Nygårda Julmust
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)
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Cheerwine
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
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Fentiman’s Curiosity Cola
Hmmm, yes. Curious indeed. I’ve enjoyed other Fentiman’s beverages, particularly the Dandelion and Burdock. This cola is a throwback to what you sort of expect cola tasted like before the big cola companies like Coke and Pepsi dominated the flavor. It’s eccentric, it’s “botanically brewed”, it’s a bit flowery; sort of what you think hibiscus might taste like if you chewed it a little… There are definitely hints of ginger, and it isn’t too sweet. Trace amounts of alcohol exist from the natural brewing and fermentation process, sort of a nice by-product of actual yeast brewing in a soft drink if you ask me.
The drink comes in a nicely shaped and “antiquey” 9.3 oz bottle. In fact, now that I think about it, the whole thing screams: niche throwback product, but their sodas are just too good to be limited to that. Give Fentiman’s a try next time you’re at your specialty store, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Monthly Root Beer Rating: 7
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Blue Sky Creamy Root Beer
Well, I’m pleased to say that this root beer is much improved over its counterpart “Root Beer Encore“. Although, I’m not sure it warranted said encore. Basically, this is a “natural” soda, which means it doesn’t have much flavor, but probably won’t directly contribute to your early death. As far as natural root beers go, this was one of the better ones, but it’s a far cry from the pure deliciousness of those slightly less healthy root beers I prefer. It’s still a whole crapload better than that other natural root beer Zevia nonsense…
Anyway, the taste was a lot like soda water with a little bit of vanilla and root beer flavoring. not bad, but not great.
Monthly Root Beer Rating: 4
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Izze Sparkling Birch Soda
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.
Monthly Root Beer Rating: 2
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Cold Spring Premium Root Beer
I seem to be much more successful finding root beers at discount stores than anywhere else. Anyway, I found this one at Aldi. It’s a draft style root beer made with cane sugar. In keeping with a typical draft style, it’s not very carbonated, and it’s pretty smooth. Taste-wise, this was surprising. It was almost more like a cream soda than a root beer, and had no bite. It was very creamy, almost like there was some heavy cream in the soda along with a healthy dose of vanilla. Not bad, but missing most of the typical flavor notes of root beer.
This seems to be another of those root beers that are made by a brewery, but when I go the website on the bottle, there is no mention whatsoever of the root beer. Maybe they’ve stopped making it? Weird…
http://www.coldspringbrewery.com
Monthly Root Beer Rating: 5
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Olde Brooklyn Williamsburg Root Beer
Another discount store find…Old Brooklyn Williamsburg Root Beer seems to be another of those contract bottled hack jobs that probably originated from a recipe someone found somewhere many years ago and then contracted out to be executed and distributed. The 4 pack I got was clear glass bottles, usually a bad sign for root beer, and the labels were cheap plastic stickers. the root beer itself was highly carbonated, not very sweet, and had an almost overwhelming peppermint taste. This reminded me somewhat of the Napa Valley root beer I had a while back, but maybe that is the bottle/label combination. I was underwhelmed. My 10 year old daughter gave it a 7.
Monthly Root Beer Rating: 5
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