Thing of the Day...Shasta Soda?

I just popped a free can of Shasta Ginger Ale from the office fridge. I work at a VA hospital and the gov provides these for the patients in the lab where I work. Tonight I drank one instead, it happens.

Imagine my surprise. Shasta is fascinating, if a little sad.

I've really only seen this can here at the VA. What piqued my interested was the copyright date on the can- 1996! I had to go digging. Why is this soda so old and so free and so unavailable at my Wawa?

Turns out Shasta is one of the oldest canned sodas. In San Francisco, Mt. Shasta Mineral Springs Company (1889) bottled mineral water from Shasta Springs in Nortnern California, where they also owned a spa and resort. Must've been nice. They claim to be the first to have canned soda, the first to offer diet soda and the first to market a soda nationally. All of which, it turns out, is bullshit. Even though their website still makes the claim. http://www.shastapop.com/museum.html

The company made its first soda, ginger ale in the 1930s. For 20 years, Shasta products were mainly used as mixers for booze. As a result of sugar rationing in 1941 (WWII) Shasta developed a cool new product- Club Soda- likely inspired by the overwhelming use of their product in bars and clubs. I do like Club Soda and I never call it selzer.

Shasta, it seems, is the cheapee brand now, akin to RC or Presidents. But it doesn't seem it was always so. In the 80's Shasta was bought by National Beverage and its distribution increased, not to cool places like Wawas and 7-11s but to places like mental institutions, college cafeterias and my little white VA fridge.

How the mighty fall.