About Us: Our Deep American Roots
A long time ago, vitamin C was quite rare. People would succumb to the dreaded “scurvy” disease because they could not get enough of this precious vitamin. However, the Native Americans had a simple solution. They took the fresh tips of spruce trees and boiled them down into a vitamin C rich brew. When the early settlers came to America, they learned of this "spruce beer" and used it as a medicinal and recreational drink. In fact, it is rumored that Captain Cooke made tasty concoction from spruce beer, rum, and water to keep his sailors healthy. The spruce beer fought off scurvy and the rum killed off any water-borne bacteria.
Hundreds of years later, in the year 2000, Tristan Bhagwandin was visiting some antique shops in New York and happened upon a 200-year-old recipe for spruce beer. He copied it, gathered all of the ingredients, and took a hand at making the old brew. Upon tasting it, Tristan was amazed. The brew was strong, almost overwhelming to a point that it made his eyes water. However, the concoction was also incredibly refreshing, and its powerful tree flavor hearkened to the North American wilderness and nature. Tristan saw grand possibilities in making a soda version of this drink for everyone to enjoy and started the excruciating process of formulating one. After 2 years of hard work and steady refinement, Tristan Bhagwandin was ready to sell his Spruce Beer Soda.
Above: The spruce tree gives Spruce Beer soda that unique and refreshing flavor. This special tree is also the inspiration for our logo’s icon.