The process of brewing soda is a simple task — it's the art of finding flavours that mix well together that's the challenge.
Matt Phillips, founder of Phillips Soda Works, has found the right mix of flavours with his two signature ginger ale and root beer sodas.
It took months of weekly trials and making adjustment to ingredients, but a year later he found the perfect mix.
The soda shop located at 2010 Government St. is one of a few companies in Canada to brew and bottle its sodas in house. Its products are made from locally-sourced ingredients.
“Traditionally, most places will mix soda, is the way to think of it, but we're brewing it. We're starting from scratch and we're extracting the flavours from the ingredients and making the soda from there,” Phillips said.
“We wanted to make sure it would taste good together. In the end, it's something we're really proud of.”
The soda shop is an off shoot of the locally-owned and operated Phillips Brewing Company, that made the jump to the soda market (they still brew beer as well) roughly five years ago.
“Even though they both go into a bottle, they're quite different animals,” laughed Phillips.
“I like them at different times of the day for different reasons.”
Phillips Soda Works is one of many local businesses taking part in the Country Grocer localize program.
As part of the program, customers will be able to identify more than 4,000 products from 111 producers that are made, grown or raised closer to home with a red “localize” shelf label.
“We especially appreciate how easy the program is to use. It’s nice that we can make it easier for our customers to identify local products on our shelves. It’s all about sustainability and helping each other in our community” said Country Grocer director Peter Cavin in a release.