Sprecher - 11 Reviews

This is so close to being amazing that it is so very frustrating. It hits your lips and you think to yourself, “this is one serious soda.” Not only does it not taste like those little strawberry candies whose wrappers look like the fruit, it actual tastes like berries. It has a wonderful adult berry flavor. I don't mean alcoholic, I mean that it's not overly sweetened to the liking of a child. It's still sweet, but not in a way that makes you fear tooth decay. It tastes like a soda you would sip at the end of a long day as you sit out in our hypothetical backyard and have a nice little fire. Oddly enough, it's the fire that I believe ruins this drink. Just when the going it getting good, the drink makes a left hand turn and the “Sprecher flavor” comes out to greet your taste buds. Since this is the only company that I can relate this flavor to, and this is also the only company I know that fire brews their soda, I blame the fire. I don't know how to explain the flavor exactly, but it is the thing that always keeps me from giving their sodas perfect marks. It's unfortunate, because I could see this quickly becoming a favorite of mine if it weren't for that weird after taste.

Did the association of purple/grape things and apes start with the Hanna Barbera character? I mean it makes sense due to rhyming, but I feel like I've seen more than a handful of things with primates tied to the flavor grape that don't use the word “ape” so the whole rhyme thing is out the window. A quick internet search also tells me it's a strain of medical marijuana. Is it possible that this gorilla got so high that it started to mistake grapes as its beloved bananas? It got so into the grapes that the juice dyed it's once glorious coat and gave it a purple hue? I think I'm on to something people. Think about it, when a primate that is wacked out of its gourd gets loose in your grape fields and ends up juicing them all before grape juice season (I say it exists, so it does), what else are you going to do but make soda with it? I mean, sure you're going to have to boil it down to get rid of all of those gorilla germs (great potential band name that I'm allowing you our readers to use), but why not just give it a little marketing twist and call it “Fire-Brewed?”

I think this hippy gorilla has done the world a favor. This is a nice soda that falls on the higher end of the grape line. It's a bit light on the carbonation, which I would like to see more of, but I won't hold that against it…€¦much. As I mentioned it's made with grape juice and not a bunch of artificial flavoring, but it falls in-between a sparkling grape juice and your traditional grape soda. It's a good place for it to be. It also has honey in it, and between that and the fire brew, it gives it a very special flavor that is unique to the Sprecher company. Like all their sodas the only problem with that is that although the flavor is delectable when it's nice and cold, as it gets warmer that flavor starts to take away from the overall greatness of the beverage. It becomes more pronounced and is too distracting. The solution for that is to not dilly dally while you drink this and don't forget to bring some snacks for our primate friend; he's got the muchies like you wouldn't believe.

As you may or may not know Sprecher has a team of various animals working for them that help gather the ingredients for their different sodas. They have foxes, cows, bears and even a penguin on the payroll. What many people don't know is that not only is the crow is not only employed, but he is actually the CEO of the company. The man in the suit in all of their commercials (that are on constantly during sporting events) is nothing more than a corporate puppet. The crow knows that America is not ready for a company run by a bird. I'm sorry for blowing up his spot, but the world needs to know and learn to accept that some species of birds have a more sophisticated taste palate. Learn and love America.

On a recent secret business trip to the UK Sprecher Crow stumbled across the Tango soda line. The orange flavor was in every gas station, but he found a single can of their apple soda and upon trying it he knew that he had to try and replicate it's flavor. Once he was back stateside he quickly got to work in "The Nest" to perfect it. When he was completed he realized that he hadn't quite got the flavor right, but what he did create was something that was fairly wonderful. Basically it tastes like a non-alcoholic British sweet apple cider. While it's in your mouth it has the classic Sprecher "fire brewed" taste. After you swallow the apple hits you fast and it hits you hard. It's definitely a red apple taste and not green, which I fully support. If you're an American it's closer to an apple juice than an American cider, but I certainly am not complaining. Perhaps Sprecher Crow should consider making this a staple flavor and not just available seasonally.

Franklin Mercer realized how much he had put his family through for the past couple of months. Whatever made him think that he was cut out to be an Olympic athlete is beyond me. Now that his dreams were behind him he decided to take Sharon and the kids on a camping expedition in Wisconsin.

They got a nice little lakeside cabin and everything was calm and relaxing. It was the most perfect vacation any of them had ever been apart of. When hiking the first night they discovered a cherry orchard and a cranberry swamp. What cranberries were doing growing in Wisconsin Franklin had no idea, but it was a nice discovery. On the third day Sharon decided to take the kids out to pick some fruit. They were filling their baskets and bindles full of juicy fruit (not the gum) when the trouble began. Dozens of cardinals came out of nowhere and started attacking the children, pecking at their tiny hands and faces. The family dropped everything and ran the mile back to their cabin, where they filled in Franklin on what had happened.

Franklin was infuriated and stormed out the door, grabbing his butterfly net off the porch. He made his way out to the orchard and hid until he saw a bird. He caught they cardinal in his net and was getting prepared to bash its skull in (Have I mentioned that Franklin has anger management problems?) when he realized that it wasn't an actual bird but rather it was animatronic. Suddenly he fell out of his hiding space in the tree. When he looked up there were two men standing above him. They helped him up, brushed him of and took him to the other side of the swamp where they had a small brewery. They were the Sprecher brothers, and they explained to him that they had grown the fruit in such a strange location in order to produce their new soda "Ravin' Red." They gave him a bottle to try, apologizing for their robot bird attack on his family. They had built them to keep away other animals, never expecting humans to stumble upon their orchard. Franklin accepted their apologies and cracked open the soda. His first thought when he took a sip was how full bodied it was. It had mostly a very sweet cranberry flavor, but some cherry was poking it's nose through. The brothers said the full bodiedness was due to the fact that it was fire brewed. That made sense so Franklin continued to drink. The more he drank the more he noticed a problem. The flavor didn't really fade away into an after taste after he swallowed. The more he drank the more intense the flavor got. BY the time he was 3/4 of the way done with the bottle it almost tasted like he was drinking a concentrate without the consistency. He finished off the bottle, told the brothers thank you for the soda, but you may want to work on it a little more and then walked home. Of course he did steal their butterfly net off of the porch as he had landed on his breaking it earlier in the story.

It's such a nice day out. I'm glad we came out to the old farm to pick some berries. It's a bummer that the strawberries aren't ready yet, but there sure is a ridiculous amount of raspberries out here. Man it's getting hot out and this bucket is getting pretty full. Let's take a break. Why don't we bust open that bubbly water you brought. The cap is stuck? Stop being such a baby and give it here. Oh man that is on their tight. I think it's giving.....oh jeeze I spilled it all over the berries, and dropped the bottle on top of them. Now all the berries are crushed. Why did you have your soda water in a lead bottle anyways? Haven't you ever heard of lead poisoning? Do you like eating paint chips? Well I'm still parched so I'm going to pour some of it from the bucket back into that bottle of yours. It's obviously going to be the death of me. Oh wow the raspberries flavored the soda water. It's pretty awesome. Give me a couple of packets of sugar you have in your pocket. Don't play dumb with me. I saw you take them at the diner. You're going to have so many cavities eating all that sugar. I was right, that was just what this needed. We should probably bottle and sell this stuff. I know it'll only be seasonal, but it's really great. I could drink it all the time. It's much better than those other pops we made. They always seemed to have a weird aftertaste. Oh no! Here comes farmer Johnson with his shotgun. I told you we should have stolen his fruit at night. Run!

We here at Thirsty Dudes love root beer. It's possibly our favorite beverage, and that is saying a lot. I've maybe tried a hundred different types of root beer and I've enjoyed almost all of them. I found this in a local specialty shop today. I was pretty pumped because their Puma Cola is fairly spectacular. On top of that, look at that combination of the crow and monkey creature on the label. It kind of reminds me of the racist crows from the old Loony Tunes cartoons. I'm going to assume it was not meant to be an homage.

So we've talked enough about the label, let's discuss the taste. I'm really not into it. When it first hits your taste buds it has a great classic root beer taste, then suddenly everything changes. Mike says it tastes like oak and that it's woody tasting. To me it tastes like someone spilled some cleaning solution into the vat of root beer. I kept on drinking, but I just can't get over that secondary flavor. Sorry Sprecher, you didn't do it for me this time.

I had previously had Sprecher's cream soda and it was pretty incredible. When I came across this bottle, I had to drink it as soon as I left the store. I was definitely not disappointed at all. The orange smell upon opening it was awesome and set me up for the best orange cream soda I've ever had. It's the perfect balance between orange and a rich cream taste. And then, the fire-brewed taste kicks in. It adds just a great taste to it, I'm honestly at a lost for words. It's not the same burn that comes from ginger, but it sits in your stomach in a similar way.

Also, I love the drawing of the cow drinking an orange with a straw. Ridiculous yet awesome!

This is a pretty cherry flavored cola. It's strange to think that companies put out drinks and food in general that is cherry flavored but doesn't actually taste like cherry. It's the same thing with grape. Poor grape. I think that I feel more sorry for grape than cherry but we are talking about cherry here, so I digress. This tastes like when your one friend's mom sprung for a basket of fresh picked cherries and you eat your weight in cherries like your friend's garage was Ground Round.

The cola taste is left in the theoretical dust because your taste buds are too focused on the other flavors. The cola taste is not bad, I should add.

I'm happy that this doesn't taste like eating a ginger flavored barrel and that it's actually pretty awesome.

I can't really go more in depth than just saying, "I don't like it". It's got very earthy taste. It's like a woody ginger ale but not like a Vernor's. They say that there is a hint of oak, and I will give that to them. Between the wooden taste and the fire brew, I can't help but make a bad face during every sip. I wanted to like it. I like that this company clearly carefully crafted (4 C's in a row) this ginger ale but to me, it's not terribly refreshing. Small sip to big sip, it's all the same. Bold, overpowering, and not my cup of tea...or ginger ale.

Amazing. That's the first word that comes to mind when I try this soda. This is one of the creamiest cream soda's I've ever tasted. I've never had a soda with honey in it, and it adds a really nice flavor to the mix. There's a really unique aftertaste that I can't quite identify. It might be due to the fact that the soda is "fire-brewed". Whatever it is, it's delicious and I can't wait to try other sodas by Sprecher.

We have gotten a bunch of recommendations to check out the Sprecher sodas. We've been keeping an eye out for them, and found a bunch today at the Village Beer Merchant in Buffalo. If they are all like this one we're in for a treat with the four flavors we bought.
This tastes like no cola I've ever had before. It has a base favor as a high-end "normal" cola, but there are a bunch of other flavors thrown into the mix, vanilla, cinnamon and honey to name a few. Those added to the kola extract take you to a whole new world of taste.
The bottle says that it's "fire-brewed in our unique gas-fired kettle." They took some care to make this soda. What I do find odd is that they took all that time to come up with this great recipe, and then sweetened it with corn sweetener instead of real sugar. Maybe that's part of their secret though. I'm no sugarologist.
Finally look at that bottle. The puma looks like it was ripped from some 80's cartoon. It looks incredible. It's also got some cinnamon sticks under its paw. He's protecting the secret of this cola's greatness.