Soda Pop - 1421 Reviews

It's 1991. City of Compton. Rough, rough streets. Kids killing kids over things you and I would laugh at. They don't laugh, they kill, as I mentioned before. Not a day goes by where you don't hear a gun shot or at very least, a domestic dispute. These are hard times. Hard times turn people to drink. Alcohol. 40's. Big alcohol. 40's are like the party sub of malt liquor.

Here's my proposal. Let's go back in time and instead of having overpriced bodegas sell 40's of St. Ides, carry the 40(ish)'s of Archer Farms Wild Berry. People could have been in a bad mood because of financial times and street warfare, but they also could have been upset at the fact that they were drinking a clearly low quality beverage. Archer Farms Wild Berry Italian soda is a bright, clean, and crisp drink. So many flavors roll across your tongue with every sip, like elderberry and blackcurrant to name a few...and it's more than affordable.

Cleaning up the streets is a rough job and since it clearly can't be left in the under-capable hands of O'Shea Jackson, leave it up to the Archer Farms Italian soda lineup.

This has been sitting in my fridge for quite some time. After drinking Malta Goya anything that is malted makes me weary. I'm also 99% sure I was racially profiled when I purchased this. I got it from a tiny African market. When I walked in all ongoing conversation ceased. When I brought my drink to the counter there was no price on it. The two employees shot each other a look, nodded, and then told me a price that was higher than expected. Oh well, it was the only drink they had that we had yet to review so, I won't have to deal with them again.

Tonight I decided I finally needed to get it over with. I grabbed the bottle (that eerily looks like a beer bottle) from the fridge, sighed, and twisted off the cap. I expected it to have a super malty smell, but was shocked to discover it had the scent of a freshly sliced green apple. Things were starting to look up so I took a big gulp. This is exactly what I want out of an apple soda. It tastes like a perfect apple. It tastes crisp and has a slight malt/barley aftertaste. It's not enough to distract you from the glorious apple taste. So many apple sodas out there have that disgusting fake green apple flavor, but Bavaria got it right. For that I salute them. I was expecting this to taste like liquid garbage, but it ended up being in the higher spectrum of drinks we reviewed.

Steak and dandelion sandwiches are something to be had. They have those little weeds, grilled and marinated and placed among a bed of delicious steak.

I don't know what Burdock is, but this drink tastes like someone put those fantastically delicious anise candies in a Dr. Pepper. It has a light taste with a heavy aftertaste. Heavy good like Heavy D and the Boys and to a lesser, but funnier extent, the Fat Boys. You know what? No. Fat Boys beats Heavy D and all of their boys. Go watch Krush Groove and tell me otherwise. Sbarro never looked so good.

We here at Thirsty Dudes love root beer. It's possibly our favorite beverage, and that is saying a lot. I've maybe tried a hundred different types of root beer and I've enjoyed almost all of them. I found this in a local specialty shop today. I was pretty pumped because their Puma Cola is fairly spectacular. On top of that, look at that combination of the crow and monkey creature on the label. It kind of reminds me of the racist crows from the old Loony Tunes cartoons. I'm going to assume it was not meant to be an homage.

So we've talked enough about the label, let's discuss the taste. I'm really not into it. When it first hits your taste buds it has a great classic root beer taste, then suddenly everything changes. Mike says it tastes like oak and that it's woody tasting. To me it tastes like someone spilled some cleaning solution into the vat of root beer. I kept on drinking, but I just can't get over that secondary flavor. Sorry Sprecher, you didn't do it for me this time.

You know when you drink something and it has a very distinct taste, but when you look at the ingredients it's not there? That happened with this bottle. My first sip I got a really strong pancake syrup flavor mixed with the root beer. Thinking it was a fluke, I took another sip and it was more of a brown sugar taste. Turning the bottle to see the ingredients, i was shocked to not find brown sugar. There is honey and "real vanilla" in this bottle. The honey isn't overpowering, but it's a nice and subtle aftertaste. The vanilla helps this be one of the sweetest and smoothest root beer's I've ever had. While it's a nice and smooth root beer, I wish it had a little more bite to it.

Beware cheap beverages with the price tag built into the design of the label. That is one thing I have learned from Thirsty Dudes. The only exception to this rule so far has been Arizona Iced Tea, but even most of them are on the low side of the tea spectrum. For the most part a cheap tea is still fairly decent. That same rule does not apply for soda. Cheap pop is just the pits. Towne Club Grape is a little better than most cheap soda, but not by much. It tastes like a syrupy version of melted grape freezie pops with a butt load of sugar added. I don't know who decided that this is what grapes taste like; because I can assure them they certainly do not.

You know we did this right, right? We're scientists. Jay and I are scientists. We bought a gnarly 6er of Dr. Brown's Cel-Ray, brought it back to Jay's cracked open a bottle and mulled it over. One single bottle was split between 6 people. It was like a drum circle if, instead of everyone playing at the same time and having it sound like cacophony, we each took turns expressing what it was this made us think of. Then it started to get weird. You see, this tastes 90%+ like celery. No lie. Just like sparkling celery. It's spot on. Couldn't taste more like it, if you ask me. The other ~10% is slight sweetness and maybe a hint of Sprite, according to my dad, who took part in version 2 of a 6 person taste test.

Here's where it got fun and experimental. Eating celery is awesome. All those negative calories and the added benefit of knowing you're going to have a clean digestive tract...what?!?!? Dan and I took it up a notch on the ol' belt of life and said, "Ants on a log!" and Jay was out of raisins, but was not out of peanut butter so we would eat peanut butter, take a swig of Cel-Ray and just smile. It was fun. It was a take on a classic kid treat.

I love ants on a log and I love Dr. Brown's Cel-Ray.

A review for this? Simple. This is the best diet cola I've ever had. This is also better than many standard cola's I've ever had, including, but not limited to, Coke and Pepsi. The cola taste is nice and clean and the Stevia sweetness accompanies it so nicely. Initially you get a solid, cola taste and then it's just the right amount of sweetness. It's never bad. There are no bad aftertastes or anything. I regret nothing! This is a cola that I could easily drink again and again and if more people caught word (hint hint) that this existed, no one would drink diet Coke or Pepsi any more. Seriously, it's that good.

Thomas Kemper. Spandau Ballet said it best. Gold.

I like cola. This is a well-known fact. I also occasionally like cherry soda. Mixed together? Not so much. This soda wants to be two different flavors at once, and doesn't succeed at either. Maybe I'm just not the target demographic for this flavor? I wish Pepsi/other companies would try different fruits mixed with cola. Orange cola sounds amazing to me. Somebody (it doesn't have to be Pepsi), make it happen!

Things I like about this ginger ale:
I like the design of the can because it reminds me of a can that should have holes in it from some kid in 1950 using it for target practice with his BB gun that he just got for his eleventh birthday.

Things I don't like about this ginger ale:
It's safe.

The taste is that of a dry ginger ale. It's classic, and I'm sure, unchanged for decades. It's not like a Seagram's or a Canada Dry. It's much less sweet. The taste isn't bad either for that reason. As I mentioned previously, it's a bit safe for my liking.

For the majority of my life I was under the impression that all colas tasted like Coke or Pepsi. As a result, I never really liked cola all that much. There was also a weird phase of my life where I wouldn't drink brown sodas. I really have no idea why. It was just something I did. Man, I can't believe I didn't drink root beer. It's one of the best things ever. It wasn't until relatively recently that I discovered a world of specialty colas. They taste nothing like the mainstream brands. They are to Pepsi and Coke what fancy root beers are to Mug and A&W. So many herbs and spices that take you on a wild ride of flavor. If you haven't had the Fentiman's Curiosity Cola or the Taylor's Tonics' Chai Cola put down your Coca Cola Classic and make a run for the store. It's a whole new world.

Natural Brew stepped up the cola game with their Chai Cola, and they have proved that it wasn't a fluke with this Ginseng Cola. It has an earthy taste, but it's in a good way and not in the way that tastes like it was filtered through worm ridden soil. A cola made with herbs and vanilla is a cola that I will certainly drink again and again.

How have we gone this long without reviewing IBC Root Beer? This was the root beer I grew up on. In high school my friends and I used to get the 32 oz bottles (we called them IBC 40's despite being 8 oz less) everyday and walk around our town drinking them. It was a glorious day when the dollar store started selling them.

I love this root beer. I don't know if it's the familiar taste, the fond memories I get from drinking IBC, or if it just that good. It doesn't have much bite, but it goes down so smooth! Even though it's sweetened with high fructose corn syrup, it doesn't taste syrupy at all. If I hadn't looked it up, I would have thought this had real sugar in it. That makes me wonder how good this would be if they did a batch with cane sugar.

What did I just say? What did I just say? Remember when your dad said that to you when you "deliberately" disobeyed him for a second time? You didn't mean to, but sometimes it just happened, like you were half way into a killer swing and had to follow through and you didn't mean for that baseball to go through the neighbor's window.

Anyhow. What did I just say? Didn't I say that I wanted a watermelon pop? I did. What did I find on a quest for new and foreign drinks? You guessed it. Watermelon pop. One step better, though, it was cane sugar and not far from my house and it had other flavored friends to accompany it.

Without hesitation, I grabbed it and ran out the door, after paying the cashier/proprietor/cook/stock boy/floor manager. I went home, threw it in my crisper drawer and let it sit and think about what it had done. A week, maybe two later, I thought that today would be the day and it certainly was. This drink was sweet. I don't know how I drank the whole thing but I did. It's labeled as a sparkling fruit drink, but that just means "pop", right? It does to me. It did taste like a watermelon Jolly Rancher, which if that's what you're looking for, is right up your alley.

We found these in a local halal market if you want to know where to get them.

I think it's safe to say that all of our readers are familiar with classic orange soda. It doesn't really taste like an orange at all, but it's still pretty good under certain circumstances. You know, like picnics and barbecues. It's a kid's soda that is acceptable to drink in instances where you want to pretend you're still a child. Who am I kidding? I enjoy it and I drink it whenever the fancy strikes me. Does that mean I'm a child? Probably.

In a shift from those sodas there are a handful of companies out there who are making a soda that is actually made with orange juice. It's a true orange soda. I for one love them. It's the adult version of the barbecue favorite. It's not as thick and has a better flavor in my opinion.

I was told about Jarritos cola several months ago. Ever since I heard about its existence, I have looked for it in every taco and burrito establishment. Sadly, I couldn't find in anywhere. When I went to Pop Culture, I was really excited to see it in the cooler. Finally, I could taste what everyone has been raving about!

I must say, this definitely deserved the hype! It is a really good cola, and has a nice cola bite to it without the syrup taste HFCS gives other colas. It's not as refreshing as other Jarritos flavors (obviously), and I was unable to give it the burrito test. But unlike other Jarritos flavors, this stands on its own without a burrito. If I could find this more often, I'd drink this over Pepsi/Coca Cola any day.

I wonder if anyone actually likes supermarket brand soda? I've always seen it as the soda you buy because you're on a budget and it's much cheaper than the name brand stuff. That's how I ended up with this bottle. I was at Safeway and I wanted a bottle of cola. It was either a Pepsi for $1.69 or this for 99 cents. Seeing as this one was much cheaper and I didn't care if it was not as tasty, I obviously went for the "Refreshe".

As far as taste goes, it's exactly how I expected it to taste. It's your standard generic cola with high fructose corn syrup taste. There's nothing special about it at all. I don't know what else to say about it really. This is why it's so hard to review mediocre drinks.

Have you ever been super stoked on a drink but then you take a sip and you find out someone put sand in it? This has never happened to me, but it's how I feel about this can. I love root beer and I love Hansen's, but I do not love diet soda. For a second this taste good, but then the awful diet acid taste kicks in. Sorry Hansen's, I'm sticking with the regular sugar versions of your soda.

I have been putting off reviewing this one for a while due to the "dangerous" warning on the bottle. The name of this ginger beer doesn't lie. This is easily the most intense ginger beer I've had so far. As the Sloth look-a-like on the bottle is saying, it's "Hot Mon!" The ginger extract in this burns so deep. I love the taste of this too, but it's really hard to drink a lot of in one sitting. Now it's stinging my nostrils. I need to get some water fast.

Every once in a while I come across a drink that sounds so disgusting that I can't wait to try it. Today I had this pleasure once again while shopping at an Asian market. When my friend Robyn pointed out a curry flavored soda, I couldn't believe my eyes. I couldn't wait to try it so I opened it in her car. I let her know there was a chance of me puking and she was OK with it.

Sadly I did not puke because this does not taste like curry. I can't even figure out what this tastes like because my mind so wants this to taste like curry. It's not a bad taste either. It's almost like a weak ginger ale. Now I want to find a drink that is marketed as curry flavored that actually lives up to its name.

I had previously had Sprecher's cream soda and it was pretty incredible. When I came across this bottle, I had to drink it as soon as I left the store. I was definitely not disappointed at all. The orange smell upon opening it was awesome and set me up for the best orange cream soda I've ever had. It's the perfect balance between orange and a rich cream taste. And then, the fire-brewed taste kicks in. It adds just a great taste to it, I'm honestly at a lost for words. It's not the same burn that comes from ginger, but it sits in your stomach in a similar way.

Also, I love the drawing of the cow drinking an orange with a straw. Ridiculous yet awesome!