Organic small batch soda brewing up success with new flavors

KANSAS CITY, Missouri - You can find the area’s latest libation being created in the back of a hot dog restaurant in south Kansas City. At Big City Hot Dogs you can get your dog classic or fancy. You can also get a handcrafted Thai basil and clove soda.

If that sounds like a strange combination, the restaurant owner recommends you try a Chicago dog with a celery seed soda and then see what you think.

In the back of this busy kitchen is where they brew Soda Vie. It’s a line of small batch, naturally fermented drinks, made with fresh seasonal ingredients, obtained locally whenever possible.

“That’s real food in there, you’re getting real extraction from,” says Benjamin Tople as he strains the liquid from a batch of peppers.
It’s that unique quality that’s helped Soda Vie products really pop since they started in January.

“It’s been really cool just to see people’s response of how much they like the product” says his partner Sean Henry. When he first tasted Topel’s homebrewed soda, he knew they could take it farther. Together they come up with new flavors. And things have really taken off.

“In a down economy, in a bleak, almost disaster of a national scenario for finances, and we’re starting something new and we’re growing, we’re doubling almost every month.”

To start something new, they needed a space. When Henry saw Rick Van Lue renovating an empty storefront on Grandview Road, they started talking. Soon Van Lue was offering them space in the back of Big City Hot Dogs’ kitchen. He says the pairing is as natural as hot dogs and soda.

“I like the product that they had number one, very refreshing, all natural and it complements the hot dogs,” he said.

As they started to fill more fancy blue bottles with boutique flavors, they met someone who knew someone at Blanc Burgers and Bottle. Now their brews are featured there, too. And they’re working with Blanc to make flavors that can be used as cocktail mixers.

Henry says the whole experience has been like that. “It’s just like the product itself. It’s absolutely…you know, you mix it, put it in the bottle, let it sit and see what happens next,” he said. “All of a sudden people started finding out about us and we started talking with them and things would just happen.”

Their product can be found on the shelves a various specialty stores around town now. They’re thrilled with their success, but it’s bigger than that. They want to sell stuff that tastes good so they can do good. They see the business as a means to a bigger end…helping causes close to their hearts, like single parents, adoptive families and foster care.

“Widows and orphans,” as Tople puts it. “If this allows me to do that in a more practical way, then that’s all the better."

That kind of altruism has helped make business connections. Van Lue has six adopted children and Henry was a single parent for many years. “Benjamin and I, we focused our company on giving and working with benevolence projects with adoption and with single parents,” Henry said. “once we set ourselves and purposed ourselves for that everything’s fallen into place.”

And that’s the secret of their success, according to Tople and Henry. While people are intrigued by a brewed soda that’s made by hand, the freshness of their product means their soda has an expiration date, and once they’ve sold their fancy brew for around three dollars a bottle, what legacy does that leave, Henry wonders.

“I’m trying to figure out how we can create opportunities for single moms, single dads that need work but don’t have full days or need flexible time,” he said.

In their business model, thinking of others isn’t something to occasionally get around to doing, but an integral part of their success.