Thomas Kemper - 13 Reviews

Why America is Fat, by Mike Literman of the Thirsty Dudes,

It's no stretch to say that many American's are overweight. We can't go a week without hearing the nightly news talk about how we weigh more than all other countries combined, or something along those lines. That's not true, but you can't go a week without seeing footage of obese, neck down citizens. Why does this happen? Well it's actually very simple. American's do not understand moderation. Food servings are too big here. Yeah, feeling filled is great, but the fact that there is a four patty Baconator at Wendy's is too much food. Yes, it's too many calories for a family of four eating a five-course meal, too, but it's too much food for one person. It seems like it's gone too far because as soon as some restaurant comes up with a reasonable quantity of food, people won't know what to do with so little food and that joint will be closed twice as fast as it opened. Cheese comes on everything and cheese is delicious. Everything is doused in some sort of sauce or cream. Diet pop doesn't taste good so people opt to get non-diet drinks in exchange. That's where Thomas Kemper comes into play.

Thomas Kemper, a responsible group of people, has developed a root beer that is diet using Splenda that doesn't taste like you're drinking some sort of industrial strength floor cleaner. It's dark, has a strong vanilla taste, and although it isn't as complex as their non-diet version, people who drink diet pop or should be drinking diet pop can sigh in relief at the fact that this drink is not gross. It's more than not gross, but baby steps say that saying that it's "great" might be overstepping my boundaries. I will say that this is probably the best diet root beer I've had and that should hold some weight. Also, they still craft it using honey, just as one would expect from Mr. Kemper and friends.

I'm not calling you fat, but instead of drinking eight beers, six of which are in a six pack and it is a six pack made from other people's beer that they left in your fridge that you decided were now your own and you would fashion your own, custom sixer and balance it on your stomach, leave them in the fridge for another day, or never, and replace it with a six pack of delicious, diet root beer. Your belts, which you have actually worn out an awls because you have put so many of your own holes in them, will thank you.

When we were up at Soda Pop Central on Saturday, this soda pretty much jumped out at me. It was the first soda I saw on the first shelf I looked at. As you can see from this website we are huge fans of the Thomas Kemper line so, any new flavors are always a treat. As an added bonus, both ginger and peach are among my favorite flavors. After being slightly disappointed by the Flying Bison Ginger Soda I was pretty pumped to have Thomas Kemper step up to the plate.

I wanted so badly for this to have an intense ginger burn with a slight hint of peach to it. It turns out that the opposite was true. It's primarily a peach soda with a slight hint of ginger. I actually found myself doing some research to see if "Ginger" was a specific type of peach. The ginger is that low in the mix. I would describe it as a really peachy light ginger ale. They actually use real peach juice, so that flavor is pretty incredible. Even though I was disappointed that the ginger levels didn't meet my expectations, this is still a stand out soda. I just think they should have named it "Peach Ginger" with the current recipe.

A review for this? Simple. This is the best diet cola I've ever had. This is also better than many standard cola's I've ever had, including, but not limited to, Coke and Pepsi. The cola taste is nice and clean and the Stevia sweetness accompanies it so nicely. Initially you get a solid, cola taste and then it's just the right amount of sweetness. It's never bad. There are no bad aftertastes or anything. I regret nothing! This is a cola that I could easily drink again and again and if more people caught word (hint hint) that this existed, no one would drink diet Coke or Pepsi any more. Seriously, it's that good.

Thomas Kemper. Spandau Ballet said it best. Gold.

Two months. Two months left. Oh, two months left in what? Flu season. There are two months left in flu season. It ravaged my boss last week and I think he got it late. Did you get it? Sorry if you did. No, actually I'm not sorry. It's not that I'm heartless; it's just that unless I gave it to you, I kind of have a "hands off" place in your life. I hope that I am "hands on" in your heart, but I hope that I didn't give you the flu.

Speaking of the flu, this smells like cough syrup. It tastes a little like cough syrup, too. It's not bad, but going into it, if you don't expect cough syrup, you will soon be in the clenches of it.

For the first time, I didn't get a honey taste. I miss it, honestly. I liked it a lot in that spiced ginger ale. No, you can't get what you want all the time, but this time I think that it would have been nice. I work hard and deserve honey.

This is an orange cream soda that doesn't taste like a creamsicle. That is something that piques my interest. I like me some creamsicle pop, but for the most part if you've had one, you've had them all. This was a pleasant surprise. I'd describe this as 60% orange pop, 30% cream soda and 10% honey. I love Thomas Kemper for their use of honey in their sodas. It's always noticeable without being overbearing. I think there's a Winnie the Pooh joke in their somewhere. It gives them such an advantage over their competitors. I can't wait for them to expand their empire in an easternly direction.

You know what? This isn't half bad. It's diet. There is no hiding that fact and you know what? You get what you pay for with diet, but Mr. Kemper knew what he was doing when he dreamed his dream of making a diet berry pop that isn't ultra gross.

It starts out pretty diet. Being a Stevia sweetener, you get a bit of that cold/sweetness in the beginning but then the berry flavor takes over. It's nice that it's reverse because it kind of saves itself each sip you take. Rather than leave you with some grotesque artificial sweetener taste in the end, it starts you off with a rush and a push and then rolls it out with some sweet berries.

I'm beginning to not despise Stevia. That's a big step. Let me tell you.

The world became aware of the plight of Africa through the Leonardo DiCaprio vehicle Blood Diamond. I'm here to let everyone know about another travesty that exists on this planet. This one isn't a world away, but occurs in my own country. Every day down in Florida children are losing life and limb every day in order to harvest one of the most coveted item in the world, the blood orange. Children ages 6-10 are sent into the depths of the orange groves of the "Wang of America," bushels in hand. They climb rickety ladders, risking splinters. You would not believe the lower back pain these children will experience later in life. The sunburns? Don't get me started.

We will forgive Thomas Kemper for perpetuating these crimes against humanity for yet again creating an incredible soda. I would work out in those fields myself in order to ensure this drink stays in production. It tastes more like an Italian soda than a regular soda pop. It's nice and light and full of wonderful blood oranges. I can taste the blood of the completely fabricated victims with every sip.

Thomas Kemper without the honey, what has this world come to? I'll tell you what it's come to a diet soda that doesn't taste disgusting. It has a slight diet taste. Did you really think that the universe would allow there to be a low calorie drink that didn't have the diety taste? It's mostly grapefruit flavor with an undercurrent of other citrus flavor. It's lighter than other grapefruit pops I've had, but it's not weird and artificial tasting like other diet drinks that haunt my past.

This is pretty darn great. It's a nice, spicy ginger ale. It's about 75% of the way to a ginger beer. That honey though...woo! It's kicking for a little bit, like the second wind of a soccer player, but then cools down because of the honey, like the fat, out of shape dad of said second winded soccer player.

It's amazing what honey does to a beverage. I also like how Thomas Kemper doesn't give a rip about the "bee shortage" and uses it to sweet/mellow out their pop. I feel like I taste a bit of cinnamon and maybe nutmeg in there, too, but since it's just "spices and herbs" on the bottle, only Mr. Kemper knows for sure.

This is a really good and really different drink and I encourage no one to pass it by and not get it if they haven't had it before. This honey aftertaste is something special, a force to be reckoned with, indeed.

With the exception of a couple of root beers, I don't think I ever had soda that was sweetened with honey. I never really thought about it, but now it seems strange to me that more companies don't use it in their pops. Thomas Kemper loves their honey. In fact it's part of their image. Like awkwardness in Michael Cera movies, honey is the unifying factor in their sodas. I don't care if he pretty much plays the same character in all his movies. He's entertaining and he makes me laugh. Honey doesn't make me laugh. There's nothing intrinsically funny about honey, or bees for that matter. Well maybe bee stings, like when Martin Short gets stung in Pure Luck. Now that was humor. See honey has gotten me off track.
This is one of the creamiest cream sodas I've ever had. That aforementioned honey makes it even smoother. That vanilla...wooooohooo that's some strong vanilla. It's like the essence of a dozen boxes of Nilla Wafers liquefied into one glorious little bottle. Thomas Kemper has their niche with this whole honey business. It's gives all their sodas a distinct flavor. I could totally pick them every time in one of those blind taste tests that were all the rage in the 80s.

I am enjoying this root beer by Thomas Kemper much more than the one with high fructose corn syrup in it. It goes down really smooth and has a very traditional root beer taste. This also has honey in it, but it's not as prominent as it's HFCS counterpart. So my advice to Thomas Kemper: ditch the original line of root beer and just make this version of it. It's so much better.

*Note: Just like the other Thomas Kemper root beer, I'm giving this three bottles even though this one is much better. The reason being is that in the grand scheme of root beer's, there's nothing special about this. It's a very average tasting root beer.

Thomas Kemper really likes to put honey in their sodas apparently. I woke up with a sore throat today and bought this at a cafe in hopes it had real ginger in it. Sadly, it does not. As far as ginger ale's go, this is very mild. The honey gives it a nice sweet after taste. If you're looking for a decent alternative to ginger ale with HFCS, then this is a good stop. As for me, I'm still looking.

This is another local soda from Portland, OR. I had tried this when I first moved here but Thirsty Dudes was just an idea in my head at that point. Maybe it's because I'm drinking this on an empty stomach, but this is one of the heaviest root beer's I've ever drank. It has a really rich flavor. There is a hint of a honey aftertaste (one of the ingredients), but besides that it's a fairly run of the mill root beer.