Pure Cane Sugar - 220 Reviews

You've spent your entire life running around. Doing errands for yourself and doing errands for other people. Getting placed on time. Anticipating getting places late and speeding to get there on time. Climbing mountains. Running marathons. Having kids. Doing eating challenges. Skiing. Taking out the garbage. Riding a bike long distances. Washing windows. Shoveling. Weeding. Filing your taxes. Housekeeping. Discussing the plot to a M. Night Shamalan movie. Attending Church. Telling your significant other that their pants don't make their butt look big. Visiting your in-laws. Discussing politics. Jumping rope. Researching a solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Walking uphill both ways in the snow. Preparing for the 2012 Apocalypse. Finding a parking spot. Waiting on hold.

CALM DOWN!! Honey = soothing. Lemon = soothing(?). Chamomile = calming. This is good, too. All flavors are represented and for a little over one dollar, I am down with this. If they sold this (they may) in one of those really large containers, like 60 ounces, I wouldn't hesitate to get it. I am actually impressed at how adequately they captured all the flavor friends in this drink. Surprise yourself. Find this drink (I got mine at a local Marshall's) and take your time drinking it.

"The granddaddy of all root beers." That's what the bottle says. One might be prone to question that statement, but do you know who backs it up? The Stranger in The Big Lebowski aka Sam Elliott. Now that is an endorsement I'm certainly not going to argue with. He's a man who's portrayed more than a handful of cowboys in his day, so he knows what's up with a good sarsaparilla.
It's exactly what a sarsaparilla should be. It has a slight bite that's not too overpowering, but it's definitely there.
If you have a problem with this, I know a certain mustache that will ask you if you want to take it outside.

When we first got a package of these, I was a little turned off by the plastic bottle. In my mind things that come in plastic bottles are generally cheap tasting. After looking over the bottle I got over it. The company made the effort to use pure cane sugar, so I gave it the benefit of the doubt.
After a sip, I was skeptical again. After half the bottle I was convinced that my original thoughts were correct. This tastes like a cheap soda. Not like Shasta cheap, but it just doesn't taste like a fancy pop. The cream soda taste didn't come out and punch me in the uvula like I wanted it to. It's subtler than I like my cream sodas. The "red" flavor is decent. If they had added that to a better cream soda base, I think I would be all over this. Unfortunately they did not. I drank the whole bottle, so it wasn't terrible. If someone offered me some I wouldn't turn it down. I just wouldn't purchase it myself.

It's official I've regressed back to ten year old me. It's Saturday night, and I decided to stay at home so that I could play Zelda. I'm totally not a video game guy at all. Ask Mike. I can't even drive straight in racing games. This game played on my nostalgia, and I'm hooked. I should probably get to the root beer.
This came in an awesome 22 oz bottle. In those 22 oz is some great root beer. They didn't go too crazy with the ingredients when they were thinking up this recipe, and they didn't have to. They got a simple root beer just the way it should be. It's smooth and flavorful. It's "kettle brewed" so I'm assuming that's a lot of their secret. Things tend to be better when they aren't made in industrial sized vats. Sometimes you're in the mood for a nice gourmet root beer and other times you want something more classic. When you're in the mood for the classic variety get yourself some Sparky's. You can thank me later. Now I need to go save the princess.

Samurai Defender. Is there a greater name for a antioxidant type tea? It's perfect fit, and it certainly got me interested in the tea.
It's a real nice oolong tea with a touch of mandarin oranges and a ginger aftertaste. There's no burn at all with the ginger, just a small dose of the flavor to remind you it's performing its "herbal defense."

Go to your gramma's house. Go in her candy dish: old M&M's, old Reese's Pieces and old Werther's Originals. Also found in said candy dish are those strawberry hard candies wrapped in strawberry looking foil. That candy is exactly what this pop tastes like. It's very sweet and very potent of candy strawberries. It's not bad, but it's a bit overwhelming and ambitious if you planned on drinking the entire bottle.

I will say that it has been my favorite Romano's beverage I have had thus far. I know a lot of people would like this so if you like those candies, or just want to try another strawberry pop that isn't just sugar and strawberry flavor, try this. It's smoother than "standard" strawberry pop, hence the "creamy" prefix.

Last night I went and saw Let Me In. It's the American version of Let The Right One In. If I never had seen the original I would have thought it was an absolutely incredible movie, but seeing as the Swedish one is possibly the best vampire movie I've ever seen, the remake just seemed okay.
The point of that is that I drank this tea while I was watching the movie. Did you need to know that? No, but I felt like since I was reviewing two peach drinks in a row I should let it be known that there was a time lapse in between them.
I've had quite a few peach oolong teas in my day. I don't know who decided to put those two flavors together, but I understand why the couple is now in an open relationship. This is by far the best one that I've had. It's not peach flavoring, but actual peach juice in it, and the flavor is strong. The peach tastes like it was just about to be fully ripe when they juiced it. A slight bitterness of the oolong still sneaks by though. I also like it when the sweetener in teas is in the bottom half of the ingredients list. It's nice to actually be able to taste the real flavor, and not just sweetness.

This is a bright blue soda that looks eerily like the poison that Christian Slater mixes up to feed to the girl in Heathers. You know the one that makes her fall right over into the glass table.
It tastes like you might expect, like a melted freezie pop. Unfortunately it has a pretty bad aftertaste. It tastes almost diet. How does something with cane sugar have a diet aftertaste?
The cap asks the question "Are you thirsty?" I have to answer "Yes, yes I am because your beverage wasn't very good and I didn't finish the whole thing and pawned it off on my friends."

Awhile back, a long time before we started this site, I had the peach Joe's tea. I loved it, and have been keeping an eye out for it since then. I recently found this one at a Whole Foods on a recent tour. While it's not as great as the peach variety, the green tea is pretty good.
It's a pretty mild tea, and the "low sugar" is nice. It's always nice to have a tea that isn't overly sweet, yet not completely bitter. I appreciate the resealable bottle since it is a large quantity of tea.

Disappointment city. A donkey wearing glasses showing its teeth says, "It kicks!" This should have been the best ginger ale I've ever had. Instead mediocrity reigned supreme. When it was in your mouth it tasted like carbonated candy water. Then when you smiled it burned. I love a good ginger burn, the thing was this was a different type of burn altogether. Upon reading the ingredients I discovered there wasn't any ginger in it at all. I don't even want to know what created the burn. I choked through about a third of the bottle, and then I had to give up. To reiterate: Disappointment city.

This is my first review of the slew of sodas I got at the Abbott Farms rest stop in South Carolina. I walked in and saw a wall of random bottles of soda, and my day just got brighter.
This root beer is actually made by Abbott Farms. It's a decent run of the mill root beer. It reminds me a lot of Barq's actually. Instead of having "bite" it comes "with a kick." I would have expected that to mean it had caffeine in it, but no.
Sometimes you want a fancy root beer and sometimes you want a "candy" root beer. This is something that can fill your needs in those times.

I really want to get one of those machines that let you carbonate anything. How great would that be? I would carbonate the dumbest stuff, just because I could. Carbonated chocolate milk? Sure it would be gross, but I'd still do it.
This tastes like it was home carbonated, and I mean that in a good way. I know it's just some sort of syrup in carbonated water, but it's great. I feel like I'm drinking it in a little cafe somewhere in Italy.
Now bring on the carbonated soup.

I found this little treat while passing through Tennessee. It's a real weird green tea. I assumed it was peach because of the name, but it's made with orange and lime juice. Not a peach in site. Orange and lime is a good combination. I don't know why it's not mixed more often.
It's pretty much a southern sweet tea, but made with green tea instead of black. It's weird, but nice. It's also infused with "delectable lemongrass." I can't really taste it, but who am I to argue with their claim.

Go back in time to when you were in second grade. Don't think of the future. After all, you're 7. What do you care about the economy, career, marriage, responsibility, or basically anything? There is one thing you care about...

It's time for lunch. You and your class walk down to the lunchroom and wait in line. You get a boiled hot dog, chocolate milk, apple and one more thing. You go over to the ice cream freezer and get an orange creamsicle. You eat everything on your plate and then you silence the world around you as you eat that creamsicle.

Do I need to say that Romano's Orange Creme tastes just like that? I hope that I don't.

This is by far my favorite brand of birch beer of all time. It makes me feel like a cowboy, or a member of the cavalry that's on the bottle. I never really know how to accurately describe birch beer. It's similar to root beer, but with different spices. It's just incredible. Sioux City also has such a distinct taste compared to other birch beers. Smack the dust off your hat, climb on your horse and ride across the prairie to the general store and grab yourself an icy bottle.

Even though I have an extreme hatred for Ray Romano, I still really enjoyed this beverage (which I assume he has absolutely nothing to do with).
It really tastes like something you would order in a coffee shop. I mean let's be honest coffee is disgusting, so why order that at a coffee shop, especially when you have bubbly fruity goodness to chose instead.
I learned something new today when I learned that marionberry is a type of blackberry and not just the former mayor of DC who was arrested for use and possession of crack cocaine. Yes, he still won future elections with the slogan "He May Not Be Perfect, But He's Perfect for D.C."

This is what I call a damn good bottle of root beer! It's exactly how I like my root beer: creamy, smooth, and lots of flavor. There was just the right about of traditional root beer bite too. On top of it, this is a local soda so that's a big plus.

I'm not that familiar with Italian sodas, but this one is delicious. It's one of the strongest vanilla flavorings I've ever tasted in a soda. This is like a cream soda with extra vanilla flavor. I'm excited to try the other flavors Romano's makes.

Wait there are hyper hippies in the world? This is a Bob Marley "anti-energy" drink. It has valerian root, chamomile, melatonin, and various other ingredients in it to relax you, or "mellow you out." I got it because I thought it was a hysterical idea, and packaging. It turned out to be pretty darn delicious. It doesn't have any sort of chemical taste to it, like a lot of energy drinks do. The citrus doesn't just taste like lemon, lime and orange. I taste a hint of pineapple and some others in there as well. I was actually shocked that about fifteen minutes after I drank it, I definitely crashed, and just wanted to lay in a warm cozy bed. I wonder if this will become a new trend, and some terrible companies will pop up with more "city themes." They will advertise that it will help bring you down for a late night coke binge. Until now I guess it will be marketed towards the strange girls who were always in your art class in high school that talked to much about absolutely nothing.

Boysenberry soda? Really? I was pretty shocked when I saw this, but also excited to try it. It's a local Portland soda made by the people who run the Hotlips Pizza chain. It has a strong berry smell, but luckily the taste isn't as strong. I was afraid this was going to taste like carbonated juice, but it definitely was not the case. The boysenberry is represented perfectly: not too sweet, not too watery.
The only major complaint I have is the price. At $2.50 a bottle, it's one of the most expensive specialty sodas I've seen in a while. I could see myself picking this up once in a while as a treat, but my wallet would never forgive me if it became a regular drink of mine. I am excited to try the other flavors Hotlips sells, especially the blackberry and pear flavors.

Edit: I wrote this review when i was half way through the bottle. I just finished it and was surprised by little chunks of boysenberry near the bottom. This might make some people happy, but when you're not expecting it, it's a little off-putting.