Soda Pop - 1421 Reviews

I went into this expecting it to be a standard grape soda. You know the kind that in reality tastes nothing like s fruit that grows on vines, but more like a weird unnatural flavor that has been pounded into our taste buds under the guise of grape. I was certain that this was a soda pop that I have had before, but after one sip I had to second guess myself. This is not your ordinary generic brand grape soda. I didn't have to look at the ingredients list to know that there was actually grape juice in this. It's not totally just sparkling grape juice (oh how I wish it were). It's more of as hybrid of grape juice and the previously mentioned fake grape flavoring. It may not be the ideal, but it's a lot better than Johnny No-Name soda. From jelly to soda, Welch's you've come a long way.

The wonderful establishment Village Beer Merchant in Buffalo has put on tap another delicious soda from Flying Bison. My awesome partner surprised me with this growler and I couldn't have been happier. This is easily one of my favorite sarsaparilla's I've had so far. I wish it had a little more carbonation, but the sweetness is perfect. It has a great licorice taste, which prompted me to buy some black licorice the next day.

Good work Village Beer Merchant/Flying Bison, you've done it again. Thank you!

You know what's stopping this drink from being a good drink? The fact that it sucks. This drink tastes like sour apple plastic. If you had a book for kids that every page had a different smell and one of the pages smelled like sour apple, and then you ate it, this is what it would taste like: your child's book. Why are you eating your kids books? Why are you making drinks that taste like fruity flavored plastic? Why did this drink make it to production? Not every non-diet pop is still drinkable when you exchange real sugar for artificial sweeteners. Not everything we drink is a gem. This should be more acceptable than it is but surprise! We just found the reason why we found it for seventy cents.

Diet cola. It's a rough game. Murderous. Competitive. Mostly kind of gross. This drink has potential. It's a brave venture into a dangerous game filled with tree hugging hippies. Filled with strange middle-aged women with distinctive salt and pepper hair that carry around canvas bags all times in case they come across a killer farmers market with rutabagas they just can't leave behind. Filled with young dudes who will stab you if you as much as mention chicken nuggets and loves the band Crass and has black pants that appear to be painted on his tiny, malnourished frame.

This drink, with all its promise, falls short. It's got a decent cola taste but is quickly replaced with a semi-bitter, sweetness that is known to many as "that Stevia" taste but is really Erythritol. Who cares? Right? Who cares? When a drink isn't that great, who cares what sucks about it? Well it's actually the Erythritol that eats it. It cruds up a potentially good drink. I don't know what would make it better. I don't even know if regular diet pop wins or loses. I don't know what's going on anymore.

Miller High Life is the self-appointed "champagne of beers." While I don't know much about beer, I doubt this is true and think that it's kind of a tongue-in-cheek thing, this could be the champagne of kola champagnes with one single caveat. Pre-caveat, right out of the fridge this is great. It's not as bubble-gummy as a lot of other kola champagnes I've had. It did have a nice, unexpected bit, like some of the ginger juice from their wonderful ginger beer got stuck in the machine, no one cared, and it bled into this drink leaving a little bit of a bite. I always want a little bit of a bite when it comes to food and drink. Spice almost always beats no spice.

Great, right? Awesome. But wait! I said there was one thing to worry about. That one thing is that you either have to keep this cold or drink it fast because once it lukewarms, it gets perfumey. I drank half, went and got a sandwich, came back, bad. Ten minutes or so killed this drink.

Don't let this happen to your kola champagne. Drink it fast or keep it on ice. Do the right thing.

James. You did something nice here. Here I am, laid out in bed and you thought of me and brought me a drink. You are a treat. You overheard my like for black cherry and lemonade and you found me a black cherry lemonade. Not only that but it's not terrible for my sick body. Not only that but it tastes pretty good. Not only that but...well I guess that's it.

I spent the last three days just up-chucking all over the place. I've got old newspapers and sawdust and kitty litter all over the place covering up my hurl spots. Look around you. I don't know why you took your shoes off. I know it's typically good etiquette to do so but you should have known at the mound of dirty towels covered in pickles from McDonald's hamburgers and french fries that you shouldn't have bothered. Anyhow, this is all sparkling, fruitful, lemonady and not terrible. It's got a little Stevia taste to it but it's better than that awful diet taste.

You really are a good friend. Hey, I appreciate you coming but could you do me a favor and push that pile of napkins covered in Big Mac special sauce, mustard, and a little bit of puke off the counter before you leave? I'm trying to watch Along Came Polly and can't see Jennifer Aniston's wonderful face though my mound of spew. Thanks dude. You're the best. You can use that hockey stick over there. Please don't use your hands. It might make me lose this drink, too.

Now I know we previously reviewed the Bawls G33K B33R, but in the name of beverage science I had to give this a try since they dropped the 1337 speak and simply named this "root beer". Were they confusing people? Did they finally realize talking in numbers was kinda lame? Or did they completely change the formula and make it 100% less geeky?

Unfortunately a representative for Bawls could not be reached to comment on this matter. Ok, to be honest I didn't try. But I can comment on the last question: the taste. Is it different? Not at all. It's still delicious. Am I glad they changed the name on the bottle? Meh. I could care less really. I wasn't bothered by the 12 year old gamer talk on the bottle. What I would have loved to been a fly on the wall for is the meeting(s) where they discussed whether to keep the bottles as "G33K B33R" or change them to the traditional and less annoying "root beer". Maybe someday companies like Bawls will conference us in for our "expert" opinions.

Dear Howie,
You are a liar. You must sell a lot of pop out of your false promises to afford to replace all of your pants that are constantly ablaze. You are the worst kind of person. Untrustworthy. I hope I'm not the first to tell it how it is, but you, sir, are awful. Where is all this coming from? This bottle of Lemon-Up is labeled "Howie's Premium Root Beer" and it is not root beer. Your company may be called "Howie's Premium Root Beer" and, if that is true, that is a terrible name for a company that makes things other than root beer.

As for this drink, you've done a fair job of making a mostly lemon, semi lime pop. You think it's going to just be another citrus pop like 7-Up or Sprite, and there is a little bit of it in there, but then cap'n lime jumps in the mix and scrambles your taste buds. This drink captures the flavor of limes and leaves it's inherent, chronic bitterness and depression out of it.

Howie, we haven't been the best track record with this drink but as a non-root beer drink, it's pretty good. It's no root beer as almost promised but it's acceptable.

Love,
Mike of the world famous supreme team Thirsty Dudes show.

Alright Michael, you've been working here at Izze for a couple of weeks now. I still think you're kind of a dunce, but lucky for you this job doesn't require much brains. Today you'll be making the sparkling lime soda while I make the more delicate birch beer. Remember we don't add sweeteners to our beverages, so don't bother asking me where the sugar is like you have every other day this week. Wait…€¦STOP! What are you doing? Where did you even get those little squirt bottles of limejuice? Did you have those hidden all over your person? You are just strange. Yes this is a lime soda that you're making, but that doesn't mean it's straight up carbonated limejuice. You just used three of those little plastic lime's worth of juice to make one bottle of soda. Do you seriously think anyone could drink that entire bottle? Oh you do, do ya? Well go for it. That's right, now take that sourpuss face of yours and get back to your station. We mix together mostly apple and grape juice with a bit of lime to make this soda palatable. You still get a mostly lime flavor, but the sweetness from the other fruits fights the tartness of the limes in the bet possible way. It ends up being like an apple-lime juice. You don't really notice the grape. Oh you think people will like your way better? Well we have orders for about 500 cases of my recipe and you couldn't even drink two sips of yours, so somehow I think your wrong. Just go to the washout station and clean up everything that is in your field of vision. I don't want to see you again until the end of the day. I swear a trained pig would do a better job at this than you.

Orange pop out of the gate is not on the top of my list. I've had decent ones but I've never had great ones. I've had one or two blood orange drinks that have been good but as a whole, orange pop, and most "fruit" pop should be limited to backyard barbecues. This though, this was not only the epitome of mediocre it was downright boring. Flat flavor and a rather candy-esque orange flavor all together. It actually was so non-impressive, it doesn't warrant any more of my time.

I'd like to start off by saying I have zero idea where this drink came from. Editor Dan and I went on an adventure today to explore these gnarly caves. He wanted to take some photos while I just wanted to explore. At some point in our day Dan lost his keys. We retraced our steps and eventually found them at a grocery store (the most unexpected place). Towards the end of our search we were going crazy trying to figure out where they could be and I checked the car again after Dan did. I felt a can under my seat (note, my car is normally very clean with no trash). I thought it was an empty that must have rolled under there from when my ladyfriend and I drove to Virginia a few months ago and trash got thrown everywhere for a few days. When I pulled it out I realized it was full, and more startling that I have never set my eyes on this can before. I don't know how it got in my car, and I sat there puzzled for a moment before I cracked it open and started drinking it. I came to the conclusion that the drink gods were smiling on me for helping a friend to find his keys.

Apparently the drink gods appreciated that I helped out, but not enough to give me a great drink. What I got was on the lower end of mediocre. I've had guarana drinks before, so I knew what I was getting into. If you want to know, think of fruitier Kola Champagne. This particular brand had a general sweet soda taste that was followed by a fruity bubble gum aftertaste. It's not particularly my cup of tea, but I can see where it might appeal to some people. I wonder if I keep doing good deeds if the portal to the drink realm will open in my car again. It's gotta be good for something.

Buffalo used to have a chain of convenient stores called Wilson Farms. They weren't all that incredible, but they were a staple of Western New York. A year ago, 7-11 swooped in and bought the franchise and has converted them all into their homogenized storefronts (as best they could given the various building sizes). A legacy is gone, but now Buffalo has a lot more 24-hour stores, which is great.

I will admit, I did not buy this bottle here in Buffalo. It was actually purchased in a 7-11 in Salt Lake City. But I recently (as in yesterday) moved back to Buffalo and have more to say about 7-11 here than a random one I went into in SLC. I remember I bought this because I hadn't had orange soda in a while and had a craving for it. While this wasn't the best orange soda ever, it definitely satisfied my craving. I would put this in the middle range, where most generic orange sodas lie. They're good, but not amazing.

Sometimes you date a girl who lives across the country and you go visit every other month. Sometimes things don't work out and you end up splitting up right before you leave from a visit. Sometimes your flight gets delayed and you turn around and said person is standing there asking if you want to get food. On top of that sometimes pizza and great soda can mend the relationship (for a couple more months at least).

Portland, OR's Hot Lips is a diamond in the rough. Well, not a diamond in a sea of bad food, as that city has obscene amounts of awesome veggie food (Vita Cafè I'm looking in your direction). It's a special place because it is a place where you can get a decent slice of pizza on the west coast. For the most part I don't even tough pizza past Wisconsin and even that is really pushing it. Hot Lips was great for its pizza, but even better for it's soda. They take local fruit and add sparkling water and a little cane sugar. If you've ever read Tom Robbins' “Still Life With Woodpecker” you know that blackberries run rampant in those parts. This is so simple and so wonderful. It tastes light lightly sugared blackberries, because that is exactly what it is. Why anyone would mess with a recipe like this boggles my mind. Okay, I understand that they want to save money, but they end up with a product that is not even close to this in quality, those big dummies.

I was always under the impression that this soda was only available in Portland, but my ladyfriend (of three years, not the previous ladyfriend which I mentioned above) found it in a health food store in North Carolina. I really hope Hot Lips expands their reach and takes over the country with their quality soda.

On our great Canadian drink adventure about a month ago Mike and I came across theses sodas in a Shoppers Drug Mart. I called dibs as quickly as I could because it's a soda with pineapple and passion fruit in it. I'm pretty sure that if Mike would have tried to grab it for his own I would have drug him out to the parking lot and we would have had to put up our dukes. The idea of Mike and I in fisticuffs is absolutely absurd. I can't even envision it in my head without the visions of us putting our fists up like an olde timey movie and erupting in laughter. Luckily, it never came to that, as Mike knows my taste buds and gave it up happily.

You might ask yourself, if I was so excited to an extent that I would have been willing to pummel one of my dearest friends, why did it take me a month to drink it. The answer is simple. The night was the first night of a tour I was on and Mike and my ladyfriend brought the drinks I purchased back home for me. This bottle was lost in the shuffle and it just resurfaced. What a glorious day it was.

All of my expectations of this drink were not only met, but they were surpassed. It's sparkling water, fruit juice and nothing else. The folks at Nativa were smart enough not to gunk up the mix by adding sugar. It tastes like some one blended up some pineapple and passion fruit, squeezed in a spritz of mango and strained out all the bits. Then they poured the remains into some sparkling water. The fruit itself is sweet enough to overcome any potential seltzer flavor. It's the perfect fruity soda. I've never had one that was better.

It turns out that this is the beverage version of an M Night Shyamalon movie. It turns out the soda has been dead the whole time. Wait, that's not right. It turns out that this wasn't made by some specialty soda company. Nativa is actually the Shoppers Drug Marts' store brand. Now that is true magic.

Blech. Oh you like sweet pop? Consider me your number one researcher because I have found some sugary stuff for you. This is cream soda but it is more sugar than cream. I've got two sips invested into this guy so far and I can just hear the blood rushing towards the loins of dentists due to the amount of sweetness just degrading my poor teeth. Otherwise unaroused, middle aged men who secretly but not-so secretly love their quasi-attractive, semi-overweight receptionists and not-so secretly hate their wildy attractive wives just losing their mind at the thought of tending to my dental work due to the unfortunate run in with this pop. Dentists who expensive cars they hate but drive regardless because of the looks they get from girls. Dentists who have personalized license places that say things like "N1CETEEF" and " NYDENT15T" and "BR4CE584." They all want me.

It seemed like everyone was either out of town or had plans yesterday so I started my winter ritual of wasting my time playing video games a bit early. Since my ladyfriend was one of the people that were out of town, the cats and I had the apartment to ourselves. I played far too many hours of Final Fantasy, until I got a call that Mike was available and he wanted me to come over and play even more video games. I swear outside of a couple of winter months I rarely if ever play these things. We ended up playing Home Run All Stars Derby for far too long and laughed way too much.

Since the day was filled with electronic fun I decided I needed to imbibe an appropriate beverage. My good friend Kevyn gave me this soda and this seemed to be the perfect time for it. The description of the can proclaims it to be a “citrus wired cherry soda” aka cherry soda with caffeine in it. I suspected it to taste like Mountain Dew Code Red, which it did, but much better. The base is like a cherry soda with a light Mountain Dew taste to it, but the kicker is that there is also orange in there as well. That's what sets the drink off, and gives you these weird orange burps afterwards. I was just struck by the vision of actually being able to see burps exiting someone's mouth and them having an orange tint to them. Strange times.

In my travels to the wonderful town of Austin, Texas, I found this bottle left in a co-op by Saint Arnold himself. It was an unexpected gift, but it was much appreciated for I hadn't had a new root beer in quite some time. Given that it is "old fashioned", I expected it to have a strong bite and rooty taste to it. On the contrary, it had a nice smooth vanilla taste to it. Saint Arnold brews a hell of a root beer and maybe some day he will leave a bottle somewhere else I'll be traveling.

Well. What a disappointment. If this wasn't in a fun bottle, it would have gotten a two but I gave it the benefit of the doubt and gave it a three. Flavor alone, two. Undoubtedly. Not because it was bad but because it was one of the most boring colas I've ever had. In the everlasting quest for the world's greatest cola, this is at the bottom of the list. I have had generic, supermarket cola that is better than this. It's just cola. No depth, body, or anything. Oh you want cola flavored pop? Here is some cola flavoring. Done. Corn syrup knocks it down. Just boring. Plain and simple. It's times like this when I really wish that I had that octopus flavored Ramune.

Last night was the US Presidential Election, and Barack Obama will be our president again for the next four years. I was half-heartedly watching the election coverage on my laptop as I read last night. Watching states turn blue was a treat. I was waiting for the swing states to switch over (mostly Ohio, Florida and Virginia). I had decided that when Florida went blue I would celebrate with a nice orange soda to pay my respects to the people in that state who made the right decision. Time went by and Florida stayed grey. I got to thinking about that orange pop and I really wanted it. In my head I justified that by drinking it I would help usher on the counting of the votes. I think I messed things up guys. Luckily other parts of the country picked up the slack and the blue won, but I'm pretty sure the fact that I picked such a lack luster soda was what delayed the count (it's 11am now and it still isn't done).

Blue sky was one of the first organic sodas that I remember seeing on the market. In 2000 or so I remember going to the local health food store to get a nice seitan sandwich and I grabbed my first can of Blue Sky (not Orange Divine). I remember thinking it was good, but nothing spectacular. That's fine, not everything needs to be over the top. I thought I knew what I was getting into with this can. It has natural orange flavor in it, so I was expecting it to be a lesser tasting/more sweetened Orangina. I ended up getting something that was between a sparkling orange juice and your everyday orange soda, except it had been filtered through the general taste of a health food store. Something was definitely off about it. It tasted as if it had been lightly spiced for some unknown reason. There is nothing listed in the ingredient list that should give it such a flavor, so I'm stumped.

Again, I apologize to the folks of Florida for delaying the count of their votes. If I had chosen a better orange soda I bet this would be all wrapped up.

Did the association of purple/grape things and apes start with the Hanna Barbera character? I mean it makes sense due to rhyming, but I feel like I've seen more than a handful of things with primates tied to the flavor grape that don't use the word “ape” so the whole rhyme thing is out the window. A quick internet search also tells me it's a strain of medical marijuana. Is it possible that this gorilla got so high that it started to mistake grapes as its beloved bananas? It got so into the grapes that the juice dyed it's once glorious coat and gave it a purple hue? I think I'm on to something people. Think about it, when a primate that is wacked out of its gourd gets loose in your grape fields and ends up juicing them all before grape juice season (I say it exists, so it does), what else are you going to do but make soda with it? I mean, sure you're going to have to boil it down to get rid of all of those gorilla germs (great potential band name that I'm allowing you our readers to use), but why not just give it a little marketing twist and call it “Fire-Brewed?”

I think this hippy gorilla has done the world a favor. This is a nice soda that falls on the higher end of the grape line. It's a bit light on the carbonation, which I would like to see more of, but I won't hold that against it…€¦much. As I mentioned it's made with grape juice and not a bunch of artificial flavoring, but it falls in-between a sparkling grape juice and your traditional grape soda. It's a good place for it to be. It also has honey in it, and between that and the fire brew, it gives it a very special flavor that is unique to the Sprecher company. Like all their sodas the only problem with that is that although the flavor is delectable when it's nice and cold, as it gets warmer that flavor starts to take away from the overall greatness of the beverage. It becomes more pronounced and is too distracting. The solution for that is to not dilly dally while you drink this and don't forget to bring some snacks for our primate friend; he's got the muchies like you wouldn't believe.