Soda Pop - 1421 Reviews

Seeing as this originally started off as a sour mix for cocktails before it evolved into a soda the name makes much more sense. A soda named Rummy just seems odd. Actually, even an alcoholic drink named Rummy would seem weird as it's a derogatory word for a drunk. It also seems to insinuate that people are friendlier when they are drunk. I guess that's true for the most part, but when you are on the sober receiving end of that friendliness it tends to be fairly annoying.

Anyway, that whole book by its cover adage and all. This is a fairly mellow grapefruit soda. Normally pop of this variety tends to be pretty strong flavorwise but in here it's pretty chill. It falls more in line with how orange soda isn't really how oranges taste, but it still has a general proximity to the fruit's flavor. This is closer to a real grapefruit than orange is to an orange though. Real fruit flavor or not this is something that I enjoyed. I drank it quicker than I expected to, which is always a sign of a good soda. It may not be the best grapefruit pop I've ever tasted, but I would happily drink more of it.

When a company who is known for making candy decides to start making soda, you'll have to forgive me for having some reservations. Shockingly Jelly Belly beat the odds and their sodas have ranged from decent to pretty good. I had expected grossness all around with more sugar than the Domino factory. I'm happy to say I was wrong. When it came to this French Vanilla soda I expected an average sweet cream soda. What I got was something a little bit more than your typical cream soda. This actually reminds me a lot of IBC's cream soda, which brings me back to high school where I would drink 40's of it at parties attempting to fit in with my classmates who were getting drunk.

There is a something a little classy about this soda. Sure, it's still pretty sweet, but it has a real vanilla flavor to it. Somehow the candy company made a soda that doesn't taste “candied.” I fear that many people who would really enjoy this would pass it up because of the Jelly Belly label. I'd like to see a study where this and a version of this with a different label and name were sold beside each other and see which sells better. Marketing, ya know?

Lemon? Are you sure? This tastes like carbonated water with ample amounts of sugar. It's very sharp and very sweet and I have made it through three quarters of this bottle and have not "found" the lemon. It's just sugar water like your grandma told you pop/soda was. "You're not drinking that sugar water in my house." she would say. This is that. This is the drink that your grandma told you about. As an adult, I totally agree with your grandma. Your grandma was a smart woman. You were dumb. Face it.

If this bottle looks familiar, yet slightly off that would be because Goose Island Sodas has become WBC. Apparently WIT Beverage Company lost the license on the name Goose Island and decided to change it to WBC. I have no idea what that stands for, but this is the information the internet has provided.

This is a slightly different twist on the classic creamsicle style orange cream soda. It's due to their use of natural flavor in the way of Valencia oranges. It gives it more of an actual orange (fruit) flavor instead of the generic orange (color) flavor that most companies have. It's not too extreme. It doesn't taste like vanilla was mixed into carbonated orange juice (although that does sound awesome, minus the potential curdling). 43g of sugar put this on the sweeter side of the soda spectrum, but what do you expect from this type of pop? You're getting what you assume you would get with a little bit of a twist. All of that and you don't have to envision an island completely covered with goose excrement whenever you drink it.

Apparently Wisconsin has more soda companies per capita than any other state in the US. It seems like more often than not what I've been drinking lately has come from the Badger State. I was just informed that was the state's nickname and I am thoroughly intrigued. Can this state get any better? Now I want to try and search some out next time I'm there, and yes I find myself in Wisconsin more often than your average person.

Sno Cap is produced by the Titletown Brewing Co. This may be the first brewery made root beer that I have tried that was sweetened with HFCS. Sure it also has granulated sugar in here, but it's hard to miss the thick syrupiness of HFCS. It's one of those things that you don't even need to check the ingredients to know it's included in the recipe. It is also heavy on the caramel flavoring. All of the usual root beer suspects are there, but the caramel is what is standing out to me. Perhaps badgers love that particular flavor and they use it to appease their furry overlords. Oh, you didn't know that badgers ruled Wisconsin? The rest of the country may be run by lizard people, but they don't call it the Badger State for nothing. This is better than your average root beer, but it doesn't blow my socks off or anything. Perhaps if I was a different species that would be a different story.

When you go into a small local beverage store and see a soda called “Buffalo Birch Beer,” and you are me, the first thing you think is “How the hell is there a new soda company in Buffalo and I didn't know about it? I'm a consummate professional and I should really be up on these things!” a quick label then informs you that it's actually from Rochester, NY (a little over an hour away) and that it's made by College Club, a company you are very familiar with. That is twice that I was duped today. I was also told that Boss Hogg from Dukes of Hazzard was from Buffalo as well, which broke my brain. I then found out that he's actually from Olean which is even further than Rochester. I guess the lesson here is that Buffalo is great and everyone wants to pretend that they are a part of it in some way.

I have nothing bad to say about College Club. They make delicious soda that is ridiculously cheap. Their normal line comes in reusable glass bottles and cost about 35 cents each. You just can't beat it for a family gathering, especially with their selection. It appears that Fiz is their venture into cane sugar sweetened sodas that come in normal glass bottles. This does taste similar to their other birch beer. It's dark and rich, the cane sugar makes this way better though. It's obviously less syrupy and the wintergreen really seems to shine a lot more. This is great. I wish it really were from Buffalo, but Rochester isn't that far, and I'm glad to see that things are going well for College Club. They have always treated Thirsty Dudes well and it's nice to see them expanding.

Here's an idea, let's take a less than stellar beverage and make it somehow worse by taking out the sugar/stevia mix and replacing it with sucralose. Seriously why would they not just use all stevia? It may not be the best, but it is way better than the poison taste of sucralose. Nothing tastes real in this beverage. The peach tastes artificial and even the tea flavor seems fake somehow.. It's not undrinkable, but it's by no means enjoyable by my standards. It's like there was a science fair and a kid decided to make a soda in his home laboratory. Oh yeah, that kid is a super scientist in the making, just don't let her near anything you want to ingest. I really wanted to like this line and it just wasn't meant to be.

All root beer. It's been a while, friend. So long, in fact, that this root beer took a little turn into "potentially spoiled" territory. I can taste through it so I will be rating it as a non-spoiled bottle of grossness.

This is a fine root beer. If you like root beer, you will like this. If you love root beer, you will think this is "just another" root beer. This is a calmer version of a pretty generic root beer but the cane sugar makes it better because the taste doesn't linger. It's got a medium bite and it's not too dark and not too light. I don't think that this was made "from scratch" but probably from a concentrated syrup. Look, no judgement, it just tastes like it.

A dashshund bit my dog the first time I took her to the dog park so if I had three dashshunds around me, I think I'd be a bit skeptical. I'd probably be on the defense like they're going to attack. If I had three bottles of this root beer around me, two of them would go to waste.

You have to appreciate when a company makes a large effort with their presentation. The size/shape of bottles and cans has become so uniform and standard that when a company mixes things up it's hard not to take notice. Sure, Galvanina didn't create something new, but their embossed glass bottles with minimum label are just classy. They could have easily thrown their sparkling juice into any old bottle and it would have just blended in with the scenery, but the way they present it makes it stand out and makes it special. It's similar to the way that San Pellegrino stands out because of the foil they put over the top of their cans. You feel a small specialness when you drink them. Just one glance at this bottle and I could tell it was most likely made it Europe. It feels old in the best possible way.

On top of having all the right looks this also tastes pretty fantastic. Normally when beverages are made sparkling carbonation is just added to regular water. In here mineral water is used and it does give it a bit of a regal feel. Also involved are clementine and carrot juice concentrates as well as orange and lemon pulp. It does fall on the sweeter side of how I like my sparkling juice, but it still mostly tastes like juice and that is the important thing. This wins all around.

Before I go into some incoherent rambling, I'd like to make it known that I really enjoy the art of the label of this bottle of soda. Those orange slices look perfect, and I could only dream that I could draw like that. My art skills are at a minimum, so I always appreciate when someone puts time and effort into a label that wasn't just done in Photoshop. Those slices are just my style.

It feels like it has been years since I drank and orange cream soda. While they are not my favorite, I do enjoy them to some extent. The first thing that always comes to mind is that they taste like a carbonated, melted creamsicle. This soda does a bit more than emulating dripping ice cream. It starts off with a 70/30 split of orange and cream, after you swallow the percentages switch and the cream takes over most of the flavor. It's almost like you are drinking two different sodas and it keeps things interesting. While it's not quite like adding vanilla extract to soda water and then squeezing an orange into it (think of how good that would be) it is on the better side of these types of sodas.

What a bummer, all I have to drink is this delicious soda that tastes like it was made with real grape juice, and it's only lightly sweetened with real sugar. What would really make this better would be if I could just dump a whole mess of erythritol and stevia in it to give it a weird fake taste that no one really likes. Man that would be just perfect. Oh , you have some of those natural zero calorie sweeteners that I can use. Thanks man, I really appreciate it, now that I mixed it in this is perfect. It's exactly what I didn't want. Dreams do come true.

III Dachshunds is a brewery in Milwaukie, WI, which also makes this delicious root beer. I've heard it claimed that they chose the name because the owners had three Dachshund dogs and they were their entire world. I'd like to submit that there is a different reason. This brewery is located in Wisconsin. The official food (pretty much) of the state is bratwurst. While brats and hotdogs are not the same thing they are close enough and another name for a hotdog is a wiener, which also happens to be a common name used to describe dachshunds (wiener dogs). I'd like to propose the ridiculous theory that the company actually named their company after their love of sausage and not for dogs at all. They just have a little shame over their Wisconsin pride (not that anyone actually would, it's a magical place).
Wherever the name is from this is a quality soda. It is certainly no generic “mix” or store brand root beer. It is dark and bold. All of the flavors that were originally used to make root beer, that have since been watered down to homogenize it, all stand up tall proclaiming their stake in the soda game. There's wintergreen, vanilla, caramel, sassafras, licorice and all of the others. On top of a great flavor it also is very carbonated, which is something that I always enjoy in a soda.

Grab your dogs. Grab your brats. Hell, grab some cheese even. Get it all together pop open a bottle of this and sit back and enjoy yourself. You put in a long day at work and you deserve to relax, Wisconsin style.

I understand the allure of lower sugar content and saving calories. After decades of ingesting pretty much anything, Americans are finally becoming more health conscious. We're sick of the garbage we eat and drink contributing to our eventual demise. The only problem is that I have yet to come across a low calorie sweetener that hasn't affected the flavor of the beverage it is used in in a negative way. There is a reason people love sugary drinks. They are delicious. Sugar is basically a drug and we all like to get our fix. Drinks made with sucralose, aspartame, and stevia are like giving a junkie a beer when their body just needs a dose of heroin. It just doesn't give you what you want. I admit that the use of monk fruit in here is closer to the end goal, but it's still not there.

I am an all or nothing type of person. I would rather have completely unsweetened seltzer water if cane sugar isn't available. Actually I would prefer that seltzer over even the cane sugar a lot of the time these days. I understand that not everyone is like me, and that others need some sort of “sweetness” even if it isn't the real stuff. While I would never go out of my way to drink this, I would certainly choose a can of 2B Lemon Lime Fizz over a can of Diet 7 Up any day. It may have an aftertaste, but it doesn't taste chemical or unnatural. I'd have to say that the flavor here is probably 50% lemon, 10% lime and 40% monk fruit. If you're okay with those percentages, give it a go.

One of the moments in my life when I was completely embarrassed for someone I was with was back in the late 90's when a handful of friends went to Denny's late night to hang out as teenagers are prone to do. One of us ordered some sort of chicken dinner and when it arrived he realized he hadn't read the description correctly, and he asked the waitress to take it back because it wasn't what he expected. Just typing that my spirits dropped and I got a pit in my stomach. I am of the belief that if you order something and it is what it says it is, you deal with it. Just because you come up with something in your head it's not the establishment's responsibility to meet your imaginary expectations.

I feel the same way about this beverage. When I grabbed it I saw the “rhu” and I expected some strange rhubarb soda. I completely ignored the second half of the title, which would have actually prepared me for what this tastes like. It tastes like someone made a soda from those little strawberry candies that come wrapped in cellophane that looks like the fruit. Once that soda was created that added a little bit of rhubarb flavor to it. This is certainly a candied soda, and that's fine, but it's not what I expected, and not what I wanted at this moment. That's on me. It's not Twig's fault. Don't be like me. Read into things. Life's no fun when you're a dummy.

I want to ask a serious question here, who decided to name the “cherry” flavor? I've eaten an obscene amount of cherries in my life and not once have they tasted like what companies have been labeling cherry for years. It was like they created a flavor that was red and they said, “Cherries are also red. This must be cherry. Nothing else on the planet is red but cherries. All I see are cherries. Are you a cherry, because you're wearing a red shirt? You most certainly are a cherry, and I shall refer to you as such from now on.”

This soda tastes a little closer to what a cherry actually is, but it still borders on that flavor that is not really cherry. Also the sourness in here tastes like it was something added, and not just a tart fruit. It's not horrible, but I can't see an adult finishing a bottle of this. To be fair if it wasn't for the use of cane sugar I would probably have written this off as garbage store brand soda, but the cane sugar does give it a bit more legitimacy in my world.

Point brewery makes a less than stellar root beer, but they certainly know their cream sodas. This is what I expect a product from the wonderful state of Wisconsin to deliver. It has a very strong vanilla flavor that is somehow improved by the addition of a little honey. Honey and vanilla certainly play well together and this soda gave me just what I was looking for this afternoon. It's fairly sweet, but it's not too much.

After drinking this I really need to grab another bottle of that root beer and give it a second chance the next time I'm in Wisconsin (actually that might be next week). This is one of the better cream sodas, sorry vanilla cream, that I've ever tasted and I hope that crosses over into their other sodas as well.

Let's cut to the chase. There is far too much garbage in the food that we consume. We ingest so much junk that we would never even consider putting in our mouths if we saw it in its true form and not mixed in with our food. Hell, there are a whole bunch of ingredients that are allowed in food in the US that are completely banned in other parts of the world. We are poisoning ourselves, and for the most part we don't care. I know I eat tons of this junk without even thinking about it. It's just easier to be ignorant, or force yourself not to think about it. Will I die sooner because of it? Probably, but do I really want to be around when I'm 80+ years old? I'm less than half of that now and I don't know what to do with my time.

Okay, I went off on a death tangent. My point is that there is a cubic buttload of unnecessary ingredients in food that are more than likely harmful. We tend to think that they are there for a purpose, but then a drink like this comes around and proves you wrong. This lemonade soda is simply carbonated water, sugar and lemon (juice, fruit and flavoring). It has a decent shelf life and it tastes great. So what is the point of all the other junk companies use? This tastes like homemade lemonade that was put in a Soda Stream. It tastes like lemons and that is all I could ask for from this. This will not kill me, well unless I get diabetes from the sugar, but that's a different death altogether.

The most important thing that I learned from this soda was that during the 50's in Wisconsin either bread was really expensive, or the mark up on soda pop was very low. The bottle tells a story of how the founder of Twigs would sell a case of soda and use the money he made to by a loaf of bread for his family. With modern production methods you can get a case of cans for more than double what a loaf of bread costs. Taking into consideration the time he put into it and the cost of the bottles that is some crazy math. Who knows maybe wheat was hard to come by in WI during that time. Maybe there was a yeast shortage. All we know is that Twig provided for his family and we applaud him for that.

I was hoping that this would be a lime soda that actually tasted like the green little pieces of citrus, but alas like most sodas this flavor it tastes like melted green freeze pops. Luckily for us there is not that harshness that comes along with that particular confection. Kids would love this, but it doesn't really have a place in my life. It may be the only lime soda I have ever had that uses cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup though, so that's something. I wonder if I could still buy this with bread.

Is it fair to judge this beverage against other ginger beers when it is meant to be a mixer? I mean it's pretty much just regular old ginger beer with a different marketing scheme behind it. Stoli is a Russian vodka company that is trying to sell the “Moscow Mule” with this beverage. If you don't know (like I didn't) that is vodka, ginger beer and lime juice mixed. Alcoholics prefer vodka when they are trying to be sneaky right? I think I remember that from some television show. I think it had something to do with it not making your breath smell. Either way, if you're going to be a sneaky alcoholic you might as well get some good flavor out of it and a Moscow Mule sounds like it would be delicious, minus the whole vodka thing (I will never understand the allure of the taste of alcohol).

The thing is that I don't think this stands up to other ginger beers. It has a nice ginger flavor, but only the most minimal of burns, which if we're being honest is one of the best parts of this specific soda type. There is also something in it that at first I thought was a zero calorie sweetener, but then realized it was salt. I don't know why it's in here as it has no place in soda. Perhaps it's part of the Mule mix, but if that were the case why wouldn't this be lime ginger beer? Speaking of, now I really want a bottle of that. It sounds delicious. The sale though…€¦yeah it's a bit distracting.

This is good on its own, but not in regards to other ginger beers. I'm sure it would work just perfectly for its intended mixer function. I will never find out though.

Blood orange, the most metal of flavors, is quickly becoming a hackneyed flavor for me. It's like people are making it the "cooler orange" when it's really just a little bit different. Sweeter than citric. That's all. Does that make it cooler? I don't think so. You know what would make it cooler? If it came around in a dope leather jacket. That would make it different than all the other citric lemmings.

How does this fare? A little bit different than an orange pop. A little bit different than any old orange pop. This is fine. It's not going to win any awards but if you did something to make it different (leather jacket) it might be something special. For now it's just orange pop to someone that isn't familiar with the likes of Thirsty Dudes. At this point we've reached millions of people though. Right? Millions? Is my decimal in the right place. No? Tens? Oh come on! We're better than that. Jay! Tell them we're better than that.