Meet Larry Cusolito of Tower Beverages

Today we’d like to introduce you to Larry Cusolito.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
The company started in Somerville Massachusetts in 1914. Our Grandfather, Domenick Cusolito and his cousin Giuseppe started the business and were soon joined by Dominick’s brother Felice Cusolito. Domenick was given a Root Beer recipe from a friend who was a Pharmacist. He took this recipe and added some anise flavor to achieve the flavor profile we still have today. Hence Tower Root Beer was born. Operations were set up in the basement at 151 & 153 Cross Street in Somerville. The company began to thrive in the early 1920’s during prohibition as there was a strong market for good mixers to mix with the awful bootleg whiskey people were drinking. Tower Root Beer and Tower Golden Ginger Ale became very popular.

At one point a friend of Domenick alerted him to a stockpile of brown beer bottles in a closed brewery nearby. Domenick made arrangements to purchase the bottles and this resulted in Tower Root Beer in brown bottles.

As the business continued to grow additional flavors were added. The flavor line grew to include Root Beer, Sarsaparilla, Cola, Cream Soda, Golden Ginger Ale, Pale Dry Ginger Ale, Ginger Beer, Birch Beer, Lemon & Lime, Orangeade, Raspberry – Lime, Strawberry, Grape and more. Of all the flavors produced, Tower Root Beer became the number one selling flavor, far exceeding all the others.

In the early 1920’s Giuseppe decided to leave the company. He sold his interest to Domenick and Felice and moved his family to California. Tower continued to grow and prosper into the 1930’s. It didn’t take long for them to outgrow the Cross Street space. Operations were then moved a short distance away to 52 Tufts Street. They continued at this location until sometime in the early 1930’s when the two brothers found a vacated brewery at 52 Roland Street in Charlestown. The Charlestown location was acquired and operations continued there until 1968.

In the late 1940’s Domenick’s three sons, Richard, Jack and Paul came into the company. Later, during the mid-1950’s, Domenick and Felice handed over operations of the business to the three brothers. Felice was eventually bought out and the brothers continued to grow the business into the 1960’s.

The 1960’s were a challenging time for Tower and many other companies. Although shortages of supplies and labor were a continuous problem, in 1963 the business had its best year producing over 165,000 cases of soda.

In the mid 1960’s Jack decided to leave the company to explore other opportunities. Richard and Paul continued on with the business. Facing mounting challenges Richard and Paul knew they had to find a way to keep the business going. They were soon approached by another soda company that would produce a merger of the two businesses. Unfortunately, this did not end well. Richard and Paul became aware that the business practices of the new company were unethical so they resigned their positions. It was a sad day for the family. In less than a year the company was run into the ground by the merging company. Paul moved on to secure a good position with another beverage company but Richard was determined not to let Tower die. He moved quickly to approach the Court Receiver that was liquidating the company assets and was able to regain all rights and property of Tower that were still salvageable.

Richard was well connected in the beverage industry and knew many small bottlers that may be interested in producing Tower Root Beer. He moved to set up territories in Eastern Massachusetts and was able to market Tower Root Beer by franchising these territories with bottlers like Simpson Spring, Elk Spring and Polar. It was enough to keep Tower on the market through 1978.

In the mid 1970’s a couple of the large national brands began a strong push for sales in the Northeast. This resulted in these companies buying up small operations in this area and shutting them down or turning them into warehouse space for their own products. Since there was not enough interest from these large companies to keep and market Tower, Richard made the difficult decision to pull Tower Root Beer from the market. The Tower recipe was shelved for the next 30 years.

In the early 1990’s I was interested in bringing back Tower Root Beer to the market but we could not get our hands on the recipe. It was lost or misplaced. Shortly after my Uncle Paul had passed away, my Aunt was packing to move and came across several boxes of family and old business information which she forwarded to my father Richard. Richard promptly added the boxes of business materials to the ones he had in his basement and sent the family boxes to my sister Carolyn Cusolito-Tavares. Carolyn was doing a genealogical map of our family and Richard thought there may be information she could use. When Carolyn began going through the paperwork she came across an envelope that was Ruthie’s (our grandmother, Domenicks wife) birth certificate. When she opened it, she pulled out a hand written recipe for Tower Root Beer! Carolyn immediately called me to let me know what she found. At the time I was not really motivated to embark on a new journey, as I was pretty wrapped up in my career and raising a family with my wife Maureen. So the recipe sat for several more years.

In August 2007, my wife and I were at the beach in Salisbury. As I was relaxing reading the newspaper I came across an article that Moxie was making a comeback. Moxie of all things! I could never acquire a taste for that stuff. Anyway the wheels in my head started spinning immediately. My thoughts were, crap if there is a market for Moxie then there is definitely a market for Tower Root Beer. That started our journey. With a lot of research and some good luck I was able to find the flavor manufacturer my father had contracted to make our exclusive root beer formula for us in 1967. I contacted them to see if they still had our formula on file. After two months I received reply from the Vice President of the flavor department. The answer was yes they still had our formula on file BUT. I knew there would be a BUT. This flavor had not been produced in many years. There are proprietary rights attached to this formula. What is your connection to the company they asked. Awesome.

After a good phone conversation with the VP, I was able to easily explain my connection as well as let him know that my Dad would be happy to confirm that if necessary. He said that wouldn’t be necessary and would be happy to provide us with concentrate samples.

We received the Sample concentrate promptly from the manufacturer. With samples in hand we now had to find a bottler to help us test it. At the suggestion of my father, I joined the New England Bottlers Association. Ed White with the Association gave me some bottler’s names to contact that might be able to help us. I sent out three letters in early October of 2008 and waited. After not getting any response for a couple of months I was ready to give up and move on. December 24th at 1:30 PM Christmas Eve, I was at work in the restaurant of my then current employer and my cell phone rang. I answered the phone and on the other end was Ed Borges of Empire Bottling Works in Bristol RI. He said he had received my letter and asked me what I was trying to do. I explained our situation and he replied “Come on down to the plant and with a hand shake you’ll have product”. It doesn’t get much better that that. Empire Bottling Co is a true craft soda maker. They use 100% cane sugar. They only bottle in glass bottles and have an artesian spring for a great water source.

February 2009 we gathered at Empire for the first run of Tower Root Beer in 30 years. With my Dad right there to open the first bottle off the line it was a special moment. He opened the bottle, took one sniff, smiled and said “That’s it”. That day we ran 25 cases to pass around to family and friends. The response was amazing.

We ran our first run of Tower Root Beer for retail sale the day after Memorial Day that year. Now partnered with my sister Carolyn and with the help of her husband Harold we hit the streets to market Tower Root Beer. During the first five years the only flavor we produced was the Root Beer. Soon after our cousin Judy Cusolito-Kramer expressed an interest in helping bring back Tower Root Beer. Judy joined us as a partner to help market Tower in New Hampshire.

My Dad passed in 2011 and when cleaning out his house there were the boxes of old business papers he held onto for so long. Of course I took them home and began going through them. At some point I came across an old envelope with the 52 Tufts Street Somerville address on it. You can’t even imagine the surprise I got when I opened it up and pulled out a stash of old soda recipes both hand written and typed out.

With these recipes we have begun to add old flavors to our line. In 2014 we added Golden Ginger Ale, Cream Soda and Ginger Beer. In 2015 we added Grape Soda and Orange Soda. Then, in 2016 we added a regular, non-carbonated Lemonade and Raspberry Lime-Rickey. In addition to the Root Beer (regular and Diet) that brings us to 9 flavors.

We are mostly self-distribution at this time working out of Topsfield MA. There are a couple of distributors helping us in the Massachusetts market and we are currently shipping to distributors in Huntington Beach California and Tampa Florida. Moving forward we will be seeking additional distributors that are interested in marketing our brand and helping us grow our business.

Has it been a smooth road?
Smooth? No I wouldn’t call it smooth. It’s a tough business. Lots of competition from Coke and Pepsi and others. They can offer retailers many incentives that we cannot afford to do at this time. Getting into large retail chains is difficult. Many require stocking or shelf fees for space and most want it delivered through a distributor that they get other products from.

We had a great distributor but they sold out last year and the other options were not good at that time. We decided to try self-distribution for a year and it has been quite an experience.

So, as you know, we’re impressed with Tower Beverages – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
It is mostly covered in the not so brief description in the previous section. Sorry, I got on a roll and just kept going.
Anyway, we specialize in marketing our own brand of great old fashioned soda. We use the best ingredients we can find. Always bottle in real glass bottles and we use 100% cane sugar for our sweetener in the regular flavors. Our bottler has a great pure water source and is a real old school craft soda maker.

We are known for our Root Beer. It’s the best. We have a great following of dedicated customers. Also Our Ginger Beer and Raspberry Lime-Rickey are becoming very popular.

Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
Boston, Somerville is our heartland! It amazes me the brand recognition we still have in and around the city. People hear Tower Root Beer and it conjures up memories of better times and special events they have when growing up. The stories people tell me are amazing.

Only drawback to the city is traffic and congestion. I guess that just goes with the territory. No worries though, we’re Bostonian’s, we deal with it.

Pricing:

• Single bottle sales usually range from $1.50 to $2.00
• 4 Packs available in a few markets from $4.49 to $5.79

Contact Info:

• Address: Prospect Hill Beverages, LLC
  Tower Beverages
  P.O.Box 383
  North Reading, MA 01864
• Website: towerrootbeer.com
• Phone: 781-646-1800
• Email: info@towerrootbeer.com
• Facebook: Tower Root Beer
• Twitter: Tower Root Beer

 

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