Filbert's - 4 Reviews

What is wrong with me? Why do I do it? Why do I love sodas that cause me physical pain? Ginger beer is one of my favorites, yet it hurts. Oh how it hurts. I had an overnight drive and instead of downing an energy drink I decided to drink this bottle of ginger beer. Every time I felt a bit sleepy, I took a sip. What better way to stay awake then by giving your throat a nice liquid kick of fire?

Overall this is a pretty standard ginger beer. It's nice and sweet with a decent burn that you feel in your throat as well as your stomach. This is basically the non-alcoholic version of a shot of whiskey. It's not insanely intense, but it's enough and sometimes that is exactly what you're looking for.

Filbert's is a Chicago institution. That fact alone leads me to believe that the denizens of the Windy City are either incredibly dumb, or sadly lack taste buds. I don't mean to be harsh, but we've given the company an honest try and they have let us down at every turn. This is the third flavor we've reviewed and I would rather drink the syrupy swill of store brand soda than this cane sugared sweetened bubbly mess.

There is hardly any flavor to these sodas except carbonated sugar water. There is the vaguest of fruit flavors in here, but I would never in a million years guess that it was peach in a blind taste test. I didn't expect it to taste like you were biting into a peach (I would murder ten men to have that soda), but I did expect at least the fake peach candy flavor. Not only did this leave me let down as my dreams were not fulfilled, it couldn't' even manage to live up to my realistic expectations.

I'm sorry Chicago, but I really think you deserve better than this representing your city.

There is a scientist somewhere whose sole purpose in life is to create flavoring that tastes like various fruits. He's just sitting in a lab working things out with a white coat on and everything. It's a hard line of work that he's in. Sure companies could actually use the fruit they say their flavors taste like, but they are just too cheap for the money involved with that. So this sole scientist slaves over various extracts and syrups serving his master companies. The higher ups applaud his work and tell him that he is spot on with the taste. He knows better though. He knows his work taste vaguely chemical and at best is only halfway to the actual taste he's looking for. He cries himself to sleep in his tiny studio apartment. He spends so much time at the lab that he doesn't have time for relationships.

Don't worry soldier, we know that someday you'll get the flavors right. You were almost there with this blueberry. Every other sip actually tastes like the fruit. The others taste like sweet "fruity" sugar water. It's an uphill battle you're fighting, but don't give up. Someday you will revolutionize the flavor business.

I had really high hopes for this, I really did. Small soda companies usually make normal soda flavors a little more interesting. This was not the case this time. I don't know if this was the worst orange soda I've ever had, but it was far from the best. It tastes like someone started filling your cup with lemon-lime soda and then realized you asked for orange soda. Instead of dumping it out, they just mixed the orange soda with the lemon-lime. It gives it almost a bitter orange flavor. This might be delicious to some people, but I didn't like it at all.