A Sip Down Memory Lane

     Growing up there was no room in the 'fridge for soda.  Nada, zip, zilch.  When it came to sugary beverages in our house my Mother made New York's Mayor Bloomberg look like Santa Claus.  That's one reason I always looked forward to visiting my cousins in Lansdale. Their mother allowed them to mix up Kool-Aid on a hot summer day.  And I could join in adding the sugar and flavored mix and then sipping (or more accurately, gulping) the icy, cool sweetness in the shade.

     It wasn't until I was well into my teen years that I won some sort of door prize that was a $2 gift certificate to the local market in town.  That may not sound like much but fifty years ago two dollars could go a long way, especially when the purchase was for sodas that cost less than ten cent a can.  And that's exactly what I did!  I took home as many cans of A-Treat soda as those two dollars would cover.

     I purchased A-Treat for 2 reasons.  1. It was always the local favorite for things like family picnics and parties, and 2. It was the cheapest soda on the store shelves, about half the price of the national brands.  



     Bottled in Allentown the A-Treat Company was established in 1918 when two brothers, Joe & Jack Egizio, expanded the operation founded by their parents.  They bottled their carbonated soft drinks in the old fashioned, traditional method using essential oils and cane sugar rather than the more popular process using extracts and high fructose corn syrup.  The list of flavors was amazing!  In addition to the ones you might expect like root beer, cream soda, black cherry and grape, they had unique flavors that included big blue (blue raspberry), champagne cola, fruit punch, grapefruit, pineapple, strawberry, sarsaparilla and something called Treat-Up.  They also manufactured 2 kinds of ginger ale (pale dry and golden) and 2 different orange flavors (regular and dry).  I also recall a bright green lime soda as well as one that was a tonic water Tom Collins mixer.



     The sodas were distributed primarily in the 3 state region that included Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland for nearly a century.  But sadly at the beginning of this year operations ceased at their Union Boulevard plant.  That caused a run on stores selling the soda as customers stocked up on their favorite flavors.  All seemed lost until turkey producer Jaindl Companies purchased the A-Treat brand and worked out a packaging agreement with Coca-Cola of the Lehigh Valley.  Along with the brand name, Jaindl also acquired the flavor formulas and other intellectual property.  That meant things, including the taste, would remain the same.

     Former A-Treat President Tom Garvey was involved in taste testing the first flavors to come into production just to make sure they live up to the A-Treat legacy.  "Everything tastes perfect..." he proclaimed.  So once again local market chains like Giant and Redner's will soon be restocking their shelves with the local favorite.

     I wonder how many  A-Treat sodas I can get for $2 today?