Georgia

Flavor of Georgia grand prize winning drink relies on Georgia peaches

Published

2 years ago

April 30, 2024

Flavor of Georgia grand prize winning drink relies on Georgia peaches

New Creation Soda Works, which produces a variety craft sodas, created a peach drink last year that won the grand prize in the annual Flavor of Georgia food contest earlier this month at the University of Georgia.

But a breakfast meal would be key happenstance that would propel this Oconee County soda company into producing the drink it has labelled “Peches.”

Paul Kooistra, the CEO and founder of New Creation, recalled recently that he and his father were having breakfast at Mama’s Boy, when his dad ordered French toast with a peach puree that the menu noted was made from Georgia peaches.

Kooistra was curious. His company produces a variety of unique craft sodas of flavors ranging from strawberry-habanero to split-banana cream.

“We’ve always wanted to do a peach soda, but we wanted to use Georgia peaches,” he said. “The problem was we couldn’t find anybody that could get us enough peaches in a cost-effective way that could last throughout the year. We didn’t want it to be a seasonal product,” he explained.

So he inquired at Mama’s Boy about the source for their peaches. They came from Pearson Farm in Fort Valley.

Kooistra said he contacted the farm and they offered him 9,000 pounds from a crop down from previous years due to a killing frost last March that took a toll on the state’s peach crop.

“I said, ‘Ok, we’ll take it.”

“This year they will have their best crop ever, so they are committing about 25,000 pounds of peaches to us,” he said.

Once the new peach soda was formulated, it was given the name “Peches.”

“People have told us for years to sign up for the Flavor of Georgia,” Kooistra said of the annual contest. “We never did.”

But now seemed the time.

“This is the perfect flavor to enter. We make it in Georgia. We use Georgia agriculture,” he said.

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Kooistra and head brewer Alex Harding began mixing and testing the ingredients for Peches.

They already use fruit in some sodas “so we went by the same method and just had to get the balance of peaches right,” he said.

In early April, Flavor of Georgia, sponsored by the University of Georgia’s College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, announced its winners in several categories ranging in numerous food projects from jellies to pickled food and barbecue sauces. Peches was awarded the grand prize.

The production company, although located on a Bishop rural route, is barely a stone’s throw from the Watkinsville city limits along Old Bishop Road. The business is open for the public to visit.

Kooistra, born in Florida, grew up in his early years in Clinton, Miss., and later in St. Louis, as his father was a minister, who served and taught in seminaries in those two states. Later his father served as president for Mission to the Word of the Presbyterian Church in Atlanta. Kooistra moved to Georgia in 2005 to be closer to family.

New Creation sells its sodas in more than 700 locations. One of the sodas is an old-time drink but with a unique flavor — root beer.

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“I grew up enjoying root beer because my grandfather made it for my mom when she was a kid,” he said. “I wanted a root beer that was creamy with a lot of vanilla and not a lot of Wintergreen or Star Anise.”

“A lot of root beers use Star Anise, which has a black licorice flavor. I can’t stand that,” he said. “Wintergreen is OK, but I don’t want too much of it. We make it really smooth and creamy with vanilla flavor instead of the other two. Even people that typically don’t like root beer have enjoyed our root beer for that reason.”

In addition, New Creation cooks its sugar for the blend.

“Instead of just pure cane sugar, we caramelize it and it makes it rich in flavor and a lot different than regular sugar,” Kooistra said.

And there is one more little touch to their style of Georgia root beer.

“We add a little bit of pecan flavor to give it a touch of the South,” the former Mississippian said.

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Georgia

Why Georgia football moved its game against Texas in 1957 from Athens to Atlanta

Published

11 hours ago

November 12, 2025

Press Room

Why Georgia football moved its game against Texas in 1957 from Athens to Atlanta

Most of the biggest brands in college football have never lined up against Georgia football inside Sanford Stadium.

Alabama, of course, is an exception, as an SEC program that first played between the hedges in 1935.

Notre Dame made its only visit to Athens in 2019 in a game deemed so big extra seating was brought in to accommodate a record crowd.

These top 10 winningest FBS programs of all-time have never been on the visitor’s sideline: Michigan, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Penn State, Nebraska and USC.

Texas is on that list, too, but won’t be after it plays Georgia for the first time in Athens on Saturday, Nov. 15.

The Longhorns were scheduled to do that on Sept. 21, 1957, but the game was moved to Georgia Tech’s Grant Field in Atlanta.

But why?

According to the Feb. 7, 1957, edition of the Red & Black student newspaper, the game was shifted to the second of a doubleheader with Georgia Tech and Kentucky playing at 2 p.m. and Georgia and Texas at 8 p.m.

“The Texas tilt was scheduled for Athens, but the Georgia student body does not return until Sept. 23, the first day of registration,” the story said.

Georgia and Georgia Tech had played a doubleheader in 1955 in Atlanta as well: Georgia-Ole Miss and Georgia Tech-Miami.

Moving the 1957 game was “financially necessary,” according to Dan Magill’s “The Georgia Bulldog” newsletter from Feb. 18, 1957, provided to the Athens Banner-Herald by Jason Hasty, a UGA athletics history specialist with the UGA’s Hargrett Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Magill was secretary of the Georgia Bulldog Club, which he founded in 1953.

That 1955 Georgia-Ole Miss game in Atlanta drew 33,400 — more than three times the average paid attendance for games in Athens in recent years, other than games against rivals Georgia Tech and Alabama, Magill wrote.

Coach Wally Butts cited conflicts with Georgia Tech home games as a “major factor,” in moving the games from Athens, according to the Red & Black.

“Whenever these conflicts exist, it hurts the gate receipts at both schools, particularly Georgia, which is located in a sparsely populated area,” Magill wrote.

The game in Atlanta — just the second against Texas after a 41-28 Orange Bowl Longhorns win on Jan. 1, 1949 — was considered a Georgia home game and students were admitted free with an ID card.

Loran Smith, a Georgia historian who has been associated with UGA athletics for more than 60 years, said Magill complained, “Tech plays the afternoon and we’re the damn sideshow.”

Smith said Georgia Tech coach Bobby Dodd convinced Butts it would be a good move to play the game in Atlanta.

The game in 1957 was the season opener and marked the debut of Texas coach of Darrell Royal, who is the namesake of Texas football’s Darrell K. Royal Texas Memorial Stadium. He took over a program coming off a 1-9 season.

Texas won 26-7 before a “sweltering short sleeved crowd of 33,000,” according to an AP report.

Georgia trailed 13-7 in the third quarter after sophomore quarterback Charley Britt threw a 5-yard touchdown to Jimmy Orr, but Texas scored 13 in the fourth quarter.

Georgia finished the season 3-7. Texas went 6-4-1 and ranked No. 11.

Georgia played Texas A&M in Athens in 1954 and went to Michigan in 1957 and 1965.

Butts was on a football rules committee with Michigan AD Fritz Crisler which led to the games in Ann Arbor, Smith said.

“Both on the road,” Smith said. “We were like one of the directional schools playing for a check.”

Saturday will be the eighth all-time meeting between the Longhorns, who are No. 5 in all-time wins with 968, and Georgia which is No. 9 with 900.

Texas was scheduled to play at Georgia on Sept. 1, 2029, as part of the second game of a home-and-home series set up in 2018, but then the Longhorns joined the SEC.

Georgia won twice last season, 30-15 in Austin and 22-19 in overtime in Atlanta in the SEC championship game.

The teams have also played in Miami, Dallas and New Orleans.

And now in Athens.

“It’s huge,” Georgia tight end Oscar Delp said. “It’s going to be super fun. I know the city is going to be rocking. Our fans are going to show up. We’re going to show up. We know what kind of game it’s going to be. It’s going to be like the last two. It’s going to be a physical game, who can run the ball, who can stop the run. We’re excited for that.”

Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said he will take a moment to soak in the atmosphere of what will be his first game in Athens, too.

“I definitely will appreciate it and I hope our players do, too,” he said. “One of the beauties of going into this conference is the opportunity to play in some of these stadiums around the Southeastern Conference. …I’d be remised if I didn’t take it in, if our players didn’t take it in because that’s when teams can get overwhelmed. You’ve got to embrace the moment, embrace the environment you’re in and then you’ve got to go fight.”

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