What if fruits were carbonated? This seems like a silly notion but entertain the idea for just a moment. What if you bit into a strawberry and it was, well, all tingly? The fruit would still glisten like a juicy ruby. It would still contain the same sweet but tart flavor. The only thing different would be a dance of bubbles across the tongue. The fruit would be alive in a whole new way. You may call something like that a metamorphosis of sorts—Matt Fendley, Mick Matricciano and Brandon Wogamon of the Cannonborough Soda Company call it work.
     After a year in the business of pop, the Cannonborough boys got a snazzy new website from Fuzzco and have worked events such as the Food + Wine festival, pop-up shop openings and private, catered events. But most of the time, if the sun is peeking out, they can be seen at the Charleston Farmer’s Market. I’ve read about them in everything from Charleston Art Magazine to the Local Palate, and I had to see where the magic happens. The beverage alchemy is carried out in a modest house on Gordon Street, where I plop inside a doughy couch and share beers with Fendley and Wogamon.
     One of the first things they say to me is that their soda business has deep roots in their childhood. And it shows. Each of the guys has a personalized business card that features his own cartoon character. Wogamon is a cheery squirrel. Fendley is a skipping mouse. 
     “Soda is the most nostalgic thing. It makes you feel like a kid again,” says Wogamon as he leans forward, folding his hands together as he talks. He has a worn-out baseball hat on shading his bright, doe eyes.
     “The cartoons, our white soda jerk outfits with our little bow ties, it all fits into a theme,” Fendley says.
     This isn’t hard to believe considering Fendley is lounging longways across the two arms of a comfy chair, snacking on Cheerios right out of the box, still in his greasy work clothes from his other job at Moe’s Southwestern Grill. Meanwhile, Wogamon is fascinated by the big-screen playing a show called Swamp People. It’s catching my interest as well. “This is a show where dudes go into the swamp and catch alligators for some reason,” Wogamon says. Fendley laughs with his mouth full. “It’s awesome,” Wogamon assures. I’m sold.
     The house and atmosphere have all the charm and essence of a college bachelor pad. Yet, just past the sparse, hardwood living room, the kitchen is Willy Wonka’s factory. It’s full of tubes, beakers, sifters and mixers for their elixirs. Don’t let their rambunctious personality and all these neat gizmos fool you; it’s not all play. They balance the youthful spontaneity along with a steady, mature finesse.
     “The soda idea almost has nothing to do with soda at all,” Fendley says.
     It all started with a more adult beverage that Wogamon and Matricciano became acquainted with at their many bar jobs, an acquaintance that rewarded them last year, when they won the Charleston Mixologist competition put on by BB&T and the Charleston Food + Wine Festival.
     “We wanted to bring the complexity of a cocktail to sodas. It makes perfect sense because the bubbles let out plenty of natural flavors through the aromatics,” Wogamon says. His attention from the alligator hunter show wanes as he leans forward from the all-swallowing couch, visibly excited to talk about the catalyst to the whole operation.
      “Mick and I were working at The Gin Joint and fell in love with classic sodas, so we started making a ginger beer,” he adds.
     The same ginger beer that is a staple of Cannonborough’s cornucopia of flavors. He goes on to say that you can “taste” the progression by tasting the sodas.
     “When we made the grapefruit elderflower, we were trying to do the new-age cocktail thing and apply it to sodas. When we finally made our honey basil, we broke out of our shell and learned that simplicity is the way to go. It’s our best soda,” Wogamon says.
     “Honey basil is my favorite soda of ours as well,” Fendley says.
     I just had to ask, if honey basil was their best soda…
     “The worst flavor we ever had was cantaloupe, sea salt and honey. It sounds delicious in theory, but it ended up being a battle between sweat and salty,” Wogamon says. 
     “It was poorly done the first time and the fifth time,” Fendley adds. 
     Both of them let out a chuckle, and Wogamon’s attention drifts back to the show while they're pulling in a big one. “That’s an 800-pound dinosaur!” Wogamon exclaims. We all laugh. One moment they’re philosophically analyzing fruit combinations, the next they’re making fun of their faults, eating cereal and watching television. It’s this duality that makes their business such a success, and they intend on pushing that business to the next level.
     “Last year we tested the market, this year we can show what we learned,” Wogamon says.
     In addition to filling requests here and there, selling their product at the farmer’s market and tapping kegs of their bubbly delight, they want people outside of the Lowcountry to be able to taste their bottled nostalgia.
     “We want to be in stores,” Fendley says.
     “The three we are probably going to bottle first are ginger beer, grapefruit elderflower and honey basil. That’s our whole spectrum,“ Wogamon says.
     “The holy trinity,” Fendley adds.
     With a product like this, selling the drinks on store shelves seems like a no-brainer, but the decision is more difficult than you think. The danger of bottling for sale in stores is that the product must be pasteurized. The battle lies in choosing between maintaining peak flavor and staying local, or degrading the quality to sell in as many places as possible.
     “There’s a happy medium,” Fendley says.
     “We can do light pasteurization and just have it on the shelves a shorter amount of time. We aren’t going to ruin our product, and we’re not going to sacrifice that time for flavor,” Wogamon says.
     Until then, Charleston can keep its secret serum hoarded away at prominent events and whenever the farmer’s market shows up in Marion Square. Either way, the next year looks bright, and perhaps these young entrepreneurs will really bloom this summer with their “farm-to-glass” concept serving flavor, freshness and nostalgia.