Faygo flavors social media smackdown has people talking

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The Detroit Free Press is telling the tale of how people are burning up social media to lobby for their favorite Faygo flavor.

As I declared in “The Faygo Book,” the mysteriolicious Rock & Rye is my BFF by far. This is probably my favorite Rock & Rye story from the book:

“Even late into his career, founder Perry Feigenson mixed (Rock & Rye). In a 1969 Detroit News Magazine article (Harvey) Lipsky recalled, ‘One day when he was in his 80s and having a tough time climbing the stairs to the lab, he called me aside and said he figured it was time to learn the secret. I watched the mumbo-jumbo, which included waving a towel over the bottle, and I took notes. I analyzed the process and, being a chemist, figured I could duplicate the blend by modern methods. I worked on it several months, using the latest scientific steps. It smelled the same, it looked the same, but it wasn’t the same. I now make it his way – even waving a towel over the bottle. I never have figured out what that did to the blend.’”
Photo credit: Anne Marlowe Belanger, Presque Isle District Library

Joe Grimm

Boy, does CMU remember Faygo

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We had a great time reminiscing about Faygo, Detroit and its people in a “Faygo Book” program hosted by Central Michigan University’s Clarke Historical Library on June 12. Fifty people came out.

A big thanks to Clarke Library Director Frank Boles and Rachael Yadlowsky of CMLife who wrote a nice story and took this photo.

CMLife, by the way, will celebrate its 100th anniversary as CMU’s nwwspaper on Nov 16.

I will be back in Mount Pleasant for more fun and Faygo at 6 p.m. June 20 at Art Reach’s Morey Family Gallery, 111 E. Broadway Street.

Joe Grimm

Remember when you were a kid, but drink like an adult

Tammy Coxen samples her Pontoon Summer. Photo by Lester Graham/Michigan Radio
Michigan Radio’s Lester Graham gets Tammy Coxen of Tammy’s Tastings to conjure up a few new Faygo cocktails for adults.

They look and sound great.

She uses Faygo creme soda and rum in her Pontoon Summer and tells Graham “I think of it as a Creamsicle® daiquiri.”

Her Rock & Rye & Rye blends Faygo Rock & Rye with rye whiskey, combining the hard and the soft, the old and the new.

Joe Grimm

This family really DID win a year’s supply of Faygo

Mother and father sit on chairs as son, about 10 years old, stands facing them, showing the back of his Faygo branded shirt. A happy family.
Alan and Jennifer Yakubesan and their son Andrew won a year’s supply of Faygo in a contest that wrapped in the Detroit Tigers and WDIV-TV.
When I give my Faygo presentation, it usually includes a pop quiz. One question asks the audience to guess the prize in a particular promotion. The most popular guess, and it is wrong, is a year’s supply of Faygo. Maybe it is wishful thinking.

During the pop quiz at the Sterling Heights Public Library, this family got the giggles. They are Alan, Jennifer and Andrew Yakubesan of Sterling Heights.

Why all the mirth? This family really did win a year’s supply of Faygo and they were tickled to hear it as one of the wrong answers in the quiz. They won their pop in a Detroit Tigers contest put on by WDIV-TV. That could be a lot of pop!

Although it would have been cool to have a long Faygo truck pull up in front of their house, the prize was awarded in coupons. Did thy use up all those coupons? What do you think?

Joe Grimm

This pop tour is taking me all over Michigan

Th writer, in a Faygo shirt, stands in front of a roadside billboard that says Joe Grimm, The Faygo Book, Thursday, May 16, 6-7 p.m.
This is as close as I will ever come to having my name up in lights and I am as happy as can be. Thank you, Three Rivers!

What a time it has been for “The Faygo Book” as it began its Michigan Notable Book tour.
After visiting a school and four libraries one week, I started the next week as one of four featured speakers for the Metro-Detroit Book and Author Society on May 20 and a nightcap at Green Brain Comics in Dearborn. We’ll let the pictures do the talking.

Students at Essexville Middle School
Mrs. Carrie Waterman, the media specialist at Essexville Middle School near Bay City, landed a performance about The Faygo Book for her school. The students took right to it, studying the book’s pop quizzes in class and designing their own Faygo flavors and bottles. We had a blast.

Faygo supplied glass bottles of its cane-sugar classics for about 100 tables at the Metro-Detroit Book and Author Society lunch in Livonia on May 20. Nine-hundred fifty people attended. Thank you, Faygo.

I’ll be in God’s Country in early June:
June 3: Traverse Area District Library, 6:30 p.m.
June 4: Charlevoix Public Lbrary (Michigan Notable Book stop), 6:30 p.m.
June 5: Petoskey District Library, 5:30 p.m.
June 6: Rogers City, Presque Isle District Library (Michigan Notable Book stop), 6:30 p.m.

You can catch me in other places, too. They’e listed on the Wayne State University Press events calendar.

Joe Grimm