Some of you have been following our adventure from the beginning and some are just finding us for the first time, but no matter how long you've supported our little endeavor, we truly couldn't have done it without you. The only reason Big Jerk Soda Co. exists is because the people of Pensacola and beyond tried our products and kept coming back for more. Every time we got comfortable, you demanded new products and growth that we could have never imagined in the early days. You pushed us to dream bigger than we knew how. You are the heart and soul of Big Jerk and we will never stop thanking you for it!
We've never sent one of these emails because we never really knew what was important enough to pop up in your inbox and we certainly never want you to think of emails from us as junk. We always wanted this type of communication to be exciting and valuable, not something that winds up in your trash folder. That will be our goal going forward as well, so give the emails a peek before your toss them!
If the first five years of Big Jerk were a rollercoaster, the last couple of years have felt like one of those waterslides that basically drop you straight down and you have to hope and pray that you don't fly off and miss the pool. In an effort to expand our capabilities, we decided to also open a distilled spirits plant in the hopes of creating craft cocktails ready to drink in cans and bottles using the same commitment to quality and excellent ingredients we use for our soda. Our sister company, Milkweed Spirits, is the first distillery operation in Pensacola since before Prohibition.
Why haven't you heard about this? Well the truth is that getting the permit was the easy part. We have learned a lot about regulation, distribution, taxes, and importing in the year and a half since our license was issued. To be honest, we had no ideas the hurdles that would slow down our plans, but we also had no idea how much we would learn and what directions our businesses would take.
Milkweed Spirits is now a manufacturing facility for Big Jerk Soda, Sweet Jackson Tea, Peace and Plants kratom and kava drinks, Dô Sparkling Cocktails, Leaping Mullet Vodka, Thirsty Dog Margarita Mixes, Yopon Tea Company and a few other major projects we can't even talk about yet. Some with local companines you know and love, and some brand new creations in collaboration with amazing partners.
A large part of the reason for this growth has been our new bigger manufacturing facility, as well as the addition of a canning line. We can now fill jugs, liquor bottles, soda bottles, a variety of aluminum can sizes, and tea bottles with just about any beverage concoction we can dream up.
So what does all this mean for Big Jerk? Right now the main changes you'll see are our Pop Singles and Seltzer product lines transitioning to aluminum cans. You may have already seen Pink Grapefruit seltzer hit the shelves in its shiny new packaging. Next week we will re-stock our pink grapefruit supplies as well as debuting Key Lime in cans. Be looking out for a Pop Singles rebrand in aluminum cans this spring!
Aside from looking awesome, there are a lot of benefits to the aluminum packaging. In this post-pandemic landscape, sourcing our glass bottles has become an increasingly annoying challenge. We will keep all original Big Jerk flavors and seasonals in bottles as long as we possibly can, but removing Pop Singles and seltzers from the glass bottles will take the pressure off of that particular issue for a while.
Aluminum is also considerably less expensive and much lighter than glass making shipping less expensive as well. This will hopefully mean the cost of those products will come down and position us to be more competitive in the craft soda and seltzer markets. We don't set prices for our retailers though so if you see a high price, it's really out of our control. We're encouraging our wholesale customers to price the products in accordance with their new lower costs.
Which brings us to our next point. We opened an online store! Now that we're comfortable in our new location, we decided it was time to offer another way for you to stock up on Big Jerk Soda products. Our store will be kept up to date with all available products sold in case quantities of 24 bottles or flats of 24 cans. We are only offering cases at this time but that's what gets you our deep discount price. We will also be adding merch including koozies, buttons, stickers, throw back shirt designs, new shirts, and hats over the next several months. For now the store will be limited to local pickup only, but we're hoping to find viable shipping options in the future.
The store currently has a 'buy one case get a koozie half off" coupon automatically applied to anyone purchasing from the store as well as our birthday coupon code "bigjerklovesyou" which will get you an extra 15% off your entire order when applied at checkout. We like discounts and we're sure you do too, so we will be dropping deals as fresh as our soda pretty regularly. We promise to make it worth your time to read our emails. Don't send us to spam ;)
Love,
The Jerks
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