Ben Shaw and 140 Years!

The people at Ben Shaw's recently sent me a selection of their soft drinks to try out. I had never heard of them before but was quickly converted and found them to be lovely.

The Company began in 1871 when Ben Shaw left his job in the textile industry in Huddersfield (West Yorkshire) and set up his own business bottling and selling the natural mineral water from the nearby Pennine Hills. It proved to be a very successful venture and before too long he had expanded his business to introduce traditonal soft drinks in a purpose built factory.



This year the Ben Shaw Company will be celebrating 140 years in the drinks industry. To celebrate this auspicious occasion they will be holding a number of Birthday Parties all over the country. You can check out on what's happening and where Here. There is a list on that page of events, dates and places! It all sounds very wonderful!

You can find out all sorts of information about the company on their Home Page. I found it quite interesting. There are lots of old photos and a lot about the history of the company.

You can also follow them on Facebook and Twitter.

There's also a special Memory Archive where you can read about the nostalgic memories of people through the years, or leave some of your own. I really enjoyed reading them all!



Anyways, they sent me a selection of their drinks to try and some balloons and some pins. Good Old Fashioned traditional classic flavours! I quite liked the Cream Soda and the Dandelion and Burdock. People say Dandelion and Burdock is like Root Beer . . . but really, I don't think it is at all, but . . . it is quite good nonetheless. I'll have to try to make an ice cream float with some. That is the real test.



Congratulations to Ben Shaw on this most auspicious anniversary! I'm raising a glass (of cloudy lemonade!) to them and inviting you to do the same. For Stockists see here. (mmm . . . I do believe the cloudy lemonade is my favourite!)

(Another thing we can celebrate about Ben Shaw's is they are a truly British Company! There's not a lot of those left nowadays! It's nice to see one company that hasn't sold out.)