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VINTAGE ORIGINAL ADVERTISING SIGN QUEEN O SODA Loganberry Buffalo Niagara NY
$ 369.07
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Description
So here is a VERY RARE VINTAGE EMBOSSED QUEEN O QUALITY SODA SIGN embossed self framed. Metal embossed sign is in aged used rusty as is condition see pics with nice color and shine for age measuring 12 by 28. This sign almost never becomes available.Hello Greg,
Every year I come home at Christmas and stock up on loganberry for the year. I loved Queen-O loganberry as a little girl and I still have an empty bottle of it that I keep on my kitchen window. I would like to know, is loganberry Polish, from the old neighborhood (East Side) or a Buffalo only drink? I can’t find it anywhere outside Buffalo. Thanks, Lisa from Red Wing, Minn.
Hello Lisa,
Loganberry is one of the great American regional soft drinks, right up there with Cheerwine, Ale-8-One and Green River but it’s not a Western New York original. Loganberry is in fact a berry, with a California blackberry mother and a red raspberry father. It was created in 1883 by Junge James Harvey Logan in Santa Cruz, Calif. At one time it was produced nationally but now Buffalo is the last holdout of this amazing drink.
Loganberry drinks were popular in the west coast shortly after the berry was first discovered. From central California it spread north and loganberry juice could be found in soda fountains in Oregon and Washington and it would take over 30 years for the drink to make it to Western New York.
In Buffalo, Jacob House and Sons of 52 Bennett St. was the first to offer a loganberry drink. Billed as Loganberry Fiz, it was marketed as "A flavor that keeps you guessing, Tantalizing - Elusive. Different from anything else - but always satisfying. It's a treat." Nationally, Jiffy Jell a precursor to Jell-O began selling loganberry as a flavor in the late teens.
One of the East Side’s most popular soft drink makers, Sol Lenzner was established in 1922. The bottler introduced Queen-O to the market in the early 1930s as an economical mixer with a six-to-one water to concentrate mix. Queen-O hit the market in 1950 with its loganberry flavoring and sold them in decorative bottles like yours with fairy tale and nursery rhyme themes. Converting them into banks was also popular.
Around the same time Queen-O was selling loganberry, Pfeiffer Foods of Wilson also sold a loganberry punch, gaining popularity in the 1950s before stopping production in the 1960s. Sol Lenzner ran into some financial trouble and the company went under in 1969. With Queen-O off the market the availability of loganberry disappeared from the store shelves, living only at the soda fountains and school cafeterias. It would take almost 20 years for the drink to hit its stride again.
Western New York’s most popular loganberry drink would have to be Aunt Rosie’s Olde Tyme Loganberry Drink. Launched in October of 1987, Aunt Rosie’s was the brainchild of Al Pastor, president and CEO of the Pepsi-Cola Buffalo Bottling Co. Named after Al’s wife Rose, the loganberry drink was first sold in two liter bottles and 12-ounce cans before being available as a fountain drink.
Since its first inception, Aunt Rosie’s has been almost exclusively sold within the PCBBC’s distribution area since the formula is owned by the company and not Pepsi, which is why it is only available in
Buffalo. No longer available in two liter bottles, you can still pick up Aunt Rosie’s in the long 12-pack can box, which stacks nicely in the trunk for the long drive back to Minnesota.
Around the same time Aunt Rosie’s came out, Cronfelt's in Canada started producing loganberry syrup that was sold here in the U.S. at Tops and Wegmans, but the company has recently gone out of business. In 1998, PJ's Crystal Beach Loganberry of Saratoga Springs started their brand of loganberry which is sold not only in Western New York but much of the Northeast. Locally it is produced by Johnnie Ryan Beverage of Niagara Falls.
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