What's a Blue Blaze?

Welcome to our soda blog! Thanks for reading.

The Blue Blaze Soda Company was my husband Jackson's idea, and he's the one behind creating the syrup recipes and making the soda. But, since I'm the social one in the relationship, I'll be the one doing most of the talking about the business! My name is Zanne and I'm writing here with our dog, Duke.

Blue Blaze: Your Path to Refreshment

Blue Blaze trails, on the Appalachian Trail, lead to water. If it's hot and you need to find a spring or if you're at a shelter and don't know where the closest stream is, you check around and keep your eye out for a "blue blaze" or a blue strip of paint on a tree. The blue blazes will continue down a trail until you hit water in one form or another!

That's why we chose Blue Blaze Soda Company as our company name. If you see a strip of blue paint at a farmer's market this summer, you'll know you can follow it to find a refreshing soda!

(As an aside, Blue Blazes also played a big role in the story of our marriage: in addition to marking trails to water, Blue Blazes also mark routes that used to be a part of the Appalachian Trail, but are no longer part of the trail. Some of these side trails are better maintained than others. I hiked about a third of the AT, trail name Danger Zone, in 2006 and met Action Jackson on a Blue Blaze trail while hiking with his friends Brett (Fire Hazard) and Ben (Canteloupe). We chose to take that Blue Blaze trail because Ben remembered having seen beautiful waterfalls along that particular side-route. The waterfalls WERE incredible, but on this Blue Blaze trip, beavers had dammed up many of the creek crossings and we had to traverse deep rivers, lakes, and rushing water. And as they say, the rest is history! Jackson moved to Seattle with me, yada yada yada, we got married in Black Mountain in 2010, and moved to Asheville in 2011 after traveling around the world together.)

Why Soda?

Or Fizz? Or Pop? Or Seltzer? Or whatever you call it?

Who doesn't like a good fizzy water instead of flat water when you have the option? And if you could drink a soda that's made with fresh ingredients, organic sugar and local honey, wouldn't you prefer that to something made from "natural flavors" and high fructose corn syrup? We would!

Also, we love that Asheville has such a vibrant, cool small business community. It's the perfect place to start a business: in a town that values fresh, local, quality products.

Where to find us

Last week, we debuted our "ESG" Extra Special Ginger, a ginger, orange, lemon, honey soda at a Dark and Stormy party at our house. When we kicked the 5-gallon keg, we knew it was ready for market!

We'll be at the Grow Down Home Farmer's Market from 10am - 1pm Saturday, March 16 to sell our ESG and our new Elderberry, Hibiscus, Lemon Soda! See you there.