Soda Pop - 1421 Reviews

The weird things I think about when reviewing a drink at 5:30am:

-There's probably somebody in the world who is afraid of Ramune. Whether it's the sound of the marble popping or the marble inside the bottle or the weird shaped bottle, I'm sure this is true for someone.

-I wonder if there are multiple people. I wonder if they have a support group on some rarely visited Yahoo group message board.

- I wonder if they would be more terrified of this "orange" flavor because it doesn't taste much like orange. It's probably the weakest orange flavored soda I've ever had.

- I wonder if there's someone writing a thesis on "nonsensical ramblings written on the internet with no logical reason behind them". If so, I think this website would be a goldmine for them.

If such a thing as a old timey pop shop existed in my town, would anyone actually visit it on the regular? I don't even know if I would and I am a Thirsty Dude. Sure I would go on grand opening and have a nice root beer or some such thing, but I think it would have to offer me something more. You know what I just had a great idea. “Barcades” are all the rage these days. What if we took that a step further? Why not have an arcade that is also a pop shop during the day and then at 9 or 10PM all the youngin's get ushered out and the alcohol can flow for the older crowd? Seems like you're doubling your market with little extra work. (Mike, if you're reading this, you're welcome.)

During the day I would hope that they would serve some nice high quality fountain drinks as well as a nice array of bottled fares. I would be remiss if Pop Shoppe was not served at my local pop shop. Their soda is always on the better side of normal/average. They aren't going out of their way to recreate the wheel, but they aren't cheaping out either. Well, I guess they are a little since they use high fructose corn syrup. This cola is fairly standard. I would say flavorwise it falls somewhere in between Coke and Pepsi, but it is light years better than generic brand. Also, the bottle would work well for a retro feel. If this idea doesn't come into fruition in Buffalo in the next two years…€¦well…€¦I'll be pretty bummed. I need somewhere to play Galaga and drink soda. It would also be the reason I need to go out to bars to hang out with friends.

I cannot express my excitement when I came across this in a gas station in Richmond, VA. Actually that is a lie, I can very much express it by saying that I was slightly more than mildly interested. You see, I saw Canada Dry and my mind instantly went to thoughts of ginger ale. When I read pineapple, I assumed this was a pineapple ginger ale. As you can probably guess, this was no such thing. It is simply a pineapple soda. How great would pineapple ginger ale be though? I think I might just dump some pineapple juice in a bottle of regular Canada Dry and see how it turns out.

If there ever was a standard for pineapple pop, I assume this would be it. It has a general sparkling sugar water flavor with a mild taste of candied pineapple to it. I've had other sodas this flavor that the pineapple flavor is much stronger, and I have to admit, I prefer them. This is perfectly fine though, although while I was drinking it I proclaimed that I always feel trashy drinking pop from a plastic bottle. That's on me though.

I like that Arizona has been associating their new products with various “celebrities.” I have to be honest, I'm not a big art guy by any means, and I had no idea who Richard Prince was. The can (and Wikipedia) inform me that he was a photographer and painter who created pop culture-inspired art for decades. Apparently he is mostly known for “rephotographing.” If you want to know what that is; you're on a computer and Google is but a click away.

Prince also did a series of nurse paintings, which used the covers of pulp romance novels. This is where I tie in with the artist. Sonic Youth used one of these paintings for the cover of their Sonic Nurse album. It's ridiculous that learning that fact made me feel like I had a connection with the artist. It's not even a record that I like terribly much, but it is from a band that I once held very dearly.

Whatever. This isn't about an artist this is about a beverage. Apparently Prince approached Arizona with a soda he wanted to collaborate with them on, and ended up being apart of the Lemon Fizz release. The artist designed the can himself, so you're essentially buying a Richard Prince print for only 99 cents. What a steal.

Back to the beverage: This is carbonated lemonade, and it is great. I had such low expectations for this, as I expected a lemon lime soda (the most boring of all the pops) minus the lime (making it infinitely more boring). Arizona succeeded in creating a soda that actually tastes like lemonade with bubbles, and what harsh bubbles they are. It's very strong, so unlike most Arizona drinks it's a sipping drink and not a gulper. I don't think it really needs to be in such a large can, but hey that's Arizona's thing, so I'll let them have it.

Canada Dry, makers of the top-secret model of a ginger ale, now makes regular pop. That's pretty great, right? Sure. They're going against the "big guys" and making pop. Do they do it well? Meh. Yeah, you heard me. I gave it a "shaky hand" review. Black cherry is a rough pop and it is a lot harder to have a great black cherry than it is, say, a cola. This has a bit of a numbing feeling behind it like you would get from a cough drop. Is it bad? No, not really, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Is that harsh? Possibly. Probably. Actually. It's sweet and tastes like an average pop. Nothing mind blowing here. Just a black cherry pop to sit around on the shelf until you meet a person that has either never had black cherry pop or someone who forgot what it tasted like. You're alright to let this one get dusty. Don't worry. Someone will drink it.

Deep in the Hollywood Hills children need to step up their game with roadside stands. Kids grow up fast these days, and growing up and being popular requires money that they don't have. The days of the standard lemonade stand are long gone; the profits just weren't enough. These days the kids need to up the ante, or they will just have to kiss those new premium apps goodbye. As a result a new wave of suburban roadside beverages has risen.

It all started when some daring eight year old used her mother's seltzer water instead of the Evian that was customarily used (hey this is Hollywood, land of the yuppies). People were abuzz about this new development and there was a line around the block. From that point the children kept trying to outdo each other. They would flavor their lemonades in various ways to lure customers away from other stands. Some say there were a lot of backroom dealing and sabotage going on during this time, but there is no definitive documentation.

Then came the day that the Earth stood still. One little dreamer changed everything. That day a 100% Organic sparkling lemonade hit the streets. Since then the street stand game has never been the same. People came from miles just to sample this child's creation, and to feel good about themselves whilst doing so.

Limonitz attempts to recreate that greatness with their products. They use filtered sparkling water, organic lemon juice concentrate and organic sugar to make the finest carbonated lemonades this world has ever seen. On it's own it would be quite a product, but the company took it a step further with this drink and added organic ginger extract. The results are mind blowing. Here we have a sparkling lemonade, that not only tastes like real lemons without a hint of cleaning fluid, but also that actually has a real ginger flavor to it. It has a mind ginger burn to it, it's very mild to me, but my ladyfriend said that it had a decent bearable burn. Every ingredient is present in the taste, and there for a specific reason. It's simple, it's organic, and it's delicious. Needless to say this is going to put all of those dumb kids stands out of business before they can buy whatever it is kids “need” to have these days.

Earl loved celebrating…€¦too much. He was the guy at work that would somehow always find a reason for cake whether it be Sheryl in accounting, Sharon in accounts receivable, or Shannon in customer service. Cakes, assorted pies, and trays of cookies always seemed to be in tow when it came to Earl. On Halloween he came in and was very sad. Most of the people in the office were wearing at least some sort of hackneyed cat ears or devil horns. Sheila Larson from the front desk asked what was wrong and he told his sad story.

He was on his way to his car dressed to the nines in a zombie outfit. Full makeup, ripped shirt and shorts, colors contacts, and a well rehearsed limp. He was ten feet from the car and a car drove by and completely splashed him. It totally ruined his getup. His makeup was running, he was cold and wet, and genuinely was not in the mood to have any sort of party.

Lunchtime had come and everyone made their way to the company picnic where the office had decided to have a little Halloween party. Earl walked in and sat down and started to eat his sandwich. Just then, a handful of the women from the office brought him a cupcake with a Jack-o-lantern on it and a tiny can of pop. He looked up and smiled and said thanks. He ate the cupcake and was in a better mood but it wasn't until he drank that pop that he was back to his normal self. The pop they gave him was a Halloween exclusive flavored like a caramel apple. He had never seen anything like it. He loved to bring in candy and caramel apples to the girls at the office throughout fall so this little can was a treat. He took a couple sips and decided it tasted more like non-alcoholic apple cider with some caramel in it. That was close enough for him. He went outside and no one saw him for about ten minutes. Then, he came back in dressed as a janitor. All the ladies thought it was a great costume and wondered where he got it. Just then, Sam the janitor walked in wearing Earl's clothes that he just had on. It was a Halloween that Consolidated Cardboard won't soon forget.

Roberta Smith was new to town. She always dressed in black and her schoolmates used to call her “Wednesday Addams” because she wore black, collared dress almost every day. Her hair also looked like she had always freshly put something into a light socket. She always had her headphones on listening to the blackest of metal. When people would ask her what she was listening to, she would say that she was listening to “blood metal” which is not a real genre, but something to get the point across that it was very dark and often morbid. She had patches on her backpack for bands like Danzig, Type-O Negative, Necrophagist, and Cannibal Corpse and many more.

She came to school one day and say alone to eat lunch. She had a turkey sandwich, apple, Star Crunch, and a small can of pop. One of the bullies in the school came over and took the can from Wednesday. She demanded that he give it back to her. He refused and asked her what it was. She told him it was blood orange. He squealed like pig and practically threw the can back at her thinking it was made with real blood. Fed up with the abuse that she had taken, she chased the kid through the lunchroom and tackled him. She opened up the can of pop and started to pour some into his mouth. A teacher came in and broke up the scuffle and the students went on their way. The bully got up as Wednesday went back to the table with an arm full of sticky pop. He said, “This isn't blood! It just tastes like orange pop and grapefruit pop mixed together! It's actually pretty good. Thanks, Wednesday!” She smiled for the first time in front of her classmates.

After class, some students came up to her and told her that it was cool that she stood up to the bully and asked if she wanted to come over to their houses and play with dolls. She said, “Sure! Do you want to come over to my house, listen to Slayer and pull the wings off butterflies.” When the kids backed up in disgust, she would tell them, “Just kidding. We aren't going to be mean to butterflies but we are still listening to Slayer.”

Dear Trick or Treaters of the world,
When you are traversing the back streets of your town, begging for sugary confections I have on request for you. Actually it's not a request; it's a demand. You can keep all of your chocolates and suckers, your Wonkas and your Hersheys. I must request that you save all of your licorice and send it to me directly at the Thirsty Dudes offices (aka my apartment). I have no need of Sweet Tarts or Tootsie Rolls, I only need the sweet, sweet goodness of licorice. Let me be more specific, red licorice. You can keep any and all black licorice trash for yourself. Bring me your Twizzlers, your Red Vines and your Australian soft eating varieties. Red licorice is the ultimate candy, and when it comes to ingesting it, I have no willpower. I will inhale an entire package before I know what happened.

The folks at Jones certainly had me in mind when they made this soda pop, as it legitimately tastes like licorice. Sure the flavor isn't as overpoweringly strong as I wish it was, but it is more than just a hint. The flavor is more along the lines of Red Vines than anything else, and while it's not my absolute favorite, I can't really complain.

It's lucky for me that these are available for a limited time only, as I don't need this temptation on a yearly basis. Also, anything more than 8oz of this would probably be too much. This candy liquefied and stored in a can with wonderful bubbles soaring through it is as close to a dream come true as any man could ask.

So on November first while you're sorting through your night's haul, dump all of your licorice into a box and mail it to Thirsty Dudes International Headquarters. The postmaster will make sure it gets to where it needs to be.

I purchased this on a trip that I was sure was ultimately going to result in my death. On our last tour we played a last minute show at a coffee shop in Western Mass. We didn't know anyone at town, and didn't have a place to stay. Suddenly this 20 something year old gentleman approached us and told us he had been couch surfing and living out of his van, be he had a place we could crash, as long as we were okay with having a bonfire. We agree, follow him to a 7-11, where I purchased this soda, and then drove for what seemed like forever into the heart of nothingness. It seemed like we were nowhere near any sort of town, and even streetlights were nonexistent. The words of a bonfire got me to thinking that we were certainly going to be sacrificed. Most of my body was telling me to turn around and head the other direction, but we are poor and cheap and didn't want to spring for a hotel. Finally we turned into a driveway of a creepy old farmhouse. A single motion detector light came on and it didn't help our feelings of dread. The area was dead silent. There was no trace of any other human life for miles. We ascended the stairs to enter the house and I took a breath waiting for murder and mutilation. As he flipped the light switch I was sure a family of crazy hillbillies would be waiting for me, but instead I was greeted with construction equipment. You see at the show our host was vague about everything, but he quickly explained that this was his grandmother's house and she had passed away the year before. His parents were remodeling the whole thing, and it was to be their retirement home in the country. He showed us to some nice new mattresses for us to sleep on and then we went out to enjoy a nice fire on a chilly night. It ended up being one of my favorite nights of tour, and great conversations were had. In the morning light we saw that the place was probably one of the most relaxing places I had ever been. There were hundreds of cows in a field next door, pear trees and even a little waterfall in the stream behind the house. We were dumb dumb heads and we watch too many horror movies.

You didn't come here to hear about my potential demise though. You're here for sarsaparilla, and it's a fine place to be. Due to the caps I was expecting this too be the same mix that College Club and Avery uses, but this has a much darker licorice taste to it. I was very surprised at how bold the flavor was. When companies use the same labels for all their sodas and the only denotation of the flavor is on the cap, I expect something on the higher level of good, but not great. What was that something about books and covers? This is an exceptional sarsaparilla that Massachusetts is lucky to have readily available.

This is so close to being amazing that it is so very frustrating. It hits your lips and you think to yourself, “this is one serious soda.” Not only does it not taste like those little strawberry candies whose wrappers look like the fruit, it actual tastes like berries. It has a wonderful adult berry flavor. I don't mean alcoholic, I mean that it's not overly sweetened to the liking of a child. It's still sweet, but not in a way that makes you fear tooth decay. It tastes like a soda you would sip at the end of a long day as you sit out in our hypothetical backyard and have a nice little fire. Oddly enough, it's the fire that I believe ruins this drink. Just when the going it getting good, the drink makes a left hand turn and the “Sprecher flavor” comes out to greet your taste buds. Since this is the only company that I can relate this flavor to, and this is also the only company I know that fire brews their soda, I blame the fire. I don't know how to explain the flavor exactly, but it is the thing that always keeps me from giving their sodas perfect marks. It's unfortunate, because I could see this quickly becoming a favorite of mine if it weren't for that weird after taste.

For some reason these Mash drinks are one of the most visually appealing beverages on the market. Whenever I come across then in a bodega my eyes are instantly drawn to them. I don't know what it is. They just look like someone took a crappy one liter soda bottle and squished it down. Perhaps it's just the simplicity of the label. I love clean design work.

Besides for the look of this I am also drawn to it because it has ginger in it. I will always gravitate towards the ginger based beverages. I knew it wasn't going to be very strong in this, but it was even weaker than I anticipated. It tastes like someone took the weakest ginger ale ever produced and added lemon soda to it. I know I haven't painted the greatest picture of this, but it is enjoyable to drink. I just always want more, and apparently like to complain about things that are perfectly fine the way they are.

This is sweetened with both crystalline fructose and sucralose, but luckily the diet flavor is nowhere to be found. There is so much lemon flavor in here. I think it covers up all the other flavors. Luckily it doesn't taste like lemon rind, which could have easily been the case with a name like lemon peel. We dodged a bullet with that one.

Sammy was planning a party in his backyard. He had burgers and hot dogs. He had chips and potato salad. He had beer and pop. He was missing something though. He could feel it. He looked through his stash. Burgers and dogs both vegetarian and non; check. Chips; two bags. Potato salad; German; check. Beer; domestic and international. Pop; cola, diet cola...uh oh. He was missing the most important ingredient of the party. He was missing grape pop. Oh no. People were going to be here any minute. There was not a lot of time. He needed to run across the street to the only place close enough to get there and back; the bodega.

Sammy ran in and yelled, "Where is the grape pop!?" The associate said that it was in the second aisle. He saw that they only had it in small glass bottles. He thought that it was the best he was going to get so he grabbed ten bottles, put them in a handcart, paid, and ran back home to put them in the fridge.

The party started and people were having a great time. They were talking and playing games and telling jokes. It was a great time for all. Sammy looked in the fridge and noticed there was only one bottle left. He grabbed it and took a bit sip. He knew why there were no bottles left. It was a great grape pop. It was sweet and had a good candy taste and even though it was made with corn syrup, it was done well. Fruit should be sweet and taste like candy.

After everyone left, some of the people came up to ask him where he got that pop. He told them across the street and actually watched people leave his house and go right to the store. Success.

How many hot dogs can you eat? Do you have the fervor it takes to take on the former world champion Takeru Kobayashi, or do you just like to take it easy and eat a whole mess of dogs at a leisurely pace? Either way if you can force down at least six dogs at Spike's Junkyard Dogs in New England you can get yourself a t-shirt and a picture on the wall. I wouldn't say it's an elite group that has achieved this as the walls are basically covered in said pictures, but there is a certain pride that comes with it.

If you still have room in your gullet after you have downed an unhealthy number of hot dogs (or veggie dogs) I would suggest ordering yourself a bottle of their store brand root beer. You would think that for a store brand it would be some average root beer that is normally made by a different company, but that has been rebranded. It seems that Spikes has had this specifically brewed for them. It's sweetened with cane sugar, which puts them ahead of the average game if you ask me. On top of that it's fairly heavy with the wintergreen, which makes it stand out as slightly different amongst its peers. It doesn't taste like it's just made from a mix, or with “root beer flavoring.” I suppose after you eat 23 hot dogs (the greatest number consumed at the location we were at) you're probably not going to notice the subtleties of the flavor though.

New Orleans, I would one day like to be inside of you. The love for Cajun spiced food runs deep in my veins. I also hear that you make fantastic sweet tea. You know what you don't make well? Pineapple pop. This, without any sort of hesitation, is the worst pineapple pop I have ever had. I think I know why you don't make good pineapple pop. It's because you don't know anything about pineapples.

Look, I'm from New York. What do we know about pineapple? Nothing. You can say that right back at me and I have to agree with you. We are in this together, The South.

Now that you know that we know about each other's strong suits, I'm really going to hammer it home. This is awful. It is a dense, thick, syrupy abomination of a drink. I don't know how this left the test bed. It's so bad. Maybe it's the tester's fault. Perhaps all that Cajun spice has dulled your taste buds like when you stupidly use a knife to cut things like rocks and stuff. Dull. Flat. Terrible. Your spices and your crawdads? You've got that nailed, buddy. This though, leave it in the dust. It blows.

I'm on tour right now and the band I'm with just played at Slo Brew in San Luis Obispo, CA with Titus Andronicus. People got us excited about this venue because it's also a restaurant and they feed all bands that play here. All the band members were asked what they wanted but they didn't think to ask me, the merch guy.

Then my good friend Max Gregor came to the rescue and bought me a slice of pizza and this huge bottle of root beer. I was totally surprised and it made my night. The pizza was as good as I was going to get in California, but the root beer was pretty decent. It's a local brewing company and you can tell this isn't their first batch of root beer. It has a nice sweetness, but not too sweet. It's a very "safe" root beer and would be a good introductory to someone new to root beer outside of Barqs and Dad's.

Hey Gus, as we have learned through the last couple of years you have some very good fruit sodas, but as soon as you venture into the world of “brown” pop that all goes out the window. You have found your niche in the soda world, and there is no need to be greedy and make every flavor. Stick with the fruits and you will have a prosperous future.

Speaking of which, I recently had a bottle of your Star Ruby Grapefruit, and I must say kudos. No, not those fake granola bar treats from the 90s, I mean job well done. As a fan of grapefruit, and pop of the flavor, I will admit that a lot of the time the “big” brands take it a bit too far. The vision of the fruit is lost. You stayed pretty true. You took some grapefruit juice, cut it minimally with orange juice to get rid of that overly bitter edge, then added some sparkling water and a bit of cane sugar. 22g out of 12oz isn't bad at all. It is nearly half of what is in a can of Coke, or more fittingly Squirt. The end result is a soda that actually tastes like pink grapefruit, but doesn't give you that sour face look.

Gus, you're a good guy, and you have a great little company going. I just wish the world would realize what I have so this could be more readily available.

Everyone knows that koalas sit around in trees all day tripping their balls off from the eucalyptus leaves they eat. Guess what, everyone is wrong. While eucalyptus is a staple in the animals diet it does not have any mind-altering effects on them. They are just lazy animals, which don't eat a proper diet to keep moving throughout the day. Perhaps if they had more of a high-energy diet they would be swinging from the trees like a bunch of monkeys.

In my mind this beverage was whipped up in a lab to get these little guys moving. I'm not sure if there is caffeine in here, like most colas, but I have to believe that lemon and elderberry juice along with agave syrup would have to give them a little more pep than a couple of quasi toxic leaves. Speaking of which, why is there fruit juice in this cola? I actually don't know how this actually tastes like cola with the ingredients that are in it, but it does. It's a slightly fruity cola that has a much different sweetness than most people are used to. I fully support the use of agave to sweeten sodas, but it does have a drawback. When it is used in “brown” pop they never taste as dark as you would want them to. It's something I can overlook though as this gives a new twist to a classic beverage.

I walked into the beer merchant in my city knowing full well that they have a decent selection of non-alcoholic drinks. Someone mentioned to me previously that they had the Lester's Fixins chicken wing pop but they didn't tell me that they had a couple different ones there. I thought, you know what? I'm going to share this with my good friend Lauren and maybe some kids. I'll get something kid friendly and perhaps more interesting. Welp, I'm the fool because this was completely and utterly disgusting.

Travel back in time to when you were around four and your parents bought you a new cooking set with fake food in it. Remember when you could get plastic food that actually smelled vaguely like what it was supposed to be? Well be a four year old idiot and make and eat a plastic piece of jelly and you've got this drink. It tasted like melon flavored plastic, nothing like what it should have tasted like. No peanut butter, and not strawberry or grape jelly either. Oh you know that old American lunch staple of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with no peanut butter and melon jelly served in and around a plastic plate that you just eat the whole thing of like this is your first time eating a piece of Cinn-a-burst gum and you heard you can eat the wrapper, too. Exception being that Cinn-a-burst was fantastic gum and this pop sucked more than my fantastic Dyson vacuum and that thing truly never clogs. It just keeps sucking just like this crappy pop.

Finally. My last bottle of Chubby. I bought this in the early stages of Thirsty Dudes and it has just been sitting on different shelves awaiting my acceptance. After that cream soda...ugh...I've been dreading this day. Was it as bad as I thought? No but not by much. It tastes more like carbonated bubble gum cake or ice cream than actual gum.

It's not too sweet which is a godsend otherwise I would have thrown this little number into the street with complete disregard to things like decency, etiquette, manners, and other people. It sucks, but it sucks a lot less that I was worried about.