So into soda

MUKILTEO – Mike Bourgeois’ appreciation of soda brands from the past extends to the machines used to bottle those flavors at Orca Beverage Inc.’s plant.

He uses refurbished bottling and labeling machines from the 1950s and ’60s to bottle and label old-fashioned glass bottles. A case-packing machine first used by Coors Brewing Co. in the 1940s sits nearby.

“What we are is pretty much a soda shop of yesteryear. Most of the equipment is authentic to that period,” said Bourgeois, Orca’s founder and owner. “We’re making these sodas just like they did in the ’40s and ’50s.”

Elizabeth Armstrong / The Herald Bottles of Dad’s root beer make their way down the assembly line at Orca Beverage Inc. in Mukilteo.

He admits the old machinery isn’t necessary; new ones would do just as well. But it adds to the charm of his products, which includes revived 20th-century soda brands such as Moxie, Dad’s root beer and Bubble Up.

Combined with the new drink brands Orca produces and distributes, Bourgeois’ sales are growing quickly.

A one-time restorer of vintage cars, 45-year-old Bourgeois was at Seattle University pursuing a business degree when he got into the beverage world. Along with a group of fellow students, he did a project that focused on how flavored sparkling water, such as Koala Springs, was taking the market by storm in the late 1980s.

“After we graduated, we decided to come out with our own brand as an answer to Koala. We called it Orca,” he said.

As members of the company’s founding group fell away to do other things, Bourgeois stayed with it.

While he was able to sell his product, getting bottlers to keep up with demand was a problem. So he began shopping for his own equipment, buying up mostly old Pepsi-Cola and Coca-Cola machines and refurbishing them. By the mid-1990s, he had a small production plant set up in Redmond. Then the calls started.

“We just started networking with other small companies like me that needed production help,” Bourgeois said. “There’s just a few left in the country that do this.”

And that’s how Orca hooked up with the Moxie brand, which claims to have been produced continuously in the United States since 1884.

The original Moxie soda, hailing from New England, is an acquired taste, Bourgeois admitted.

“When I first tasted it, I said, ‘What?’” said Hiro Yokoo, operations manager and mixologist at Orca.

In fact, Orca first developed more mainstream flavors, such as vanilla cream and cherry cola, to sell under the Moxie name.

Mike Bourgeois specializes in craft sodas from the ’40s and ’50s.

But after Orca began distributing those flavors, old-time fans demanded the somewhat bitter-tasting “original elixir,” which now is available.

Yokoo said it’s not hard to re-create the nostalgic flavors, for which recipes still exist. Orca also uses filtered water from Spada Lake and real sugar – instead of corn syrup – for the best quality.

What he thrives on, however, is creating new flavors and brands, which Orca is doing. Recently, the company began selling a fructose-sweetened Vitamin C drink for kids called Krazy Kritters, which comes in animal-shaped containers.

Orca also is getting ready to begin bottling and distributing Nesbitt’s orange soda and Quench, both revival brands, to 13 Western states.

“We’ll probably have the biggest nostalgic portfolio in the country,” Bourgeois said.

The market for handcrafted classic sodas, driven by baby boomers, definitely is growing, he added.

“It’s bubbly,” agreed Pam Rubio, owner of Edicutt Enterprise, which distributes premium root beer and nostalgia sodas around Riverside, Calif., and also operates goodsoda.com. “Yes, it’s growing.”

Rubio, who carries some of Orca’s products, said many of her connoisseur customers insist on soda and root beer in the old-fashioned glass bottles that Orca uses.

“It’s totally different in glass bottles,” she said. “With bottles, you get the taste with the first sip. With cans or plastic, it takes five or six sips until you get that taste.”

Producing small batches of root beer or soda at a time and using glass bottles isn’t the cheapest way, but Bourgeois said it works for a niche player such as Orca.

“By being a boutique bottler, I can be profitable with much less volume,” he said.

The trick will be to remain small enough to stay in that sweet spot, but big enough to compete well.

Last year, Orca produced about 100,000 cases, or 2.4 million bottles, of product. That will grow by about 20 percent over the next year, Bourgeois said.

Orca now has 15,000 square feet in its own building in Mukilteo, in which the company’s small staff mixes up a variety of drinks in 700- and 1,500-gallon tanks. Hot pasteurization equipment soon will be added so it can produce fruit juices and organic drinks as well.

With the expanding product line and growing sales, Bourgeois is unabashedly happy about taking market share from Coke and Pepsi.

“We’re usually able to get about 20 to 25 percent of the space in the premium soda section at grocery stores we’re in,” he said. “That’s something the big boys don’t like to see.”

Reporter Eric Fetters: 425-339-3453 or fetters@heraldnet.com.