Every morning, Brooke Holm drives to get her “morning bevvy,” a Dr. Pepper or Coca Cola, with lime, or a squirt of cherry, sometimes even adding an extra drop of coconut syrup.
Holm is only one of hundreds of Utah mothers who line up every morning at the Swig drive thru, waiting for their daily soda fix, often in a 32 ounce cup. Brittany Giacanni, a stay at home mom and influencer from Salt Lake City, says she will see huge lines of cars in the late morning, and then early afternoon, usually full of moms grabbing sodas after dropping off their kids.
This popularity is due to the large Mormon population in Utah. Members of the Church of Latter Day Saints are not allowed to drink “hot drinks,” like coffee, so many women turn to soda shops to get their caffeine.
On September 6, Secret Lives of Mormon Wives premiered on Hulu, a new tv show following the lives of “MomTok”, a group of Utah influencers. These women visited Swig, a Utah chain specializing in dirty sodas (fountain drinks with syrups, creams, purées, or fruit added in), almost every day.
Since the release of the show, soda shops have reached an entirely new audience. In the past 90 days, search volume for “soda shops” has increased by over 5,000 percent, according to Google Trends.
While the idea of a dirty soda is a fairly new concept for much of America, they’ve been popular in Utah for over a decade. Giacanni even hosted a Swig themed birthday party for her 11 year old daughter, saying that for that age group, “Swig is a cool thing.”
Holm agrees with this statement, as she owns a soda shop, Bevvy’s, in Payson, Utah, and hasn’t seen a large increase in business since the show dropped. She believes this happened because dirty sodas were already largely popular in Utah and the market is so saturated.
However, other soda shops across the country, specifically in the Midwest, have seen a substantial increase in business, noting that many customers come in specifically because of the show.
Stefanie Danklefsen owns Soda Bar, which has two locations in Appleton, Wisconsin. According to her, since Secret Lives of Mormon Wives has come out, she has seen a massive increase in business, with “a lot of people who have come and tried it for the first time, and falling in love with (dirty sodas) a little bit.”
Giacanni believes that this obsession from non-Mormons comes from social media. She said, “I think people started seeing people in Utah posting these crazy drinks from soda shops, and started making them at home.”
Senior Brennan O’Connell Miller first heard about soda shops on TikTok, and since then has been interested in Mormon culture.
”These soda shops were interesting because I know they can’t drink tea or coffee, but I feel like the amount of sugar that’s in those sodas is almost worse for their health.” she said.
This obsession has traveled all the way to Chicago business owners, as Crave Cookies in Lakeview opened September 7th, featuring a loaded soda bar, which quickly gained traction on TikTok.
Along with this, Swig recently opened a location in Indianapolis, and is opening a second location December 2nd.
Despite hopes from soda shop owners that this trend will continue in popularity, others believe that it will quickly die down.
As O’Connell Miller said, “There will be a boom of a couple of them opening, but I don’t really know if they’re gonna last, because Mormon culture in Chicago is not super big.”
