Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, September 13, 1993 TAG: 9309130065
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TINA McCLOUD NEWPORT NEWS DAILY PRESS
DATELINE: MONTROSS (AP) LENGTH: Medium
A fine champagne served by a snooty sommelier in France?
No. It's a ginger ale blended and bottled by the Carver family in Montross, a community on Virginia's Northern Neck.
The beverage, Carver's Original Ginger Ale, was introduced last year at the 38th International Fancy Food and Confection Show in Washington, D.C. It is available at specialty food shops and restaurants along the East Coast.
Arthur E. Carver III, the third generation of Carvers to run Northern Neck Bottling Co., said there are plans to kick off an advertising campaign this fall to promote the beverage. Until now, the ginger ale has mostly been promoted by word of mouth, he said.
The beverage is made from a formula developed by his grandfather, the first Arthur E. Carver, in the 1920s. It was bottled for a few years then as Carver's Special Ginger Ale.
However, the formula was changed in the 1930s and the name became Northern Neck Ginger Ale. The company still markets that beverage as well as Coca-Cola products.
"Several years ago we were looking for a gourmet line," Carver said.
The company turned to the original 1920s Carver's Special recipe but opted for the name Carver's Original to capitalize on the appeal of tradition.
One inspiration for appreciation of the old ways is Arthur E. Carver Jr., 79, who is chairman of the board of the bottling company and works just about every day.
Carver III said two ingredients in the recipe make Carver's Original special: artesian water and extract of ginger root.
Not every ginger ale contains ginger, the younger Carver said. Check the ingredients on brands on the supermarket shelves, he suggested. Ginger is not on the label on some of them.
The water used in Carver's Original also is special, he said. The water, drawn from a 650-foot-deep artesian well at the plant, originates in the Blue Ridge and is clean and soft by the time it flows under the Northern Neck, he said. An artesian well taps water that drains down from higher ground so the pressure forces a flow of water upward.
"Until people really taste this small, regional brand, they don't know how remarkably different it is," Carver said.
Several fans of Carver's Original agree.
"It's about the best we've run across," said Richard Griswold, who drove to the bottling plant from Colonial Beach recently to buy a case of the beverage.
"It's a very good ginger ale," agreed Jacques Recht, the winemaster at Ingleside Plantation Winery in Oak Grove, which sells the beverage. He credits the soft water and the formula.
The pale green, 12-ounce glass bottles are blown and painted near Mexico City. There is no paper stick-on label; the labeling is painted and baked on in white, salmon and lavender. Cardboard cartons of four bottles carry the same colors.
The product and the packaging get high praise from ginger ale expert Ken Previtali of Norwalk, Conn., who is writing a history of the beverage.
Previtali evaluated Carver's Original a few months before its introduction. He gave it a 4-plus on a scale of 5: sharp ginger flavor, excellent balance, medium sweetness, fine carbonation, excellent carbonization retention after opening, and a full body with clean aftertaste.
The only qualities Previtali said he would change were a personal preference for less citrus flavor and less sweetness. He said ginger ale below the Mason-Dixon line is traditionally a little sweeter than the dry ginger ale preferred in the North.
Ginger ale was the most popular soft drink in the United States from the 1860s until the 1930s, when Coca-Cola became the rage, Previtali said. These days, ginger ale is most often thought of as a mixer for alcoholic drinks or as a stomach settler.
According to Beverage World, a trade publication, ginger ale sales decreased 2 percent in large supermarkets last year compared with 1991.
In response, major brands such as Schweppes and Canada Dry, both owned by Cadbury Schweppes, are trying to reposition themselves to appeal to a younger market.
Carver, 49, is going in the other direction with an appeal to tradition in packaging and recipe. He shakes his head at the idea of flavored ginger ale. "Our contention is, why don't you put in the real ingredients? They'll never make it in the youth market with the flavors."
His target audience is among people "age 25 and up who are looking for a very special product."
"We feel it's the type of product that will slowly grow. Once they appreciate it, they'll demand it," Carver said.
by CNB