Omnivore - Chef Jeremy Miller’s soda mission

• John Fulton

• John Fulton
• Jeremy Miller

Soda gets a bad rap these days, but, Jeremy Miller, founder of Miller’s Artisan Sodas, wants to change that. With a freshly brewed ginger beer in hand - one he made himself with birch bark, real ginger, and sassafras - Miller laments how distant our relationship to food has become. “We are so used to thinking we know what something should taste like, that we forget what it needs to taste like, what it really tastes like,” he says. In his experience, real always tastes better.

Miller studied culinary arts at the Art Institute of Atlanta. He further honed his skills at Jean-Georges in New York City, the French Laundry in California, and at the Asher Restaurant and Bluepointe in Atlanta. Most recently, he worked as executive chef at STK in Midtown. When Miller’s wife felt sick during her first pregnancy in 2010, he soothed her with a homemade ginger ale. When friends and family loved it, too, he knew he was onto something. He decided to brew and bottle the fizzy drinks on his own and Miller’s Artisan Soda was born. For now, Miller’s soda comes in three flavors: root beer, ginger beer, and sweet tea, and you can find them on the menus at Buttermilk Kitchen and Bantam & Biddy.

Miller initially left STK in June to pursue his soda dreams full-time, but has since taken another kitchen job to work out some kinks, and, more importantly, pay the bills. CL caught up with Miller to learn more about his one-man crusade to change our relationship to soda.

What’s wrong with conventional soda?