Has anyone heard of Puck's soda?

[KStreetQB]

Originally Posted by PK12

Would be interesting to know which sandwich shops are being referred to as pretentious

I'm having a hard time even conceptualizing what one would look like.

[Sophiasmommy]

Wow, that sounds like cause for breach of contract.

Originally Posted by moz374

This. The brothers also repurchased their former production plant once the new Boylan's management shifted production elsewhere.

I'm an operator who is currently using Boylan's but will be switching to Puck's because of this. I felt compelled to comment on this thread because, despite the branding, BOYLAN'S IS NO LONGER A NATURAL SODA COMPANY. Out of the 8 flavors our restaurants carry, 7 of them have had the formula changed to contain Sodium Benzoate, as well as some artificial colors & flavoring that weren't in the old formulas. Note that despite buying 100 boxes a week of Boylan's we were never notified of these changes - I had no idea until Puck's pointed it out and I checked the ingredient statements on our boxes.

Hope this helps anyone else looking for information, since there isn't much out there at the moment. Puck's may not be the right answer for you, but make sure you know what Boylan's is actually offering.

[Thing Fish]

Originally Posted by Philaman

Apparently, the two brothers who ran Boylans were unfortunately on the short side of a hostile takeover of their company by a bank. The new ownership has been cheapening the product for some time now. Well the two brothers knew they had a good product and started their new company, Puck's. Basically all the same recipes and flavors as Boylan's. I cannot find much on the web but was forwarded some powerpoint slides on the company.

This is correct. I went to work for the Fiorina brothers the last year or so they had control of the company. They were great people to work for. Emigrant Capital forced the brothers out as well as the rest of us working there. They made many changes to Boylan prior to the takeover. You'll notice that the painted bottles are long gone. Each flavor had it's own painted bottles and caps. The bank switched the bottling to three color bottles with a clear label to mimic the painted ones. They then switched bottling plants from a soda bottling plant in Wilkes-Barre to a brewery in PA. When that change was made, Boylan's product now needed to be pasteurized because of the yeast used in the brewery equipment. The product was now essentially "cooked" thus changing the flavor. It was sad to see the way Emigrant handled this family business and slowly issued themselves more and more shares of the company until they owned it outright. I will never buy Boylan products again. The people that the bank sent in to take over were from Magic Hat Brewery in Vermont, which I also boycott now.

[ersatz]

I used to drink Boylan back in the day before I gave up junk food. Loved their Creme Soda. As a kid (a long time ago) I remember drinking their draught Birch Beer. The bottled stuff is a lot more sugary and does not taste the same.

Thanks for the inside insight Thing Fish. Using your info, I researched this a bit further. There are some articles on the history of Boylan soda. It was started in 1891 but William Boylan sold the formula in the 40's to his driver Frank Fiorina. I found an article from 2003 extolling the positive benefits that Emigrant would bring to the Fiorina brothers (Frank's grandsons) and the authenticity of their product. https://www.bevnet.com/news/2003/09-...3-emigrant.aspThat article is sad and ironic in retrospect, but Mark Fiorina has bounced back with a new business assisting small niche soda makers with production and marketing. Craft fizzness: New owner revitalizes Scranton soda plant - Business - The Times-Tribune