Chowning's Tavern - 1 Review

This root beer has one of my favorite labels ever. It's simple and classic looking. I would expect it to be the design on a wine bottle, and as we all know wine labels are generally the coolest looking of all drinks (even though they smell like literal death). That little guy is so excited to crack open his root beer. Perhaps there was an amendment to the constitution or some such thing and they are have a little celebratory party. Sure they have plenty of alcohol, but Chowning has had this special bottle of root beer put away, and he's been dying to bust it out. Seriously imagine how strong a root beer would have to be back then, especially one that is stopped with a cork (I'm sure all root beer was cork stopped back then).

The label also talks about boiling down roots and other ingredients to make a quality root beer. Mike and I tried making root beer like that once. We boiled it all down and it tasted pretty fantastic. Something went wrong in the carbonation though and an army of yeast soldiers invaded my mouth and I realized our wonderful brew was ruined. I'm guessing Old Dominion didn't really boil this down, as two of the ingredients are "root beer extract #214" and "root beer extract #79-400." I don't know what those numbers mean, but I'd love to find out. There is yucca, and vanilla in here though as well as honey for a sweetener (something that will always get a thumbs up from me). The blend tastes somewhere in the middle of a decent "root beer syrup" and a quality brewed from scratch soda. The first couple of sips were a bit disappointing, but the closer I got to the bottom of the bottle the stronger it became. I guess there was some settling of the ingredients.

While this may not 100% be an old boiled/brewed root beer from colonial times, it still beats most other brands that are commonly found. I'm sure everyone at the party enjoyed it quite a lot, while Chowning silently sulked, for he knew the greatness that it came so close to being.