Real Soda - 16 Reviews

Chocolate pop sounds like it would be a good idea right? Well it is rarely good. Having drunk a couple of them in my day, I can say that it's strange first, and "just alright" second. It's not bad but it feels like something that just shouldn't be. This, though. What would you think of if I gave you this? You've got not only chocolate but maple and everyone's clichè favorite food bacon in it. Now look. You've got to be some sort of madman to think this was going to be great. Are you a madman? I did not think so.

You taste the chocolate pop in this. It's not like a chocolate really. If there was, and there probably is, chocolate candy that isn't actually milk or dark chocolate, that is the chocolate that is used. Something about the way real chocolate melts is smooth and nice. This is sharp and sweet. You do not get bacon but you do get a bit of a salty chocolate. I really searched for it when I drank it. Jay did the same as you can see in the video below. It just tastes salty. The maple might be in the tail end of the drink when the salt and "chocolate" calms down.

All in all, it's not fantastic. Seems like a better gag-gift than an actual drink. They probably don't make too many of them so I'm sure they aren't losing their shirts at Real Soda putting everything they have into a really niche drink.

Want to see what Jay and I thought with the "help" of my jerk kid? Welp, here you are, friend:

Sally, you've got your science project due tomorrow right? Did you do it? Oh really? Come on, Sally. Don't lie to your daddy. Did you do it? You did? Well let me see it. As a scientist, I need to see what science projects leave this house. I know you're only ten but I've got a reputation in this community as a fantastic scientist and if you leave this house with a Styrofoam mobile of planets or a baking soda volcano I will be the laughing stock of the science community.

What was your project on? Mixing liquids? That seems interesting. Acids and bases? That type of stuff? Oh, look at you. Using words like carbon dioxide and oxygen. You're a regular chip off the old block. So, what did you make? Oh, a bottle of pop. That's actually a pretty good use of mixing liquids, Sally. Oh, you drew a little cartoon on the label. What's that? A bear driving a hot rod down the road filled with bubbles on a picnic placemat. Well, I've got to say, for a ten year old, that's pretty detailed. How does it taste? Oh, you like it. Well that's good. Do you have any extra? Oh, thank you. I'll just have a little glass. It's close to bedtime and I don't like sweets so close to bed, but my doctor does. Ha ha ha! Oh, that's a little dad joke. No big deal. Sally, how much sugar did you use in this? What did you use for the flavor? You mushed up mixed berry jelly you took from IHOP this morning? I guess that is a pretty easy way to get flavor. It does taste just like how “berry” would taste, not knowing what kind or kinds of berry or berries I'm ingesting.

This isn't good and it meets my approval. I think that the teacher might agree with me but if you could make some more bottles, I bet your little friends would love it. You kids love your sugar but my checkbook sure doesn't. Ha ha ha! Oh just another dad joke.

Not too long ago Dublin Dr Pepper got the old cease and desist letter from the Dr Pepper Snapple Group. For decades the Dublin Bottling Company followed the original Dr Pepper recipe, except they used cane sugar instead of HFCS. I'm not a huge fan of Dr Pepper, but I have to say I definitely enjoyed the Dublin variety more than the normal version. In the wake of this news fans will now have to resort to other companies knock offs if they still want cane sugar. Real Soda has stepped up to the plate with their Doctor Dublin. It's not quite the same as Dr Pepper, but I think they have improved upon the recipe. From the flavor I can only imagine that they lowered the ingredients that add the cola style flavor to Dr Pepper and increased the ingredients that caused the fruity flavor. It's nothing crazy or shocking. The difference in flavor is subtle, but I like it. If you're a Pepper I suggest keeping your eye out for this.

Grape soda comes in two varieties. The more natural version and the classic generic children's party drink. The prior is grape juice, sweetener and carbonated water. The latter is loads of sugary syrup, a flavor that doesn't actually taste like grapes that we have accepted as a grape flavor and carbonated water. I'm no fool. I knew that a pop made by Real Soda was going to land in the fake category. I was perfectly fine with that. Fake grape is actually a soda flavor that I can really get behind. It's not something that I would drink all of the time, but it has its place. This drink surprised me though by falling somewhere in-between the two poles. It's definitely more fake grape than carbonated grape juice, but it actually has hints of real grape flavor and not just the garbage fake kind. Also, since it is sweetened with cane sugar instead of HFCS it's not as thick as most grape soda. Calling it light isn't quite right because it is still bursting with flavor. The consistency is just different. In the barbeque and kid's party filled world of fake grape soda this is the best I have ever tried.

Years ago while strolling down Mission Street in San Francisco my traveling companions and I were trying to decide where we should get burritos. The number of “Mexican” restaurants on that street alone is staggering. Since we knew we only had enough room in our stomachs for one burrito we needed to make it count. I heard the sound of kids skating, and when I looked over at them I saw one of the most glorious sites of my life. On a building someone had drawn a mural of a sombrero wearing chili pepper with a gun chasing a hard-shell taco wearing glasses. I instantly busted out laughing. I pointed it out to my friends, and we went inside. Coming from the northeast I will always appreciate when I can get some authentic Mexican food. This taqueria served the best burritos I've ever tasted. On top of that they were huge and only $3. After we left my friend Gak informed me that hard-shell tacos did not exist in Mexico and they were a “gringo” thing. I previously had no idea, but that made me love the mural even more.

As soon as I read this label I instantly thought of those burritos. The label says, “Hecho en California por gringos!” It also says, “Pierda peso carbon!” which roughly translates to “lose weight bastard!” Basically it's saying that gringos can't handle the real deal Mexican Cola, so here's a light version of it to help them lose weight because they are all fat. It sounds about right to me. I'm normally not a fan of diet sodas, but it looked interesting so I gave it a try. I wish the flavor had been as interesting as the taunts. This tastes like your everyday diet cola. There is no kick to it at all. If I did a blind taste test between this and any store brand diet cola I doubt I would be able to decide which was which.

Now I'm just thinking about burritos. I wish I was a flight attendant so I could just hop on a plane to the west coast right now to get some quality burritos. Man, that would be the life.

Wh...Where am I? Why am I wearing this suit? Why does this suit have shoulder pads?

I sentence you...

Hold on a minute. Aren't you Judge Wapner?

That's right son, the one and only.

Holy crap! Am I on The Peoples' Court?

Yes, I have brought you back to 1984 to punish you for your wrongdoings. I would also have to ask you to watch your mouth on national television.

I'm sorry. Wait...wrongdoings? What did I do?

It says here that you are from West Virginia. Is that correct?

Yes it is, your honor.

It also says that in 1975, you put a Pembroke Welsh Corgi in a baby carriage. Is that correct?

Wait...what? 1975? That was thirty-six years ago. I have no idea. I would have been like six years old.

It's a simple question, sir. Did you, regardless of year, place a dog in a carriage? Yes or no?

I suppose, when I was a child, I may have, at one point in time, put a dog in a baby carriage, yes.

Well sir, in the state of West Virginia, you may only place a baby in a baby carriage and nothing else. Since you have admitted guilt, I will go easy on you. As I was saying when you woke up from time travel, I sentence you to drink my root beer!

Oh, come on! That's not...wait...drink root beer?

That's right. Drinking my root beer is your harsh punishment for such a heinous crime.

Oh, well. I suppose I could do that. Can I go back to my house in 2011 once I'm done with this bottle of root beer?

Yes, I have the lever right here that will send you home. All you have to do is drink this entire bottle of root beer.

Fair enough. Here goes. It's not that bad, Judge. It's herby, kind of a medium-dark root beer. It tastes home brewed. Did you brew this yourself?

Yes, son. I did. Do you like it?

I do, actually. Can I get this in 2011? If so, I might just periodically pick one up.

Son, you have earned a parole. I will cut your sentence in half. You only need to drink half that bottle and then you can go home.

Oh, awesome. Well you can pull that lever. I'm already over half way done. If you don't mind, I'd like to finish this when I wake up from my time travel slumber.

That's fine. Stand on that box and I will send you back. As soon as I bang this gavel, and simultaneously pull this switch, you will be sent back to your time. Thank you for spending time with us, doing your time like a responsible adult, and enjoying my root beer.

You're welcome, Judge. It's been a pleasure. Thank you.

Back in my formative years I went to camp for a week every summer. It was for my cousin's church and it was a bit weird, but still a learning experience and fun at times. While there snacks and gum were the ultimate contraband. Of course that meant that I was going to sneak in as much as I possibly could. I mean I had a rebel image I had to uphold. Wait did I say rebel, I meant extreme nerd. There was one summer when I knew I was getting braces put on in the fall, so I was chewing as much gum as I possibly could before it would get all gunked up in my new bionic facial features. I've never been a huge fan of mint, so that summer I smuggled in well over 30 packs of Extra bubble gum. I secretly chewed gum every second that I wasn't eating, sleeping or brushing my teeth. It was seriously out of hand.

If you combined all of the gum I chewed in that week and make a soda out of it, this would be it. Okay not really, but the flavor made me think of all that jaw work I did. This tastes like candy bubblegum, but it's more in the aftertaste than in the actual flavor. While it's in your mouth, it just tastes like sugary soda water. It's when you swallow and then breath through your mouth that the bubble gum flavor pops up and says "ello."

To be honest this is way too sugary for me. It has 48 grams of sugar per serving, which seems pretty insane. I really don't think this was made for adults, and I don't blame them. If someone handed this to me when I was a kid I'd be all over it. Now I could only get down about 1/3 of the bottle before going into a sugar coma.

Sharon, I'm telling you chewing 37 pieces of bubble gum at once is not a smart move. You're going to throw your jaw out of its socket. Of course jaws have sockets how do you think they move? There you've gone and done it. You have 37 assorted brands of bubble gum and you're chewing them all at once. You're just lucky if you ask me. Hey that's my birch beer! Why are you drinking that with all that gum in your mouth? You're just being a glutton now. What's that? It tastes like carbonated bubble gum with a slight aftertaste of birch beer? I would imagine the gum would overpower the soda, I mean you do have 37 pieces in your mouth. Of course it's sickly sweet. You just mixed a butt load of gum and soda. I can't believe how much you're enjoying that. Don't go for 38!

*POP!*

I'll go pull the car around and take you to the hospital. It's a good thing Real Soda makes Girlan Pink Birch Beer since everything you'll be consuming for the next few weeks is going to be through a straw and you can't seem to get enough of bubble gum.

On a side note Mike got called out for being sexist in a review last week. I thought it was funny that the reader complained that he equated something he didn't like to the female gender. He did say it was a "girl's drink" but it wasn't because he didn't like it. I thought it was hilarious and ridiculous that the reader took offense to something that wasn't even stated, yet took no offense to the actual sexist statement that it was a girl's drink because it was pink. This drink is pink, it's called "Girlan," and the bottle says, "It brings out the little flower in you." I'm sure someone is going to have a field day with that.

Other than recognizing that it is a fun word to say, I had no idea what Kickapoo was when I got this drink. A quick internet search informed me that it is one of the Native American nations. The bottle also says that this is the original Dogpatch recipe. Another wiki search and I found out that Dogpatch is a now abandoned amusement park aka a dream come true. I love exploring old abandoned buildings/grounds. I find it completely fascinating that something can just be up and left to rot. The things left behind are like a map to the past. Unfortunately due to a run in with the law at a certain tuberculosis hospital my exploring days are all but over. I always dreamed of an abandoned amusement park. There would be so much rad stuff left behind. Not that I would take any of it, but it would be great to just soak it all in.....Sorry I got a bit sidetracked. Dogpatch is based on the Li'l Abner comic strip. In the strip they brewed a powerful alcoholic beverage in Dogpatch Cave. At the amusement park they apparently created a non-alcoholic version. This is that recipe.

I feel like this is what the creators of Mountain Dew were going for, but failed to achieve. If my taste buds aren't deceiving me I believe it's a grapefruit, lemon and lime soda. It tastes sweet and citrusy. It's a soda for everyone to enjoy. At first I thought it was just so-so, but the further I got into the bottle the more I enjoyed it.

Oh and the fairly offensive artwork is apparently from the comic as well.

There is nothing that infuriates Sharon Clarion more than when people make the wrong assumptions about the flavor of her favorite sodas. As you can see by the picture on the bottle her husband, Franklin Mercer, did just that and she promptly shoved him down a staircase.

Now Franklin is no world-renowned rocket scientist, but I can understand where he's coming from. I also thought this was going to be a cola. From the tiny pictures in the background of peppers and candy canes I thought it was going to be a spicy cola with some mint in it. I admit now that it would have been the craziest pop ever and probably disgusting. It's my sworn duty to be honest though and that is what I expected it to be.

Luckily for Franklin he got a straw in the bottle before the aforementioned shove, and somehow the bottle landed next to his crumpled body on the floor, and the straw was in reach of his mouth. As soon as he smelled the soda he instantly knew his folly and he couldn't blame Sharon for shoving him. What is a person without passions? Franklin would tell you that it is a person that he wants nothing to do with.

He sucked down a mouthful from the straw and assured himself that his super sniffer was correct this is a Dr. Pepper knock off. Of course it is, thought Franklin. Dr. Cane....duh. Also the peppers in the background now made a whole lot of sense. The thing is that it's way better than Dr. Pepper. It's not just the cane sugar, because we've had Dublin Dr. Pepper and this is superior to that. This is the same basic idea of Dr. Pepper, but it tastes more natural and fruity. Franklin and I agree that we're not big fans of the original, but that this is a pop we can get behind.

Don't worry. Franklin has been healing nicely. He's still trying to get Sharon to switch to his last name, but she's a fiery woman with conviction, and to be honest that is what he likes about her.

Jay and I recently stopped at a great store in Sewickley, PA called Village Candy. We ended up spending over $80 on pop and talking with the owner for over an hour. It was great and I already can't wait to go back. I had exhausted all the root beer I could find to review in Buffalo so I was happy to see they had a really good selection.

This bottle was among the 12 different bottles of pop I bought. It's a really hearty root beer. It's not super heavy, but it definitely isn't smooth. It has a lot of flavor to it and has a really good bite to it. I can't really taste the molasses but that doesn't mean it's not great. If this is what root beer tastes like in "Olde Rhode Island", I want to go back to that time!

Are you aware that there is never an inappropriate time to yell "It's Science!" Be it in the lab, at the dinner table, the zoo, an ICP concert it is always appropriate if said in order to confirm a statement you've made. If you're out for pizza and a friend thinks it tastes gross, but you really like it, you can say something like "It's really good because they didn't go overboard with the sauce. It's Science!" You have just won the argument. There is nothing they can say to come back from that.

Science is truly at work in this soda. It's to such an extent that it doesn't even need to be said. I knew going in that it was going to taste like grape. I opened the cap and the strong sent of grape hit my nostrils. My mind still expected orange, right until the point that my taste buds registered it as grape. It messes with ones brain. It's like listening to Beatles records backwards only to find out that Paul is the walrus. Even at the end of the bottle my brain still processed it as a mixture of grape and orange even though there is no orange flavor in it. If I went into this blind folded it would taste of pure grape soda, yet my eyes continue to mess me up. You win this round Real Soda.

This soda intrigued me because I had no idea what it was going to taste like. I have never drunk a soda with guarana in it before. I know it's a common ingredient in energy drinks, but I've never seen a guarana flavored drink before. Even though the good folks at Real Soda make this in the USA, they make it with the same ingredients as the traditional Brazil soda.

My thoughts? It's alright. I don't think it's anything special. It tastes like ginger ale without any ginger, or maybe a bland lemon-lime soda. It's not bad. It just has no personality to it at all. This is the Ann Veal of sodas. If I could add a caption under the photo, it would say, "not pictured".

Wow. I can't believe I was able to find one of these. Although I appreciate the wacky word play, I do think that a majority of people would find it in poor taste. Also, no I'm not a Nazi or racist. It's more of something that I would chuckle at the idea of but never expect to see the real thing. In fact when I was DJing the other night three Neo-Nazis came in, and were quickly chased out with bats. Had I not been playing music at the time I would have been helping my friends throw the trash out.

Seriously though the idea is so ridiculous it's pretty funny. The German eagle chugging a bottle of soda = priceless. In German the label says "From the other side of the wall" and "All Clear." Not as funny as the text on the bottle of Leninade, but still amusing.

The soda itself was fairly mediocre. I don't know if it's just in my head but whenever I drink a pop that is normally a different color the flavor just seems weak to me. This just tastes like a weak natural soda. It had no bite to it whatsoever, but it did still have a cola flavor. Not the best, also not the worst. It's a decent tasting novelty.

Danny at Real Soda knows how to make a quality frothy beverage. This is a top-notch birch beer with a nice amount of bite to it. For those not familiar with birch beer it is similar to root beer, but with a slightly different twist. It has a woodsier taste to it. The label design leaves something to be desired, but really that doesn't matter when you have a quality soda like this. I wish I had more to say, but I'm off to go see Off! play. Keith Morris here I come.

This is a pop that I was really excited to get. How could I not be? Leninade? Communist soda? Incredible! RealSoda.com are producing some interesting sodas. Hopefully we'll have some more to review in the near future.
I expected this to be like British sparkling lemonade. Unfortunately, like everything in communist Russia, it lacked boldness in flavor. It doesn't taste like lemonade at all. It's more of a lightly flavored lemon soda. There's nothing bad about the flavor, I just expected it to be stronger.
I'm can imagine cases upon cases of these stocked up in warehouses. The people are lined up waiting for their daily rations of soda. All the while the communist leaders are cursing the propaganda of Ayn Rand while guzzling their sodas.
This is totally worth it for the bottle alone. I will leave you with one of the many quotes from it. "Beware the repressed communist party animal who is really a proletarian in denial masquerading as a bourgeois cold war monger."