I, Can A journey through the supply chain.

• Author: Rhode, Scott

Here I sit on my shelf. I'm cold, as I should be. My contents are pasteurized, but I contain no preservatives, so my creator recommends that I be refrigerated.

I am a 12-ounce can of ginger beer. Non-alcoholic, despite the name. A baby could drink me, except that my flavor is, well, challenging.

"I get that a lot," says my creator, Mike Jipping. People ask him, 'Why would you do something so niche?' He answers, "I'm first to admit that I have a crazy streak in me."

I've heard him described as a "cowabunga-type guy." Jipping used to coordinate events for Moose's Tooth and BearTooth, the famous pizzeria and movie theater in Anchorage. They make beers at the Broken Tooth brewery along Ship Creek. Jipping noticed a need for non-alcoholic beverages at daytime, all-ages events, so he made his own.

I was the first: JGB, Jipping's ginger beer. Then came the sweeter Red Dragon, to my right on the shelf, and now our family has six flavors. We are Beach Tribe Soda Works, now in our fifth year of--

What about me?

Oh, that's my downstairs neighbor, Plain Jane. She's a 16-ounce can of Zip Kombucha, so she's always sour. And yeasty. Tastes more like beer than I do.

"Hush," i tell her. "I'm explaining how we came to this store."

How I Came to This Store

About thirty vendors from Seward to Fairbanks sell Beach Tribe. My shelf is inside a cooler at New Sagaya City Market near downtown Anchorage.

A typical American supermarket stocks approximately 30,000 different items. New Sagaya is on the small side, yet I'm surrounded by dizzying variety. My cooler alone displays a dozen choices, including major national brands.

My creator personally drove me here and to other stores in Southcentral Alaska. My route is quite direct compared to Plain Jane. She chilled in a warehouse at The Odom Corporation, whose job is to move beverages from makers to sellers. Odom puts Plain Jane on shelves at Three Bears Alaska and Carrs|Safeway stores. Her creator, Jessie Janes, is trying to get into Fred Meyer and Costco, but it's not as easy to convince out-of-state chains.

"We are actually a bit of a sweeter kombucha than the standard stuff you get off the shelf," he says. "We've pushed some of our product down to the Lower 48 and got some feedback like, 'Oh, it's sweet. It's not super kombucha-y.'"

A decade ago, hardly anybody in Alaska drank kombucha, which is basically fermented tea. Its bubbly, vinegary disposition is an acquired taste, so Plain Jane must be eyecatching to intrigue new drinkers. Janes himself designed the simple two-color graphics for his four standard flavors, three seasonals, and three "black label" alcoholic brews. The lighter colors, he says, appeal to women--turns out women buy Zip Kombucha at twice the rate of men-and stand out...