According to Food & Wine, Connecticut’s favorite snack is actually a drink. A magazine that recently rounded up the best regional tidbits in all 50 states chose birch soda as its Nutmeg state entry.
Nutmegger “has everything when it comes to curbing snack-time cravings,” writes David Randsel, noting the state’s donuts, hot dogs and ice cream. A refreshing birch soda…most of the time…makes me want more New Haven-style pizza’ in a glass bottle.
“Pizzerias everywhere usually have refrigerators full of locally-favored (and very distinctive) fizzy alternatives, including cherries, grapes, strawberries, mouth-puckering Italian-style lemon-lime. and other flavors,” continues Landsel.
The soda, better known as birch beer, is a Foxon Park staple. The company describes its flavor as “a refreshing, subtle wintergreen taste,” and it’s available as a traditional recipe with cane sugar, or as a diet version with Nutrasweet.
Local brands are closely tied to New Haven pizzaIt’s featured on menus at , Modern, Sally’s, and Zuppardi’s (and is prominently displayed in photos on Frank Pepe’s website.
Foxon Park COO Jay Brancati said in an April 2022 Connecticut Magazine feature on the soda company that the connection to pizza makes perfect sense. “Immigrants from Italy, they all started together.”
Pazzo, a New Haven-style pizzeria in San Carlos, California, also serves soda and pays tribute to owner Andy Gambardella’s Elm City roots. When food her writer J. Kenji Lopez-Alt visited the restaurant in May 2020, he sang praises of the pizza on his Instagram, sharing a photo of the pie and a bottle of birch flavor.
“Birch beer, we couldn’t sell things [before]Gambardella told Hearst Connecticut in September. [when] Kenji said, but that’s all I have now. “
Connecticut isn’t the only state with a drink to represent its snack culture. Florida’s “snack food” was fresh orange juice, next-door Rhode Island’s entry was Dell’s Frozen Lemonade, and Utah’s pick was “dirty soda.” This shows Beehive State’s love for fountain sodas customized with flavors her syrups and creams.
“The main goal of our state-by-state projects is to find the best of everything, but also to paint a picture of America’s food culture and celebrate the sheer breadth and variety of what’s on offer. “From the sophisticated canned seafood of the Pacific Northwest to the humble but mighty boiled peanuts of the Deep South,” Randsel wrote.