100 years of Faygo Pop

Faygo Pop, photo by -anna-.

Anna shot this photo of Faygo Orange, Redpop, Black Raspberry, and Rock & Rye – 4 old school Faygo flavors for sure.

I apparently slept through Faygo’s 100th birthday on Sunday and failed to raise a bottle of Michigan’s own in celebration. You can get a timeline and lots of Faygo fun (including recipes – Faygo Rock & Rye Burger Bean Pie anyone?) at Faygo.com. Faygo’s history is easier to read over at the Soda Museum’s Faygo Room that begins:

Ben and Perry Feigenson, formerly bakers in Russia, began Feigenson Brothers Bottling Works on November 4, 1907. Their original flavors, Fruit Punch, Strawberry and Grape, were based upon their own frosting recipes. That is why these, and the flavors they developed later, were (and still are) so unique. They produced the soda one day, closed the factory the next day, loaded the product on a horse drawn wagon, and sold it for three cents or two for a nickel. They and their families lived above the plant. In the winter, when little soda was sold, they supplemented their incomes by selling bread and fish.

Later, when the Feigenson families moved into individual homes, they hired their first employees, bought their second horse and added Lithiated Lemon and Sassafras Soda (Root Beer) to their product line. They began calling the product “pop,” because of the sound made when opening the bottle.

There’s a big old list of Faygo flavors at Wikipedia and you can watch the Faygo Boat Song TV commercial on YouTube. If you want to go really old school, check out The Faygo Kid over at detroitkidshow.com (scroll to the bottom to see the commercial!).