IBC - 2 Reviews

Like most teenagers in the 90's who didn't drink I spent many a weekend night at parties downing soda. There was no better way to do that than drinking IBC 40s. Okay they really weren't 40oz, they were only 32, but they had the same look. Many of the drinkers out there thought that we drank them to be “cool” and try to fit in. In reality they simply tasted delicious, and more importantly they did trick the drunkards into thinking you were also drinking, which led to way less questions as to why you weren't drinking, which led to way less taunts, which led to way less altercations. There the secret is out. I drank IBC “40s” so I didn't have to deal with idiots who thought they should give me crap because I chose not to drink alcohol.

As I got older, I started going to fewer parties, and started buying less IBC. It's just as well, as it seems they no longer make the large bottles. The dream died. In fact this is the first time I've had IBC cream soda in 10-15 years. Even though I've become a bit of a soda snob in that time, I can honestly say that this is still pretty great. I don't know if it's just because of nostalgia, but I really loved this. To me this is what cream soda should be. It sweet, and has a nice vanilla flavor without tasting like extract. It's also on the lower end of syrupy for being sweetened with high fructose corn syrup. Now I want to go out in the fields with a couple of bottles of this and sit around a small fire watching as kids try very unsuccessfully to hook up with each other. It's the American dream.

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.