You’d have to be a certain age and have a certain kind of musical taste to remember Peter Allen singing, “All our dreams will come true again, when everything old is new again.” Today on Out to Lunch Peter is talking with two business people who are taking old fashioned taste and recycling it for a new market. Their businesses couldn’t be more different. But their reinvention of products based on a more innocent past are strangely similar.  

John Petersen is taking Louisiana sugar cane and natural local flavors like Ponchatoula strawberries, satsumas, and ginger, and bottling it as soft drink with the label Swamp Pop.

Bella Blue is taking us back to a time long before Bourbon Street was home to Hustler, with her New Orleans School of Burlesque.

The phenomenal success of Swamp Pop is surprising, even to John. He puts it down partially to his company’s approach to marketing Swamp Pop as a treat rather than as a thirst quencher.

Bella explains that, along with New York, New Orleans was the home of Burlesque when it was born in the mid 1800’s and with performances and classes flourishing, is again leading the way in its resurgence.

Photos taken over lunch in the wine room at Commander’s Palace by Alison Moon.