By Gus Saltonstall
Tahlia Cott.
When Upper West Sider Jessica Sabat heard her future daughter in-law’s last name, she had one thought.
“Like the soda?”
“For people of a certain age, we remember Cott Soda from when we were little,” Sabat told West Side Rag.
It turns out that Cott’s great grandfather was the founder of the Cott Soda company, and the business had remained in the family for several generations, before eventually being sold.
The soda, popular in the Northeast for decades, no longer exists in the United States, but is still in circulation in Canada. On a trip north of the border, Tahlia and Nathaniel Sabat, Jessica’s son, hatched the idea of tying empty Cott Soda cans to the bumper of the newlyweds’ car after the wedding.
“It is still the beverage of choice at Jewish delis in Montreal,” Jessica said.
As the mother of the groom, she announced that she would take charge of securing the Cott Soda cans for the August 3 wedding. “I told them I’d be happy to take that on, figuring I could go online and buy the cans and have them shipped.”
But the usual online shopping platforms did not offer Cott Soda, so she got in touch with a beverage distributor in Toronto that sold the soda and placed an order, but got a notice weeks later that it had been canceled. The company did not ship products internationally was the explanation.
That’s when Sabat turned to an Upper West Side community group.
On March 1, 2024, Sabat posted on Being Neighborly, an UWS Facebook group, explaining her predicament.
Within 20 minutes, Srsti Purcell, a fellow lifelong Upper West Sider responded in the affirmative.
Purcell and Sabat had never met or interacted previously.
“My Montreal friend loves this and he and his girlfriend can help. He’s gonna go hunt for them tomorrow,” Purcell wrote on the post.
“’I can solve this problem.’ This is how my brain works,” Purcell told the Rag. “I see openings and think I can connect the dots, connect people. We’re here to help each other. If somebody wants help with something and I have a way to make it happen, of course I’m going to step in.”
Purcell’s friend Eric drove 45 minutes the next day to the “equivalent of the Bushwick of Montreal” to secure the cans and paid for the postage himself to send the Black Cherry Cott Soda cans to New York City.
Sabat picked up the 27-pound box four days later on April 12.
She then “schlepped it home on the M5 bus.”
Sabat had already made plans to get together with Purcell over a couple of cans of Cott Soda to toast the experience and better get to know each other. The two women ended up meeting later that month at the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument on Riverside Drive.
“We discovered all sorts of things,” Sabat said. “We discovered we knew people in common. She told me her whole background growing up on the Upper West Side. She is hugely well integrated into the fabric of the neighborhood and we just had a wonderful time together for 2 hours.”
“We came away with a great appreciation of not only our Being Neighborly Group, but each other as well,” she continued. “And a decidedly ‘meh’ review of Black Cherry Cott Soda.”
Nathaniel Sabat and Tahlia Cott were married on August 3 in Massachusetts.
“May your marriage, your love, which brings out the best in each other, continue to spark generosity, kindness, and connection among people we hardly know,” Sabat said in her wedding speech.
Later, members of the party heard the couple leave the venue with Cott Soda cans clanging behind them.
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Great UWS story and wonderful start to a happy wedding!
That is such a great story, thank you! I grew up in Queens in the ’50s and Cott soda was pretty much the only kind we drank.
Small world indeed.
I went to summer camp around 1946 with Jerry Cott
who must be the drandpa
Hello there! Jerry was my father-in-law How cool you went to camp with him! Which camp was it? Robin Hood?? I have reached out to find the relationship, but Jerry is not Tahlia’s grandfather. Jerry’s father was Harry. We think her great-grandfather must be one of Harry’s brothers.
What a terrific story. So happy for all the people involved. I grew up in Brooklyn in the ’50’s, and I remember well Cott sodas. Their main local competition was the Kirsch Beverage Company. We would buy one or the other at Bohack’s on Cortelyou Road. I have very fond memories of those days growing up in Brooklyn.
It’s Cott to be good!!