In a city that built the car and cranked out soul records by the mile, it’s easy to overlook a soda company. But if you really want to understand Detroit—its humor, its hustle, its hunger for flavor—you’ve got to start with Faygo.
It began in 1907, not in a lab or a boardroom, but in a bakery. Russian immigrant brothers Ben and Perry Feigenson, both trained bakers, came to Detroit and decided to bottle liquid versions of their cake frostings. Think about that. Most people dream of drinking from the fountain of youth. These guys dreamed of drinking frosting.
Their early flavors—fruit punch, strawberry, grape—were vibrant, sweet, and slightly chaotic. Just like the city. They originally called the company Feigenson Brothers Bottling Works, but after decades of listening to Detroiters butcher the name, they shortened it in the 1920s to something easier: Faygo.
Faygo isn’t flashy. It was never meant to be artisanal. It was made to be accessible, affordable, and fun. What it lacked in prestige it made up for in personality—bright red, electric orange, radioactive grape. It came in stubby glass bottles with paper labels and later, in plastic two-liters that became staples of picnics, gas stations, and corner stores all across Michigan.
For decades, Faygo was a local secret, because it couldn’t travel far. The original recipe had a short shelf life, and the carbonation faded too quickly. So unless you were in Detroit or nearby, you didn’t get Faygo. That made it a kind of regional treasure—a pop you had to earn by geography.
They fixed the shelf-life problem in the 1950s, but by then the pop had already become part of the Detroit identity. It was what you drank at birthday parties and ballgames, at factory picnics and Sunday cookouts. It was the taste of summer in the city.
In 1978, Faygo was bought by National Beverage Corp., but the brand never lost its Detroit DNA. It kept bottling in the same spot off Gratiot Avenue. It kept producing weird flavors with names like Rock & Rye, Arctic Sun, Moon Mist, and Jazzin’ Blues Berry. And it never forgot that soda, at its core, should be joyful.
Ask a Detroiter about Faygo, and you’ll get more than a product review—you’ll get a story. One about their grandpa always drinking Redpop, or the time someone shook up a bottle and turned a front porch into a slip-and-slide. And yes, there’s the Insane Clown Posse connection too—those juggalos hurling liters of Faygo at concerts like it’s sacred water. Strange? Absolutely. But so very Detroit: absurd, devoted, unpredictable.
Faygo isn’t just a soft drink. It’s memory in a bottle. It’s the fizz you didn’t know you missed until it hits your tongue. It’s the moment in a gas station far from home when you see that familiar script on a label and suddenly feel like you’re back on 8 Mile, waiting for a bus, holding a grape soda so cold it hurts your hand.
Some brands aim for prestige. Faygo aims for your childhood.
And honestly?
It wins.