A man and his moxie

If you've ever wondered where the phrase "He has a lot of moxie" comes from, Mike Bourgeois not only has the answer, he'll also sell it to you in a bottle.

Bourgeois, 45, has slowly built his fascination with retro beverages into a solid business, spinning out an array of soda pops guaranteed to push the nostalgia button in anybody age 50 or more.

Moxie is the name of a soda first created in 1884. By many accounts it's the oldest continuously made carbonated beverage in the United States. Originally marketed as a "nerve tonic," the soda has a uniquely bitter flavor, based on the herb gentian, that is something of an acquired taste. (In the dictionary, the word "moxie" today is used to describe an ability to face difficulties with "spirit and courage.")

For Bourgeois, Moxie launched his company in 1996 into the beverage industry's growing nostalgia niche. In fact, the headway he has made recently reflects the power of retro products -- ranging from lunch boxes to modern versions of vintage cars -- in today's consumer-products world.

Bourgeois founded his Mukilteo company, Orca Beverage Soda Works Inc., in the late 1980s soon after graduating college. Orca currently produces or will produce Moxie and other once-popular brands including Dad's root beer, Bubble Up, Grapette and Sioux City sodas. It's not an easy business; two giants, PepsiCo and The Coca-Cola Co., control three quarters of the $66 billion U.S. soft drink industry, according to the Standard and Poor's Industry Survey.

Now Bourgeois, who serves as Orca's founder, president and owner, is preparing to launch a restoration of Nesbitt's Orange Soda, a brand that once was one of the biggest-selling sodas on the West Coast.

"It had a very juicy orange flavor, and was made with California oranges originally," he said.

Gary Hemphill, managing director for Beverage Marketing Corp., a New York-based research and consulting firm, said he believes that a company like Orca can tap a "niche opportunity" in the nostalgia market, although he suggests that niche is limited.

"I'm sure there are older consumers out there that would remember those brands, and buy them because of that," he said. "If they (Orca) can carve out a unique image, they might be able to attract younger consumers."

There is competition in the nostalgia soda market, with at least two companies producing a version of Bubble-Up, and several making versions of Moxie. The rights to these vintage sodas are complex, with some recipe owners granting bottlers regional rights, or even overlapping rights depending on how the pop is bottled. For instance, Bourgeois' bottled version of Moxie competes against other Moxies in cans.
　

While some soda companies are little more than a concept and a marketing plan, leaving all the manufacturing and distribution to independent bottlers, Bourgeois believes in doing it all himself. All his vintage sodas are bottled in Mukilteo in custom-made era-appropriate bottles, painted with recreations of the original labels, many with pry-off caps.

To do all this, a year ago Bourgeois opened a new 26,000-square-foot factory in Mukilteo, outfitted with vintage bottling machinery from the 1950s and 1960s. There's even a case packer made in 1948.

His business recipe is unusual, but Bourgeois expects to hit $3 million to $4 million in sales over the next 18 months, which would more than double the $1.5 million in revenue for the last fiscal year, which ended in June.

"Every week I've got a dozen or two dozen requests for specialty sodas; we're just going full-bore to keep up with it," he said. "There is still a market for full-flavored gourmet soft drink, and these nostalgic drinks fit into these categories."

John Nese, who distributes Orca Beverage products to about 200 independent restaurants and cafes in Los Angeles, said he has customers driving from Las Vegas to buy entire cases of Orca Beverage's Moxie. Nese said part of the attraction is the fact that Bourgeois always sweetens his sodas with sugar, not corn syrup, and he uses natural extracts and flavors almost exclusively.

"Mike's interpretation of products is right on the button," Nese said. "As far as quality bottlers go he's right at the top. There aren't too many bottlers as good as him."

Currently Bourgeois employs four, and expects he could operate with about 10 people at full production. About half of the company's revenue comes from nostalgia beverages, while the balance comes from bottling and developing beverages for private labels and other companies, Bourgeois said. About 80 percent of his sales are in the Northwest.