This cola doesn’t have caffeine. Huh? I seriously don’t get it. I thought that was part of the point of cola, right? I guess not. Anyway, this soda lacks that certain uniqueness that cane sugar Coke has, or the excellent distinguished flavor of Pig Iron Cola. There’s simply nothing special about this, although it was slightly reminiscent of Julmust. I wouldn’t buy this again, sorry.
http://traderjoes.com
Monthly Root Beer Rating: 2
Photo Credit: JoeinSouthernCA (http://www.flickr.com/photos/joebehr/)
Yeah, I don’t know about this one, peoples. It was a “limited edition”, and perhaps for a reason. The caption on the bottle said that Jones “captured winter in a bottle”. That’s probably true if winter tastes like a sickly sweet overly creamy soda that barely tastes like the fruit it’s named after. My wife liked it and that’s never a good sign…
Monthly Root Beer Rating: 2
http://www.jonessoda.com/files/products-canned.php
http://www.jonessoda.com/files/products-glass.php
Contains: carbonated water, inverted cane sugar, natural and artificial flavors, caramel color, phosporic acid, sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate (as preservatives).
In yet another inspired “drink and review soda from my youth” posts, I bring you Nehi Orange. The key to these eloquent and insightful ramblings is that I find the original incarnations of the beverage; glass bottles, cane sugar, you know, just like my Grandmother, “Mawmaw” gave me on the rare occasion that she wasn’t sending me out to mile the cows or pick vegetables or get a “hickory” to receive a (probably) well-earned beating for for some act of insubordination. Where I come from, Nehi, Sundrop and Cheerwine were like the holy trinity of non-cola soft drinks, so it was always a pleasure to get one of these sickeningly sweet treats. My favorites were always grape and orange, but when I saw a display with peach also, I picked up all three. Nehi over the years has made a lot of flavors, many out of production now, but some still available through specialty stores like Galco’s (www.sodapopstop.com) and Old 52 General Store(www.old52.com).
On to the drink itself: Like most of these beverages, I have an idealistic memory of them, and the reality is usually pretty far from what I remember. Nehi Orange is sadly no exception. I could only describe it as “thin” tasting, with not much real orange flavor compensated by a lot of sweetness. However, it wasn’t a tongue coater like a lot of fruit flavored sodas with High Fructose Corn Syrup. I think in this category, I much prefer the excellent Thomas Kemper Orange Cream soda (http://monthlyrootbeer.com/2010/09/12/thomas-kemper-orange-cream/). For me, this drink carries a lot of memories, but I think I’ll keep them intact the way they are…
Monthly Root Beer Rating: 5
This’ll be a pretty simple review. This tastes just like a very dry champagne with no alcohol in it. This is another Swedish specialty, and as I am currently in the frozen north for the holidays, you’ll be seeing several more Swedish specific beverages. There seems to be a good story behind this, but I’ll let you read it on Wikipedia.
Image by Jon Åslund via Flickr
www.pommac.se
Monthly Root Beer Rating: 6
Where should I start with this? Julmust is a pretty unique beverage to Sweden. Swedes go absolutely apeshit for this stuff and it’s only available at Christmas, when it outsells Coke by a wide margin. The name comes from a combination of Swedish words; Jul=Christmas, must=juice. Julmust=Christmas Juice, remember that one, dear readers. Strangely, it is available at Easter too, but it’s called Påskmust. Some people say that påskmust is a bit lighter in flavor, but frankly, the only difference I can tell is that it has yellow chickies on the label instead of the fat man with the beard.
My wife, who happens to be Swedish, loves this drink and gets excited like a little kid every year when it’s available (Swedes also like Glögg and surströmming, but that’s a whole other article). We did come to an understanding that she probably enjoys Julmust in the way that I enjoy root beer and that we would probably never understand that about each other, and that it was OK that way. Every year I try it again to see if my impression changes and every year I have the same reaction:
Who opened a bottle of Dr. Pepper, left it on the counter for three days opened and then gave it to me?
I can see some theoretical parallels to root beer in that Julmust is made with hops and barley malt extracts as well as a pretty secret blend of spices, but despite all claims, there is no comparison. If you want to try it, you can find Nygårda at your closest IKEA. There are several other varieties in Sweden, but this one is pretty much the standard.
Monthly Root Beer Rating: 3 (sorry, honey)
Oh boy, Cheerwine! It occurred to me as I saw a bottle of “retro” Cheerwine in the grocery store (12 oz glass bottle, cane sugar) that most of you probably don’t know this soft drink. It’s a native of North Carolina and produced not far from where I live. The Carolina Beverage Company that produces it doesn’t seem to care much about spreading the good word too far outside the Carolinas, and that’s fine by us, it just means more at home.
This soft drink is a highly carbonated wild cherry flavored beverage that has a bracing taste and is a bit bitter. Many people say that it’s overly sweet, but I find that to be specific to the high fructose corn syrup variety. I will concede that it does taste a bit artificial. I can’t really compare Cheerwine to anything else, I’ve never tasted anything like it, yet it’s always been around me and never seemed odd. If you can get your hands on it, it makes a fantastic homemade ice cream! Last year, Cheerwine partnered up with Krispy Kreme to make Cheerwine filled Krispy Kreme doughnuts that almost sent us North Carolinians over the edge with salivation.
Monthly Root Beer Rating: 8.5
You know, I really want to like these Izze drinks, I’ve tried a lot of their flavors, but frankly, I just don’t. They’re not flavorful enough for me and just too watery. This one looked interesting and is basically apple juice, birch extract, carbonated water and sucrose. However, it, like it’s cousins, just didn’t have very much flavor or carbonation, and left me wishing it had more bang to it. My wife liked it, but my comment was: “it tastes like someone took a bottle of Perrier, dropped some sugar in it, left the cap off and leaned it against a birch tree for a day or so”. No thanks.
http://www.izze.com
Monthly Root Beer Rating: 2
A friend of mine on dailymile.com (Jeni H – http://www.dailymile.com/people/JeniH) sent me a 6-pack of this root beer, as she is very considerate and knows about this site and wanted to support my “habit”. Thanks, Jeni!
This root beer has a pretty great back story, as Dorothy Molter apparently went into the North Woods of Minnesota and took up residence on the Isle of Pines in Knife Lake. Here, she operated a “resort” (a few cabins) that she inherited from the previous caretaker and in the process of living there for half a century became a local legend. She made and sold root beer to visitors and travelers, and was know far and wide as “The Root Beer Lady” with a catch phrase of “kwitchurbeliakin”.
Great story, and you can read more of it on the site below. The actual root beer, although nicely packaged seems like a neutered homage to the kind of root beer a lady like Dorothy Molter must have made by herself with all natural ingredients. Nicely carbonated, the rest of the ingredients include High Fructose Corn Syrup and a lot of synthetic ingredients that Dorothy herself didn’t have access to and probably never heard of. It actually kind of tastes like a formulaic root beer syrup that has Acacia and Quillaia extract added to it. Not unpleasant, just not great or distinguished at all.
Jeni says that she is sending another variety from Minnesota that she admits is better, and I’m looking to get a nice little Minnesota/Maine rivalry going on here. Thanks again, Jeni!
www.rootbeerlady.com
Monthly Root Beer Rating: 6 (bonus points for back story)
I’ve always been a fan of Boylan’s packaging, and their intent to preserve some classic flavors, but frankly, I’ve never been that big a fan of their root beer. For all that I wanted to like it, there was always something off about it that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I haven’t had any Boylan’s for quite some time as a result, but for you, loyal readers, I needed to brave the storm and review it.
It was better than I remembered. Memory is funny that way, right? However, the first impression I got was: “medicinal”. Thankfully, it was sweetened with cane sugar instead of industrial sweeteners, and that smoothed out the flavor a bit. There were underlying hints of wintergreen and a nice, lighter carbonation that stayed throughout the whole bottle.
They claim to have been family run since 1891, and their distribution makes their products pretty widely available, at least in the south, where I live. I would say that this is a better than average every day drinker.
www.boylanbottling.com
Monthly Root Beer Rating: 6
The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company was once the US’s largest supermarket chain, boasting up to 16000 stores in the 1930s. Today, they’ve declined to about 450 stores, mainly in the NY/NJ area. My Dad, who helps fuel my root beer addiction (and perhaps is the root (pun intended) cause of it) found a four pack of this root beer at Big Lots when shopping with my Mom. For those of you who don’t know, Big Lots is a great place to find weird and discontinued beverages. Dad was pretty excited to find this, as he grew up drinking it purchased from his local A&P.
I haven’t asked him his opinion yet (especially after I gave him some Maine Root in exchange for this), but I was pretty disappointed. There’s basically just no flavor here. The beverage overall has little flavor, and what is there doesn’t have the traditional, or even innovative, root beer flavor, but tastes more like flat Dr. Pepper does. Juxtapose this with pretty heavy carbonation for a “draft” style root beer, and you’ve got basically flavorless dark carbonated sweet water made with high fructose corn syrup. No Thanks.
Monthly Root Beer Rating: 2
This cola doesn’t have caffeine. Huh? I seriously don’t get it. I thought that was part of the point of cola, right? I guess not. Anyway, this soda lacks that certain uniqueness that cane sugar Coke has, or the excellent distinguished flavor of Pig Iron Cola. There’s simply nothing special about this, although it was slightly reminiscent of Julmust. I wouldn’t buy this again, sorry.
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