Characterised as the soft drink equivalent of the early 1990s craft beer craze, in recent years, high end and often regionally produced natural artisanal sodas have been making their presence known in restaurants and speciality grocery stores across the USA. Now the beverages are poised to inundate major grocery chains with brands like Boylan's vintage soda, Cheerwine and Jones Soda showing up on the shelves of suburban supermarkets. The trend is so big that in 2010, Beverage World added artisanal sodas to its HIT list, which highlights up-and-coming developments in the marketplace. Like craft beers, these sodas are usually packaged in glass, which reinforces the image of a high quality, high end, natural product. "Glass is a natural fit for our brand, which contains real cane sugar," said Tom Barbitta, Cheerwine's Vice President of Marketing. "Glass sends a strong signal to consumers that this will be different. Its a collection of signals that support the brand being in this package." Cheerwine is a long established soda brand in the south eastern USA that has found renewed consumer interest because of its artisanal qualities. Cheerwine continues to use glass bottles for its products.
