and then self-bubbled, but tasty water is critical

plus a bit of ice

Add two teaspoons of honey melted into the warm juice of two small limes or lemons (or one big USA lemon)

Super refreshing, not unhealthy, lasts all day if you keep the container tightly closed

Better than any store-bought pop!
posted by goinWhereTheClimateSuitsMyClothes at 2:31 PM on December 12, 2021 [4 favorites]

aspersioncast, there does exist caffeine free diet (and regular) Dr Pepper, but it is very limited in market area.
posted by Night_owl at 5:24 PM on December 12, 2021

I've never been personally but can attest to their popularity around here. Long lines that back into the streets on high traffic times. I have my own indulgences so to each their own I suppose. It was funny when it was taking off here there was a ream of lawsuits with one company trying to protect something they thought they invented. It's also expanded to another chain that sells desserts in drive through fashion, with some sodas on the side.
posted by msbutah at 8:43 AM on December 13, 2021

Like, I CAN take them to the local bar for Shirley Temples, but that's a little weird. Be nice to be able to take a group of junior high students "out for drinks" at something like this.

Last year due to the pandemic the bar I was working at managed to upgrade their liquor license and permits to allow all ages, which was great but took some getting used to. Washington State's LCCB (Liquour and Cannabis Control Board, hah) hates fun and has some pretty strict rules about permitting and bars and related things and this was a rather adult oriented cocktail and speakeasy styled bar.

We were able to get the license changes because walkup bar-side service was no longer allowed, we already had a brass rail around the whole bar and we were strictly doing table service.

For weeks or months after the license change I was having to pump the breaks on the bouncer side of my brain every time I saw anyone under 21 because it was just that jarring and different, like "Woah, little people! Where are your adults? How did you even get in here!? Oh wait..."

At some point word got out to the local teenagers they could actually legally come in to the bar and, well, it went much better than expected.

Every so often we'd get a group of mid to late teenagers getting a table, ordering food and even rather sophisticated non-alcoholic mocktails. Sometimes these groups of younger folks even got dressed up for the night and were going on group dates or hangouts or something.

At first they seemed to be absolutely thrilled to have a peek into adult life and just hang out for a while and see what it was like and they were all on their best behavior and exercising their "adult out on the town" type skills and it was really sweet. They even understood tipping and were generous about it.

Unfortunately for them it seems that what they mostly learned was that being in a bar where we couldn't really do live music or get into any real pre-pandemic drunken shenanigans was just dreadfully boring, more expensive and generally a lot less fun then whatever licit or illicit fun they could find outside of a licensed establishment.

I imagine that spending $8-10 on soda water, bitters and shrub mocktails or fancy $10 grilled cheeses or salads and then watching the die hard town drunks getting hammered and drinking their way through the pandemic (and life in general) got old fast. But that was also probably educational.

It was also cool that my friends with a kid visiting from out of town could actually hang out on the patio with me and get a cocktail or dinner with their 6 year old and not have to take turns babysitting or going somewhere with an all ages license, which there were few options for that in my town.
posted by loquacious at 12:12 PM on December 13, 2021 [2 favorites]

Can you imagine the profit margin on this? It's fizzy water, corn syrup (or sugar-free substitute) and flavorings, plus an absolute minimum of labor, all sold for a premium price.
posted by HotToddy at 8:04 AM on December 15, 2021

Well it's also cream and milk and fruit and various complex flavored syrups. And cups. And real estate and product development and marketing. And labor that is not nearly as cheap as you might think.

But hey, if marginal cost per unit sold is your thing wait til you see the racket that is the music business.
posted by Nelson at 8:50 AM on December 15, 2021