2600 Magazine on the East coast and Noisebridge on the West Coast are the only 2 registered distributors of Club Mate in the USA. If you are in SF, you can get one at Noisebridge for $5.
Are there any attempts to produce it locally?
$5/bottle is crazy, here you can get a crate of 20 bottles for 15€ [0]
A few years ago there was a real boom with many small soda companies/startups popping up to challenge the Club Mate hegemony with their own Mate brews. Many disappeared again but some did stick around, so there is still a good variety in Mate vendors.
There are still many rather small operations too [1][2], so entering the soda market doesn't seem to be that hard compared to other things.
And having a product that's mildly addictive is good for customer retention.
