Soda Pop - 1421 Reviews

"Red," huh? It pretty undisputedly tastes "red." It could be cherry, strawberry, raspberry or something else. I can't tell but it's actually pretty good. Normally with a drink like this, red pop that is, it's really sweet and really fruity. This is actually a good step back and it's not too much of either.

I enjoy seeing the glass bottles with the wear on the sides. It reminds me of a time where you would buy bottles of pop and return them and they would be washed and reused. If Mexico still does it, good for you. We can all agree that pop in glass tastes better than canned or plastic'd pop. This one will be recycled but will not go back to its birthplace.

Like many of us, from time to time you have probably found yourself wondering what exactly happened to the river of psychomagnotheric slime from Ghostbusters 2. Sure Vigo was using it as a power source, but after we was blasted back into the painting and drained of his powers, what happened to the slime?

Well the truth of the matter is that the slime was a bit of a problem for the city. As you know it fed off of emotions, and being such an angry city (at least while Lady Liberty herself isn't walking around blasting feel good tunes), it was only a matter of time before the city destroyed itself. Not wanting that to occur officials loaded it up into thousands of tanker trucks and shipped it off to Chicago, without them knowing. Hey, if a city is going to destroy itself it might as well be in the Midwest, right? A weird thing happened though, Chicago's love of food and sweets somehow changed the river of slime into a river of salted caramel, which can be seen on this bottle's label. Strange times indeed.

The Cicero company dips into this river from time to time when they want to make root beer. They put just a dab into each bottle and it flavors it right up. There's already caramel in a lot of darker sodas and the addition of the “slime” really amped it up. Luckily it's not overly salted. Wouldn't a really salty soda be the worst thing ever? Can you imagine your disappointment? There's a bit of salt in here, but it's not over the top. In reality this just makes me think of pretzels. Actually, I want some really bad. A bag of pretzels and a bottle of this would pair up for the perfect Midwest snack.

I'm not the world's biggest caramel guy, so I admit that I couldn't finish this entire bottle, but if you are a lover of that specific form of sugar, this has your name written all over it. Especially if your name is Vigo of Gozer.

Australian favorite's Bundaberg gave guava soda a shot, but they just missed the mark. You see they make their soda the old fashioned way, by brewing it with yeast, and as a result it ended up tasting a bit too alcoholic for my liking. Now the creators of some of my favorite ginger beer are trying their hand at my second favorite fruit, passion fruit. With this one the bases were loaded and they didn't blow it with a lot of grandstanding. They took what simple ingredients they had, and hit that pitch right out of the park for a grand slam.

This is soda brewed the way it should be, with a less processed flavor that what most of us are used to. It tastes like carbonated passionfruit juice, with a little something extra from the yeast brew that just makes it perfect. It does border on the wine cooler flavor, but it stays to the proper side and not the alcoholic side that far too many people became acquainted with in the 80s.

I am thoroughly disappointed that I only had one bottle of this. It simply wasn't enough, and I'm already craving more. Is it wrong to book a rip halfway across the world just for soda? Oh wait, I could probably get more of this at a Cost Plus. I'll probably have to do that.

Just churning it out, just churning out garbage. Some companies use high quality ingredients handpicked from local gardens. Those people are not these people. These people...these people. These people are making carbonated poison as far as I'm concerned. Look, it's not that bad. I mean, it's bad, don't get me wrong.

This has that strange, sharpness that you don't want in anything you ingest. I mean, there aren't any great fruit punches around but this is worse than your average bear and fruit punch. Fruity? Yep. Not anything you should find yourself drinking.

Call me old fashioned but long days can only be cured by sitting on a porch stoop drinking root beer. Early mornings with not enough sleep followed by staying late at work and who knows what the rest of the day holds? Probably a handful of garbage. You deserve something nice. A treat. A root beer.

What's better than root beer? Root beer that has honey in it. What better with root beer with honey in it? Root beer with honey and licorice. Since this root beer doesn't have that, and beggars cannot be choosers, honey it is. It's probably a difficult task to keep the smooth taste of honey and the bite of root beer but they've done it. That's why they're in the root beer major league. They have hats. Nice, embroidered hats. As if there were any doubts. What? Did you think they were silk screened? Please. They embroider everything when you get to the pros. Everything.

This soda has put me to taste philosophically. Is it a great cola whose quality has been lessened by the use of stevia as a sweetener, or is it a mediocre soda and the only reason I think it's good is because it is better than most diet sodas. What came first the stevia or the egg?

After far too much pondering I am going to go with a little of both. I think that without the added stevia this could have been an exceptional cola. It has some complexities in the flavor that make it stand out from your Coke and Pepsis of the world. At the same time, the stevia brings it down a couple of pegs, but it still is my favorite diet cola I've ever had. To be fair it does combine cane sugar with stevia, and has 15g of sugar, but that's less than half of a normal can of pop.

Whatever science proclaims to be the true answer, I enjoyed whatever it was in this can and I had no guilt while doing so. That's gotta mean something in life.

Oh that summer heat. James just couldn't deal with it. His 1988 Honda Accord was once nice but now is held together with hope and rust. He is a traveling salesman whose sales of motor homes on an island aren't what they used to be. He was once the best salesman on the west of the island but it seems that everyone had already bought one and there was no one left. He looked back fondly of the days where he bought that Accord in cash and had enough for a steak dinner that night. Now it's nothing but pasta and rice. Why was he still there? There were plenty of other jobs he could do and make enough to at least get him out of the rut that he was in.

One hot and humid summer day he had to take a stop from going in between towns. He stopped at a gas station to get something to drink and they were stocked with ice cold pop. He saw the orange and his hand just grabbed it. It was like the kid in him made him reach out and take it. To be a child on the island was a simpler time. All you had to do was go to school and then come home and the rest of the day was yours. No responsibility. No tasks. Nothing. You could just hang out with your friends and drink pop on the way to go to the movies and then get ice cream. As an adult, though, James was plagued with things like payments for his child's braces, water bills, and lawn mowing. He needed to mentally get back to what it was like to be a kid. One sip and he remembered it all. He sat down on a bench outside the station and drank almost the whole bottle. It tasted like simple, basic, everyday orange pop. It's what he would drink on hot summer days while sitting around with his friends not doing much of anything.

Just then his phone rang and it was Doctor Clemens asking him to sell him a new motor home. Today would be James' day at last. His day in the blistering sun.

If us here at Thirsty Dudes are anything we are men of the sea. The crashing waves and the salty air are all we know of life. With the ocean breeze in our hair we point our bow towards whatever fancy we have at the time. Wait no, that's not us at all. The ocean is a terrifying place that holds many creatures that mankind will probably never know of. I'm actually shocked that I even knew what a bow was. Mike and I are content to sit on the shoreline, stare out at the ships on the horizon and sip on some root beer. I mean I do have an anchor tattoo, but I never claimed that I wasn't a hypocrite. I also never complained about double negatives.

While we may be full of lies, one thing that is a truth is that we have dreams of creating (more like having someone make for us) a hybrid of root beer and ginger beer. We've proposed it to several companies, but they didn't seem very interested. They are all fools. How perfect would a nice dark, woody root beer be with the kick of some hot ginger beer? I'm sure ratios would have to be very specific to keep the flavors in line, but that is what folks in lab coats are for.

When I came across this Anchor Ginger Root Beer, I thought that perhaps my prayers had been answered. The sea is an unknown place (for the most part) and so is this beverage. It could hold wonderful secrets or disastrous monsters. You have no idea how many creatures I find in bottles of sodas; at least most of them are vaguely indifferent to me.

While this was not the soda of my dreams, it is almost there. Really the only thing that is missing is the heat. There is no burn at all in this bottle. It's more of a ginger ale root beer instead of the ginger beer root beer that I so desperately wanted. I will happily take what I am given though. This really tastes like someone made a batch of ginger ale the correct way, with real ginger, and mixed it with a creamy root beer. It has a nice classic root beer taste that is on the darker side of the spectrum that ends with a strong vanilla after taste. The ginger is the majority shareholder in the beginning of each sip, but the vanilla in the root beer is all you are left with seconds after you swallow.

I am a big fan of this, and I hope to come across it again in my travels. I can use it to help me get by until I can talk a company into perfecting my vision. Maybe I should just try combining sodas myself to see how it turns out. I mean that has to end well…€¦right?

Between Filberts and Green River one would be led to believe that Chicago has it rough when it comes to sodas. Those are two companies that are as bland as bland can be. Don't feel bad for the windy city though, as it is a large place and there is more than enough room for a plethora of different soda companies. For every Filbert there is a Berghoff. For every Green River there is a Capone Family Secret. For every…€¦actually I only know of two bad soda companies from Chicago, so I'm stuck with nothing to counter the greatness of Cicero with.

Let's start by saying that this is not your typical cherry cola. I know you've all had a Cherry Coke or Pepsi before, and they are a nice change of pace. This is a different beast though. It has a nice classic cola flavor to it, but the cherry is something out of the ordinary. It must be a Midwest thing because it reminds me a lot of the Sprecher Cherry Cola. The cherry is very strong and leaves you with a slightly weird aftertaste that I always associated with the Sprecher being fire roasted. I have no idea if Cicero prepares their sodas the same way, but they taste great, and you'll hear no complaints from this side of the table.

Oh, I'm sorry Mister Know It All. I didn't know that you were in attendance. You know all this stuff about saving money on car insurance, the best way to check if a cake is done and so many things about household remedies that I don't know where to start. Well here is something for you, friend. A classic lemon lime pop. Why don't you give your smart, dumb mouth a little treat?

"Woah" is right, you dummy. You think you thought that you knew everything but you don't. This is a kick to the mouth. It's lemon and lime but there are spices in there that surprise your ignorant tongue. It's got a good, genuine flavor but there are special secrets that not even you and all your worldly knowledge know about. Spicy secrets. I would guess that there is some ginger in those secrets. That's a guess, though. Not a "know."

So you can't know everything and I hope that I've humbled you with this simple pop that you thought was oh so simple. You don't know everything and if there was a crown giveaway to those that knew everything, you might want to look through your old emails and find the address because you have to return it.

Ladies, Gentlemen, Beloved Stockholders,
I've gathered you all here today to tell you what our numbers have been saying for years. The zero-calorie beverage game is a losing one. As much as Americans would like to ditch those empty calories and lose some weight, they are also a lazy lot, who also do not want to give up flavor. While we've come leaps and bounds in that department with stevia and its cohorts, it's still not enough. Those natural sweeteners still have a very specific taste to them. This meeting is to let you know that we are giving up. No we are not folding the company; we are simply going another route. Instead of aiming for zero-calories we have decided to shoot for low-calorie. We have discovered that if we mix up cane sugar with stevia, we can keep the sugar/calorie levels on the lower side and maintain some of the flavor from the premium ingredients we use.

You are all familiar with our ginger ale soda. We used real ginger and lemon juice in it. It should have been a masterpiece, but then we added a whole bunch of stevia and people complained that it was the only ingredient they could really taste. I am happy to now present you each with a can of that same ginger ale with the stevia lowered and a bit of cane sugar thrown in the mix. Tell me that isn't the best diet ginger ale you've ever tasted and I will call you a liar. No longer is the stevia distracting from the last of the ginger. This is the way ginger ale was meant to taste. You can actually feel the slight lemon kick that has been hidden for all these years. Sure there is a bit of the coolness of stevia, but it's so low that in blind taste tests most people didn't even notice it. All of that flavor and it's only 15g of sugar as opposed to the 30+ from other “mainstream” ginger ales. On this side of the table we really believe we are on to something and we hope that all of you feel the same. We've seen the future folks and it is called compromise.

Welp, the Thirsty Dudes have sold out. Jay reviewed 7Up and I'm reviewing Pepsi. All that street cred that we once had is out the window. Out the window like a finished apple on a highway. Out the window like Axel Foley after getting too personal with one Victor Maitland, famed and loved art dealer.

Since we're cashing in our chips, we might as well go full bore and say the following; this is great. I really liked it. Classic cola taste, like from when you were a kid and pop was really good. It's that mixed with the calm, smooth taste of vanilla. I don't know why (the reason is probably money and greased palms) that they don't use real sugar as it is noticeably better. This is something you could share with your toothless grandpappy if you feel like sitting and talking about things like "malt shops" and "sock hops." The Fourties. Boring.

For four long days I was in Florida last month. I was on tour with Cheap Girls, and I flew down there to meet up with them. When I left Buffalo I was still wearing a jacket. Within two minutes of walking out the door at the airport in Tampa I was drenched in sweat. I don't understand how people live down there. I mean I know people probably say the same thing about the cold in Buffalo, but I feel it's easier to warm up then cool down. Even though most of my 96 hours in the Sunshine State were spent sweating I refer to that as the dry portion of the trip. You see in those couple of days I only found a single beverage that we had not reviewed yet, and that is this can of 7Up. I wasn't even that excited when I found it because I thought it was just a new flavor that I would be seeing everywhere. Nope. I should have known better from the Spanish on the can.

The funny thing is that even though it was all I could find down there I still didn't drink it until a couple weeks after returning home. I am not a fan of 7Up. Like all lemon lime sodas I find it very boring. It's a flavor that I wish didn't exist. Sparkling lemonades are great. Lime soda is wonderful. So why does the combination of the two leave me unfulfilled? Lucky for me this is nothing like the original. I would liken it to one of the whacky Mountain Dew flavors, but with 7Up as the base. It certainly tastes tropical. It tastes like it's mostly mango, but there are other flavors in there as well that leave it not tasting natural. Like I said it has that Mountain Dew feel to it, but that boring base is hiding beneath the fun and excitement. If this was marketed as a Dew flavor I probably wouldn't have batted an eye, but that lemon lime flavor is hiding in the murky soda of the can.

So I'm pretty sure that any decent person residing on this planet would agree with me that people who host dog fights are complete scum, who deserve to have those selfsame dogs let loose on them. I think there is very little debate over that, well at least the first part. My question is would a person be worse, better or the same if they hosted pig fights? You know, if they starved some swine in tiny cages and once they were worked up in a fervor, make them tear each other apart. I personally have the same level of disgust, but would meat eaters not see a problem with that? Would they think to themselves, “Well whoever loses this fight is going to be served up with breakfast in the morning.”? I would hope that even if they are a person that would eat a pig, they would at least not want it's final days spent in torture.

What does all of this have to do with this cola? Absolutely nothing. To the best of my knowledge Pig Iron does not partake in pig fights, or any sort of animal fights for that matter. I assume they serve up a lot of dead flesh to be consumed by the masses, but that's seen as normal in society. For some reason my mind started wandering to pig fights as I was drinking this. In cartoon form my brain tells me it would be hysterical, but in reality it would be an atrocity. It's like people getting hit by cars; in movies it always makes me laugh, but when you see it in real life it's quite traumatic. Also, I have no soul.

Pigs aside this is a fairly standard cola. I love that I live in a world where there can be a standard for cane sugar sweetened colas. You can bet your butt that this is better than and high fructose corn syrup sweetened cola I've tasted, but in the world of “fancy” sodas it leaves something to be desired. I want it to taste darker than it does. I want interesting ingredients mixed in. This is your basic cola that you could find in any gas station with the sweetener switched out. It's nothing to shake a stick at, but the fancy label gave me false hope for something groundbreaking.

People are constantly asking me what the difference between root beer and birch beer is. I usually tell then that birch beer is like a darker root beer that is historically made from bark of the birch tree, whereas root beer is more often made from a variety of roots/barks. I have to admit here and now that I have been spreading lies. I'm going to let you all in on a secret that the soda world doesn't want you to know. The real difference between these two similar sodas is that root beer is extracted from the tusks of a walrus, and birch beer comes from those (teeth) of the hippopotamus. Strange I know, but 100% true. You can surely understand why this would be kept a secret. It would be hard to market a beverage that comes from animal teeth.

Hippo Size gave hints with their sodas, but they hid them behind a promise of gargantuan, hippo sized flavor. They were right with that boast. This is a fantastic representation of what can be extracted from a hippo. The animal that got this from must have been eating a lot of mint, because this has a very strong wintergreen taste, which is fantastic. I really enjoy this red birch soda that is made with white birch extract. I'll leave that for another science lesson. This really hit the spot. It's creamy without being anything like a cream soda. It's just what I needed after a long day like today.

Orca beverages have been breathing life into some long forgotten soda companies, and they are doing a great job at it. I certainly would never have had this if it wasn't for them, and I thank them for the experience.

Swamp Pop may be my current favorite soda company going these days. They take classic soda flavors and mix them up with a Louisiana twist. Oh you want a cola, how about we throw some figs into the mix? That cream soda you so desperately crave? Well you're not getting that until we add in some pralines. This is the flavor I have been saving for a rainy day, or a perfectly nice day when I'm sitting around a fire at night. With embers a blazing I cracked open the cap of the combination I feel I have been waiting for all my life; ginger ale and cucumber. People always laugh at me when I rant about my love of cucumber beverages. They are fools who don't understand that it is the most refreshing flavor of all times. It is both crisp and cool, which is just what you need on a hot balmy day.

This soda is named after the local “gentlemen pirate” Jean Lafitte, who basically ran the Gulf of Mexico during the 18th century. The man did it all; bootlegging, smuggling, spy work, and he even worked as a wartime defender under General Andrew Jackson. All of those activities have to take a lot out of a person so I can only imagine him kicking back after a long day of raiding ships and sipping on a bottle of this soda. I assure you that he would in fact be sipping and not chugging, as that is the sort of pop this is. You want to mull over the flavor in your mouth, letting it wash over your taste buds with each sip.

This is much sweeter than I anticipated, but it feels right in its level of sugar. The folks of the south like their sugar, as is evident with sweet tea, and that has been translated here. It's a ginger ale that you can taste the ginger in. It has the slightest of burns to it, but nothing that a small child couldn't handle. So as a base you have a nicely sweet, slightly hot ginger ale. What better way to improve that than by cooling it down with some cucumber? With that addition you have near perfection. It is also a flavor that instantly makes me think of Louisiana, heat, humidity and how to make it all bearable.

So my computer up and died on me and here I am writing my first review on my new processor of ones and zeros. I would like to say that my old one fried because of this soda, but unfortunately that is not the case. Nothing again Begley or Bill, but I am simply not a fan of bananas at all, and to be honest I have been dreading drinking this. I fully expected to take a sip and want to spit it all over my computer in disgust, but you know what? These crazy folks someone made banana palatable, and in a diet version.

The secret to their success is that this doesn't taste like a gross mushy fruit. Instead it tastes like a not as sweet banana Runt candy with a little bit of caramel mixed in. This somehow doesn't taste diet at all, yet it has zero sugar and it's only 8 calories. They are truly onto something with this SweetenFX mixture they developed. It's healthy without having a specific taste that overpowers the real flavors of the soda.

If you are dumb and are a banana purist, this may not be for you, but if your taste buds work correctly and you find these yellow fruits to be utterly disgusting, don't write off this soda. This might be just what you need in your life.

Jay and I are not fine food eaters. We do not tuck our napkins in our shirts when we eat. Heck, I don't even use napkins. When we go out, we just go real easy. We don't always necessarily go "safe" but we take what's there. We are not beggars nor are we choosers.

Today, our adventure to an island that did not prove to be as "great" as it claimed to be and out plans went south so we had to make other arrangements. Those arrangements? Taco Bell, Trader Joe's, and Guitar Center. When we go, we go big and get fun new varieties of Mountain Dew and I got this, a Freeze. I haven't been to Taco Bell in a while but this is a new thing that they most certainly did not invent, as it's just a Slurpee. Vanilla Dr. Pepper, though. That is something. It's not exactly my highly desired cherry chocolate Dr. Pepper but it's something. So how "something" was it? It was just something, really. Perhaps not enough vanilla. Sure a Dr. Pepper Slurpee is wonderful but I would have liked a little bit more vanilla, you know, because it's what I ordered.

We made the most after other people decided to turn their Memorial Day into a Memorial Extended Weekend. You work at a music store. Aside from people murdering Stairway every twenty-five minutes, you've got it pretty easy.

This should be addressed as it's staring me right in the face; Elvira looks fantastic on this bottle. She's her standard, sexy vampiress, but she's wearing this one-piece leotard slash bathing suit and looks like she should be in a White Snake video. Elvira, you look great, as always.

"Great" unfortunately does not describe this drink. Black cherry is unfortunately one of those drinks I have to just lump into the "forever mediocre" fruit pop category. Fruit pop is only as good as good and is never exceptional. This is no different. It's thick and kind of reminiscent of a cough syrup because of it. It doesn't taste medicinal but has the syrupiness of one.

Elvira, you keep up the good work. Whatever you're doing works. It works very well. This pop though, you can leave this in your dust.

I think this Fritz character may have taken a trip to the UK at some point in his life. It was on this visit that he discovered the joy of carbonated lemonade and decided to bring it back to his home country. Actually as far as I know Fritz may have learned about making lemonade fizzy from his great-grandmother and then brought it with him to the UK on said trip. All I know for certain is that a trip was made, lemonade and bubbles were involved and the world is better for it.

Whether Fritz's people invented this, or they borrowed it is inconsequential, as no matter what the origin, this will remain the best sparkling lemonade I have ever had the pleasure of tasting. It's nice and bitter, the way this type of beverage should be. It actually tastes like lemonade was made and the carbonation was added after the fact. A lot of other brands taste like they tried to do it all at once and it ends up having the flavor of some garbage lemon soda pop.

Germany, you've made some mistakes in the past, but I will always hold a place for you in my heart for your wonderful carbonated beverages.