Specialty Food Magazine is the leading publication for retailers, manufacturers and foodservice professionals in the specialty food trade. It provides news, trends and business-building insights that help readers keep their businesses competitive.
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In addition to the company's original ginger ale are f la- vors like Jasmine Tea, Pomegranate with Hibiscus, Passion Fruit with Turmeric, and Blood Orange with Meyer Lemon. There are seven SKUs, Cost says, with "a new one coming up that will surprise people." He declines to divulge details, aware of how many large companies are quick to jump on board with their own versions of specialty beverages. "I like them to just appear," he says. And yet, Bruce Cost Ginger Ale did not just appear out of nowhere. In fact, it took more than 20 years for it to enter the retail market. A Worldwide Education Cost grew up in the Northeast and in Florida and studied art his- tory at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. He pursued an inter- est in photography by enrolling at the New School in New York City, which led to him getting a grant to develop an educational media program for adolescent drug addicts as a way to help them regain control of their lives. "A lively time," he called the 1970s, with characteristic understatement. During this time, a fascination with cooking took hold and he started studying with Virginia Lee, one of America's most prominent Chinese cooks, then based in New York. Her emphasis on authentic ingredients and traditional cooking methods left a lasting impression. Cost had always been curi- ous about Chinese culture, partly because it was closed off and mysterious during the Cold War years when he was growing up, and because his grandparents had long ago sailed to China and brought back intriguing mahjong sets. Cost traveled there for the first time in 1979 and further researched the country's history, regional recipes, and how its cuisine inf luenced Japan, Korea, and Thailand. After a move to San Francisco, Cost started writing for food magazines and scholarly journals. He came to the attention of West Coast luminaries like Ruth Reichl (then at the Los Angeles Times), cult filmmaker Les Blank, and Alice Waters of celebrated restaurant Chez Panisse, where he began cooking legendary Chinese New Year's dinners. Ginger on the Page and in the Kitchen In 1984, he published his first book, Ginger East to West: A Cook's Tour with Recipes, Techniques and Lore, showcasing the ginger root in all its forms. Not only did he learn to appreciate ginger's health benefits as a digestive aid and anti-inflammatory, he had a passion for its flavor. His follow-up, Asian Ingredients: A Guide to the Foodstuffs of China, Japan, Korea, Thailand and Vietnam, came out in 1988 and is now considered a seminal guide to Asian cuisine. The decision to tackle the restaurant industry came at the behest of financial necessity. "Writing is not the most lucrative producer profile BRUCE COST Age: 71 Years in specialty food: 12 Favorite food: Fresh-caught whole steamed fish. Least favorite food: Things out of season—iif a restaurant has asparagus in fall or winter, I disregard it. Last thing I ate and loved: Live king crab from a market in Chinatown, steamed in a big pot with a little water and pieces of ginger, served with a dip of soy sauce, ginger, vinegar, a little bit of sugar, and salt. If I weren't in the food business: I'd like to go back to writing. One piece of advice I'd give to a new food business: If you have a good product, fantastic, but do research numbers-wise to see if it makes sense in terms of food costs and labor costs. Really work on the model since, if you're trying to raise money, investors can be brutal. | 1984 Bruce Cost wrote Ginger East to West, an award-winning cookbook. | 1989 Created a ginger ale recipe at his San Francisco restaurant, Monsoon. | 1995 Started Big Bowl and Wow Bao restaurants in Chicago and put his fresh ginger ale recipes on the menus. | 2010 Began bottling and selling Bruce Cost Ginger Ale. | 2014 Moved to an expanded production facility in Bushwick, N.Y. HIGHLIGHTS 90 ❘ SPECIALTY FOOD MAGAZINE specialtyfood.com