And
brother, what a sip. In todays world of energy drinks and juices and endless
vitamin boosters and ginger and ginseng, there is still nothing that resembles
a cold Manhattan Special, a thick and fizzy, jet-black blend of espresso and
seltzer topped off with a bracing wallop of pure cane sugar. It muscles its way
around the mouth, making itself at home, before bounding down the throat like a
big, goofy kid going to play in the basement.
The first sip was
often the start of a lifetime of little glass bottles, for Manhattan Special, a
hand grenade of caffeine and sugar, is nothing if not addictive. Generations of
New Yorkers, especially Italians, grew up jittery as junkies on the stuff outside
its big plant in
Youd
almost think it was in the Bible, for Gods sake, said Paul Botwin, a veteran of World War II and, later, the
The soda company
is run by a sister and brother, Aurora Passaro, 44,
and Louis Passaro, 43. The brother, a weightlifter,
Kiss fan and action-figure collector, is as gregarious and outsize as his
sister is proper and private. She runs the office, he oversees production.
They were born
into the work, but cruelly thrust into their jobs in 1983, when they were still
teenagers. That was the year Manhattan Special splashed in a different, awful
way, across newspaper columns describing their
fathers murder.
Now 113 years
old, Manhattan Special seems to be caught between two worlds, or even four:
past and future,
To that end, Ms. Passaro, the fourth generation of Passaros
at the soda plant, spent three long days last week at the sprawling Fancy Food
Show in
But walk outside
the Javits into the summer heat, and a block or two
away you could enter 17 corner delis and bodegas before you found one that
carried Manhattan Special.
It used to
be ubiquitous, said Joseph Terlato, a former
Manhattan Special slurper in short pants in Bensonhurst, now an 81-year-old food retailer in
To spend a few
days with the Passaros is to keep each foot in eras
as separate as chalked squares on a hopscotch grid. At their food show booth,
an electronic scanner reads bar codes on visitors name tags, downloading
their names and contact information for future Manhattan Special mailings. Back
at the plant, where horses and buggies once carried sodas packed in wood cases,
workers strain at the big bottling machine in the back, a behemoth of steel and
flaking paint on cinder blocks, through which every single bottle passes.
Manhattan Special
was created by an Italian immigrant named Michael Garavuso,
who dreamed up the soda with the help of Ms. Passaros
great-grandmother, Dr. Teresa Cimino, an osteopath,
and Mr. Garavusos friend, who treated people
with bone deformations. Italians rejected American coffee for espresso, and
both saw promise in a cold version for the summer months. Since 1895,
later bottles read. Gold Medal,
Louis Passaro, Ms. Passaros
grandfather, was in charge of distribution, eventually taking over the
operation. In Passaro tradition, he put his son,
Albert, to work. Albert liked to tell people he started at the top. The top of the delivery truck.
Albert took over
in 1970, when his daughter, Aurora, was 7, and Louis was 6. I live in a nice
house, he told Forbes magazine in 1982. I know this business. What
would I do? Go and lose my money someplace else?
He was very proud
of the product. What celery soda was to the Jews, he said in another
interview, Manhattan Special was to the Italians. He expanded the
selections beyond espresso, introducing fruit sodas. Maybe I got into a
can of worms, he told Forbes.
Ms. Passaro started working at the plant at age 12, sweeping
floors and making up the cardboard cartons that held the bottles. My dad
really took it to another level, she said. Standing at her booth at the
food show, where smiles and handshakes prevail, her eyes filled with tears.
He was the soul of the company, and we miss him very much.
Albert Passaro and his wife, Angela, had separated, and Mr. Passaro remarried and moved to Woodhaven,
The police said
his housekeeper found him. Ms. Passaro was 19, a
college student still working at the plant. She was there when the call came,
from Mr. Passaros neighbor, saying she should
come to her fathers house. An employee picked her up and drove her.
I got out of
the car while it was still moving, she said. Everything just drained
out of me.
Albert Passaro had been shot dead in the basement. The police said
his pockets had been turned out, and the home ransacked. Ms. Passaro went to Christ the King high school to tell her
little brother. She showed up with the undertaker, he said.
And that was it.
There was no question what would happen next.
You always
thought, Hey, you dont want to mess this up. Its all you,
Louis said. It wasnt easy
for us. Im not going to lie.
The day after the
killing, the headline in The New York Post read, Soda Kings Murder Has Cops Stumped. And it still does. The case
remains unsolved. Homicide cases never close, Ms. Passaro
said, although she said no one from the Police Department has called with news
in years. A police spokesman said only that the case remains open.
Ms. Passaro is intensely protective of the business. She
declined to discuss volume or sales figures, putting the number of units sold
only in the millions per year. She first declined to allow a reporter
and photographer to see the part of the plant where the soda is mixed, but then
relented on the condition that no pictures would be taken.
The plant is a
rich mix of old and new, like some weathered battleship refitted with shining
parts. In the mixing area upstairs, the espresso beans are ground in batches their scent seeping out into the
neighborhood and mixed in big
tanks. Metal pipes flush soda through a fat hose to the bottling room below. A
conveyer belt snakes along the tiled walls, and the glass bottles race through
the stations: rinsing, filling, capping, labeling, casing.
Outside the
plant, the neighborhood has changed. Young newcomers to the city have swarmed
This month,
Manhattan Special, for the first time, plans to sell sodas on its Web site. Ms.
Passaro said she will ship cases anywhere in the
continental
Mr. Botwin, the soda wars veteran who occasionally helps out,
said the plant is running flat out to meet summer demand.
Meanwhile, they
ship wholesale batches around the world. It is not impossible that a person in
the
Another question
lingers over Manhattan Special. Both the Passaro
siblings are childless, raising the likelihood that when they stop working
there, it may be sold to someone outside the family.
Thats a
good question, Ms. Passaro said.