What does a dog and a Rhode Island soda company soon to celebrate 110 years of being in business have in common?
Apparently a lot after cartoonist Tim Jones and John Sgambato of Yacht Club Soda connected more than two months ago.
Jones, creator of the cartoon strip Sour Grapes, was new to newspaper comics when he came to the Warwick Beacon in 2014. Weeks before the Smithfield Times started publishing his work and he hoped to build a following. Jones, who had done standup comedy, was looking for another outlet for his dry humor.
“I always wanted to do a comic strip,” he said in a recent interview. “It’s easier to put into a strip instead of listening to me trying to be funny.”
He came up with a “miserable flying dog.” He gave the dog a cape and the name, Aesop. He sees Aesop as having universal appeal. After all, “Everyone knows someone who is miserable.”
Jones traces his passion for drawing to the third grade where he would show off his doodles to as many people as possible. Today with the internet and social media there’s seemingly an endless audience.
“It will never go away, there will always be sour grapes in people’s lives,” he said.
But now Sour Grapes is bittersweet. That’s one way to describe the new Yacht Club Soda flavor that is gaining popularity.
Yacht Club has produced “one off” sodas for the past elections including red soda with Donald Trump’s picture and a blue soda with Kamala Harris’ picture this year. They also produced an independent soda with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. featured, “but we had to pivot quickly when he dropped out,” said Sgambato.
This is the first licensed soda for the company. Jones will get to share in the proceeds.
When he started out Jones wasn’t thinking of licensing. He worked to get the strip published in as many papers as possible. He hoped to get it nationally syndicated, but that hasn’t happened yet. The strip is published weekly in 47 newspapers across the country from Alaska to California, Texas, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, just to name a few and, of course, Rhode Island.
Then Sour Grapes, or rather Jones, took a turn that he could have never imagined when Aesop first emerged from his drawing board.
Jones was at a Comic Con event when a cartoonist in an adjoining booth pointed to the banner sign featuring the “miserable flying dog” and said, “you ought to think of licensing.”
“I really didn’t know anything about it,” Jones recalls thinking. He looked into it and in April contacted Yacht Club Soda and John Sgambato. He liked the idea.
“We’re always looking for creative ways to partner our drinks with other small businesses and would love to explore more opportunities,” Sgambato says. The soda that is sold in 12 once glass bottles can be found in local stores and restaurants such as Iggy’s in Oakland Beach as well as the factory on 2239 Mineral Spring Ave., North Providence where a case of 24 bottles sells for $32.99. The soda, made with Scituate Reservoir water that has been further purified, is also sold in four and 12 bottle lots.
Sgambato said the company only uses glass bottles, not plastic, “because the best flavor comes from glass.” The bottles aren’t returnable, he urges people to recycle them.
It’s a sour grape flavored soda with a label designed with Jones’s artwork by his daughter Jillian Jones, a graphic designer.
The soda’s vivid green hue matches the logo for Jones’s comic strip.
“We wanted the soda to not only taste amazing but also capture the fun and unique vibe of Tim’s great comic,” Sgambato said.
Jones was impressed by how quickly Sgambato came up with the flavor. After only two taste tests to strike the perfect balance of sweetness and tartness, Jones suggested the striking green color.
Sgambato said Jones didn’t want a purple or Concord grape color, so turned to a confection he made for his kids using frozen green grapes sprinkled with lemon. It worked.
Jones is looking for more papers to pick up Sour Grapes. He reaches out with emails and follows up with phone calls to publishers and editors.
Sgambato is hopeful of broadening Yacht Club Soda sales and introducing Rhode Islanders and the world beyond to Sour Grapes.
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