By popular demand local favorite Kast Iron Soda Works had begun to offer their house recipe root beer for sale in glass bottles, with plans to begin offering it for sale through restaurants and breweries throughout northeast Ohio, with plans to begin offering three more of their house recipes bottles already underway. (Submitted photo courtesy Lesley Kline)

SALEM — Local favorite Kast Iron Soda Works has begun offering their house root beer bottled in classic fashion to the retail market.

Since its opening in May of 2021, Kast Iron Soda Works’ house-made draft root beer has been a draft favorite. Owners Wil and Lesley Kline said that with Salem’s historical enthusiasm for root beer, exemplified by the former Frostop on West State Street and efforts to save and restore its iconic mug following its closure, they knew the standards for their house recipe would be high.

The journey to bring their root beer to market began after the Klines signed the lease for Kast Iron’s location downtown in March of 2020, “just weeks before the world came to a screeching halt with the Covid-19 pandemic.” While isolating during the Covid-19 quarantine, experimentation on their house recipe began in their kitchen at home.

“A menagerie of barks and roots provided flavors that were sweetened and formulated in different combinations and concentrations until a root beer recipe was developed,” said Lesley.

Once Kast Iron officially opened their doors to the Salem community in May 2021, guest feedback helped them “refine and balance the subtleties of their formulation” and by the end of the year they had solidified “a blend for a bold and classic root beer that became a crowd favorite at the modern-day soda fountain.”

Lesley said that the initial idea to begin bottling their house root beer was inspired by increasing requests to take it to go. Once that idea had taken shape the Klines still needed to find a bottler since they currently don’t have their own bottling facility, then complete nutrition analysis, bar cade registration, label design and printing, and testing to scale their formula for mass production while maintaining its unique flavor and quality.

With these hurdles cleared Kast Iron’s root beer, which is sweetened with 100% pure cane sugar, is already being sold in glass bottles, at their location downtown. Lesley said the next step was to begin business to business distribution “to restaurants, breweries, and other locations throughout northeast Ohio interested in providing locally crafted sodas for their guests and customers.” Kast Iron is also set to continue expanding its bottled offerings and is currently “working on three additional flavors to introduce soon.”

In addition to their root beer Kast Iron has several other craft soda favorites like phosphates, brown cows, egg creams and malted shakes using house-made ice cream. Kast Iron also makes several of the syrups used in their nostalgic drinks in-house, and sources ingredients from other local businesses like LiB’s coffee shop and a Leetonia maple farm.

Kast Iron does more than just recreating the flavor of their nostalgic offering, also recreating their presentation with vintage glassware and styling. They also employ those house-made syrups to create a menu of unique “modern-day soda fountain drinks that blend fun flavors in unique ways,” with names in the style of the classics like the Blue Bullet, Happy Camper, and Dirty Dulce to name a few, and if none of their house-made options speak to you, they have a selection of over 550 glass bottled craft sodas to choose from as well.