Remember the name Cary Silverman. The 22-year-old senior at the University of Missouri may not be the next Bill Gates, but he's definitely going to be somebody.
This business management major from Kansas City watched a couple of friends sneak booze into a movie screening so they could sip liquor with their popcorn and had an epiphany: alcohol-flavored popcorn!
It may not be the greatest marketing idea, but it was an idea and Silverman went straight to work on making it a reality. First he tried soaking popcorn kernels in booze. "There was a slight taste of alcohol when you popped it up," he said, "but nothing to write home about."
His next idea: inject liquor directly into the kernels with a hypodermic needle! Again, not so great. "The husk of the corn kernels are just too hard," Silverman said.
After four months of trial and error, Silverman stumbled on a concept that actually worked. He developed flavored coatings to spray on popped corn that taste like popular saloon beverages -- currently beer, pina colada and Irish cream -- but have no actual alcohol content. Silverman started a company, Pub-Corn, that sells the popcorn online; he's recently gotten his 10-ounce bags of popcorn in local retail stores, including the Red X in Riverside. The idea has caught on: "I'm selling a lot of popcorn," he said. "A lot."
Silverman's best-selling variety is the pina colada, although the beer version ("It's sweet," he told me, "with a beer aftertaste") has a following. He's currently testing new popcorn flavors: strawberry daiquiri, tequila, whiskey, and mojito. When he graduates in May, he plans to continue the business, but move it to Kansas City.
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