Pittsburgh Pop
WE'RE NOT TALKING ABOUT MUSIC OR CULTURE OR THE WARHOL. NO, WE'RE SPEAKING OF THE FIZZY BEVERAGE. IN THIS PART OF THE WORLD, WE PROUDLY CALL OUR CARBONATED SOFT DRINKS "POP."

In our recent WQED program "What Makes Pittsburgh Pittsburgh?" we included a story about the last surviving pop-maker in Allegheny County, the tiny Natrona Bottling Co., home of the beautiful Red Ribbon Cherry among other flavors. The sights and sounds of the brave little bottling plant grabbed the attention of lots of viewers who couldn't resist the tiny bubbles, the bright color, the promise of its cane-sugar sweetness. A good local pop seems somehow reassuring. It connects people with the past, when all the world wasn't nationally franchised. Paul Bowser, president and CEO of Natrona Bottling, will tell you his company owes a huge debt to Sidney Harris, who died in 2003 at the age of 100 1/2.

Harris was a titan in Pittsburgh pop history. Around 1920, the young Harris acquired 50 percent interest in the soft- drink company that had been started by his late stepfather, Abraham Waller, and a friend, William Americus. According to family records, it wasn't until 1934, after Harris' second son was born and a book of nursery rhymes came into the house, that he started calling his products "Tom Tucker." In 1935, he registered the name and the character of a boy in a top hat as trademarks, creating a large pop company—Tom Tucker.

Harris was past retirement age when Tom Tucker was sold in the mid-'70s. But retirement wasn't his style, and almost immediately he offered to share his pop expertise with Paul Bowser out in Natrona. Bowser was already in his 50s himself, but he says, "Harris was the inspiration that kept me here."

Together, Harris and Bowser shifted production to concentrate on specialty soft drinks, and they revived some old flavors too. They started making a classy nonalcoholic product called "Champayne" (changed to "Champayno" after the French consulate in Washington, D.C., protested that the name was too close to the famous French bubbly). They also re-concocted a legendary mint-flavored carbonated drink, Plantation Style Mint Julep (with mythic medicinal powers).

But perhaps the most whimsical product still produced at Natrona Bottling is Jamaica's Finest Ginger Beer. Call me a dupe, but I kept a bottle of this Ginger Beer in my refrigerator for over a year, waiting for the right reggae-inspired evening to pop it open, never suspecting that Jamaica's Finest Ginger Beer might be made nearby on the bank of the Allegheny. I was fooled by the masterful marketing skills of Sidney Harris and Paul Bowser, but that makes me admire them more. And I drank the ginger beer. It's good pop.