What do you get when you combine an artist and a chemist? Obviously you got yourself in Brooklyn making some one of a kind sodas! Caroline and Antonio (said artist and chemist) are the owners of a one of a kind soda shop in Brooklyn known as Brooklyn Soda Works. What is funny is that they don’t really even see themselves as soda makers. When we caught up with Caroline, she told us, “we think that our beverages are very different from conventional sodas so it is hard to explain why we have ‘soda’ in the name.”
Brooklyn Soda Works started in spring of 2010 as a fun weekend project. “We decided we both wanted to start brewing ginger beer and began by experimenting with different ways of carbonation. . .we then realized that we could force carbonate all different types of fresh fruit juices – that you could make a great bubbly beverage without syrup or concentrate.”
From this fun weekend project sprung new ideas, and one of a kind flavors. Flavors such as a grapefruit, honey, and jalapeño beverage, a cucumber, lime, and sea salt beverage, as well as a lemon ginger beverage were only the beginning. Since then they have created over thirty different flavors that they rotate around depending on the season. To this day they continue to expand their repertoire of flavors, now working on their very own watermelon flavors. “We cold-press the watermelons ourselves and use fresh herbs to pair the juice with (no sugar is added).”
We were curious as to where they got their inspiration for their unique flavors, and learned that some of these flavor combinations stem from their travels as well as their heritage. “I am from Hong Kong so I travel home regularly, and Antonio comes with me every other year so we always try to do a trip somewhere else in Asia. We make sure that we do our best to visit local markets and learn about the herbs and fruit that are used in the local cuisines. We were recently in Vietnam and the diversity of herbs there is amazing – there are several types of mint that rarely make it outside of the country – each is unique in its very own way. We would love to be able to obtain some of these in the US, but we do our best to create interesting flavors using the great fresh produce that is available in NYS and NJ.”
Interested in getting ahold of some of these beverages? Brooklyn Soda Works has a number of mobile vending locations as well as 2000 sq ft production space that they recently purchased in 2012. “We sell our soda directly to customers, fresh on draft, and by now we have a number of regular customers around the city. It’s pretty great to have people contact you and say how much they enjoy your drink.”
How to reach Brooklyn Soda Works:
Twitter , Facebook , or their very own website!
Portland Soda Works: A Quest for the Belgian Beer of Craft Soda
An Interview with Glam Cola’s Nermin Celik – The Clear Cola from Berlin
