Quick Review: Japanese Green Apple Marble Pop

If you would like to read a more thorough review, please go here.
If you don't know what Marble Pop means, please check out this video.

I'm not sure the name of this soda because it is in Japanese. I got in an Asian food market in Boston, so you could look there I suppose. This soda is absolutely fantastic. The marble gimmick is super fun to play with and as a standalone soda it is absolutely wonderful. The flavor is very subtle and mostly defined by the citric acid. It's also healthy to boot! It has only 10 grams of sugar, 4 milligrams of sodium and 60 calories. I personally think it would go amazingly with a lunch, especially one featuring fruits.
If you happen upon this soda buy it on sight, it is really great although it will be pretty difficult to find.

Review: Japanese Green Apple Marble Pop

If you would like to see a shorter review, please go here.
To see what it looks like to use this "marble pop" gimmick check out this video.

Before Drinking

Background: During this past school year I went on a trip to the Boston Aquarium. It was purely for fun and after we finished up at the Aquarium we were allowed to wander the city as we pleased. My friends and I decided to just walk around and go down any street that looked interesting. We looked down a long street and saw a giant Asian gate. It looked cool so we went in and found ourselves suddenly plunged in to China Town. We went in to an Asian food market and I found all sorts of neat sodas. I got this one for $1.39 and I have no idea where you could find it or what its name is. So let's continue our streak of extremely legit foreign sodas!

Neat ribs

Bottling: The bottling is of course really cool. The whole marble pop gimmick is really fun and makes for a nice piece to put on a shelf after you are done. The interesting bits of this bottling is that for one it has some cool ribbing in the skinny part of the bottle. Very different from the other variations I have seen. The other awesome part is that absolutely everything is written in Japanese! It makes this a really unique find, I would definitely have trouble getting this anywhere but an Asian food market. Even the nutrition facts had to have an English sticker put over it to meet FDA requirements.

This makes it kind of hard for me to judge the font and logo. It's just really super Japanesey. It obviously has Japanese written all over it but it also has cute Anime-esque green apples will adorable little faces. One part of the writing that I quite like is the cool symbol put at the lip of the bottle.

Cool symbol in question

Nutrition facts are pretty interesting, only 10 grams of sugar! Most sodas are in the 35-40 range so this is going to not be very sweet at all. Additionally it has only 4mg of sodium and 60 calories. It's really quite healthy for you! I'm guessing almost all of the flavor will be coming from the citric acid. The other ingredients are pretty odd as well. It uses sugar and glucose to sweeten it, I don't think I've ever encountered glucose before in a soda so this should be pretty interesting.

During drinking

Soda everywhere

Got on my beloved keyboard

I popped the marble in and immediately tragedy struck. The soda really just exploded everywhere, it got all over my keyboard and basically made my entire desk a sticky mess. I had to pour water all over my $115 mechanical keyboard to save it from being a sticky mess and now it needs a day or so to dry out. So I'm typing this from a crappy Dell keyboard, with my keyboard wrapped in a towel behind me. Be strong, buddy!

The only difference I did this time was use the fleshy part of my thumb to push the marble in. I think this made it hit with greater force than the it created a seal on the top. This created a ton of pressure to build up in an extremely short amount of time, causing the explosion. I highly recommend you use the end of your thumb when pushing the marble in and do it over something you don't care about, like a sink or a counter top.

But the review must go on! I won't be judging the carbonation too harshly because the soda has been sitting out for a while now.

Nutrition facts laid over Japanese writing

Oh how utterly delightful! Wow, this is an absolutely amazingly subtle yet present flavor. It really does taste like green apple but it is not over powering at all. This is honestly one of the best flavors I have had in a very long time. It is so perfectly fruity without being over the top. The problem that most fruit sodas run in to is they start tasting like liquefied lollipops. This has very little sugar so the sweetness is not over powering and it really lets the appley flavor come through. It really does taste genuinely like taking a bite right in to a green apple.

Carbonation is not bad at all, the faster you chug the more carbonation you get because of the way the marble creates carbonation. The spout is a bit awkward to drink from, it's just really small so it feels strange to not fully wrap my lips around it. I also don't like the fact that the lip is made of plastic. I can understand why it has to be that way though. The carbonation is definitely much stronger than on the Americanized version that I had last time. This is definitely a good thing.

The amazing subtlety and simplicity of this flavor is awesome. It reminds me a lot of Cas Cal in that it is a nice, calm flavor that would go great with a fruit salad or really a lunch of any kind. I think the way that the sweetened it and the fact that it is high on Citric acid is what really made it so amazingly subtle.

The marble, fizzing away

One big downside is that there is not much liquid in here. I have taken maybe 4 or 5 sips and it's basically all gone already. I would love to see some bigger bottles of this, though that is most likely just due to me being an American and being used to the hugely gigantic cans we get over here. Ohhh the weird indentations on one side of the bottle make sense now. When you are low on soda tipping the bottle up can make the marble fall in to the cap, causing the cap to get blocked and stopping the flow of soda in to your mouth. The indentations hold the marble in place and stop this. Very clever!

After drinking

Almost no sugar and very little calories!

Overall, this is just a really nice tasting soda. The flavor is very well done and it is not overpowering at all. If you somehow happen to get a chance to try this out you definitely should. It tastes great and it's not bad for you. I would recommend this as a gimmick to hand around at a party, or to be had with an afternoon meal or even just to be hand on its own. It's just simply an awesome soda, I highly recommend it.

Quick Review: Fentiman's Curiosty Cola

If you are interested in a more thorough review you can check out the in-depth review of this soda which is available here.

Fentimans Curiosity Cola at first sounds like it will be nothing more than a strange novelty. However, it is much much more than that. Boasting the most unique bottling I have ever seen and with a delicious flavor to match Fentiman's Curiosity Cola is a must have soda. I adored every moment I had with it, from first looking at the bottling to the last drop I desperately shook in to my mouth, praying for more. I highly recommend it both as a soda to be enjoyed on your own and as a soda to be shared at a party. Friends would enjoy the new, gingery twist on the classic Cola. The flavor is the best Cola you have ever had, with a new layer of ginger added in. The ginger is present but not overpowering at all and adds immensely to the overall experience.

Fantastic soda, do try it if you get the chance. It is available for purchase in World Market stores across the US and online at various retailers.

Review: Fentimans Curiosity Cola

If you want to read a shorter review of this soda, you can check out the Quick Review of it here.

Before Drinking

Background: This is one that I am quite excited about, I have heard good things about it online and I have had it sitting in my collection for about a year now! Perhaps it will have a nice aged flavor to it. I got it at World Market for $1.79. I highly recommend stopping by World Market if you want some nice bottled sodas. 5 or 6 of the sodas in my collection are from there.

The bubbling is more apparent live

Very unique neck shaping!

Most unique bottling I have seen, bar none. The neck has a really interesting shape to it and the bottom is flat with a slight bubble going around it. Very interesting, I don't see it as really conveying any particular image. With a Boylan's bottle it is obvious that they are trying to have a strong, bold feel to their soda. Fentimans seems to go for the "Curiosity" part of their name, just making their bottle a little bit strange. It doesn't feel heavy or slender or average, it's just different. Very unique and really drives the branding.

Captures the early 1900s well

The logo is nice, the illustration of the dog has a very old-timey feel to it. I adore the font, totally feels like the old sodas of the past. The font makes it seem like the sort of soda that you would pick up from the apothecary for a nickel. It also boasts about being "Botanically Brewed" which is probably more a marketing term than anything else. All that seems to mean is that they include ginger and herbs in the soda. I am quite looking forward to that, very strange combination of cola, herbs and ginger that I haven't seen before. The cap is also completely blank of any ink. I sort of like that, a nice simple look though it isn't anything terribly special.

It is also a bit darker of a cola than most. Even a bright light only shines through the neck of the bottle, the body is all pure dark.

Very dark coloring

Amount of sugar and calories are perfectly average. The ingredients are definitely odd though, the first ingredient is water followed by carbonated water. Every other soda I have ever had was carbonated water only as the top ingredient. This means that it will probably not be as bubbly as most sodas I am used to. It also lists ginger and caffeine as ingredients. I am really interested to see what ginger in cola tastes like, never had that before. I am also very glad that they included caffeine on their list of ingredients. Very often a soda will have caffeine in it but not list it anywhere on the can. When I was a kid this annoyed me greatly because I wasn't allowed to have soda with caffeine in it. It is also made with real sugar, but that is completely unsurprising. Basically par for the course with sodas I am interested in.

During Drinking

Twist top which I am glad for, makes a nice "pop!" when I take the cap off. The ginger is really quite apparent and lends an extremely unique flavor. The bottle is also not as filled as most are so it takes longer than expected to get the first taste. The lip is wider than usual as well which gives a very different feel to is. The glass is also quite thin right at the lip, which I enjoy. It matches the character of the soda.

Water, Carbonated Water. How curious!

Very good level of carbonation, exactly on par with what it should be. I would say it is a little bit heavier on the carbonation than a Coca Cola but a bit lighter than a Henry Weinhard Root Beer.

As far as flavor goes I would describe it as nothing more than the best cola flavor you've ever had, with ginger mixed in to it. When I had my first taste the ginger was quite powerful, the most noticeable part of the soda but now that I am about a quarter done it is much more mild and nothing more than a wonderful hint layered on top of an amazing cola flavor.

I am having trouble picking out the other herbs used. I suspect there is a bit of vanilla extract, because the soda is quite smooth.

Getting lots of good burps out of it too. The carbonation isn't too much that it feels uncomfortable in the stomach but there is enough of it that it leads to good quality burps.

Tongue goes a bit numb from the ginger, a little bit of a weird feeling but totally to be expected.

After Drinking

This soda is just flat out really good. I initially thought that it would be a novelty but it is just simply a new flavor that hasn't been done before but which is really quite amazing. The ginger doesn't take anything away from the Cola flavor, it merely adds on a new layer of complexity that is very yummy. I think this is one of the few sodas I have had where I want to get a 6-pack of it. This is the sort of soda that if you served it at a party you would want to point out the uniqueness of it to guests and everyone would appreciate it. Everyone loves Cola, everyone has had a Coca Cola and this would be a cool way to introduce them to something new, unique and utterly delicious.


I'm not sure I would like having this with a meal though. It is a complex enough flavor on its own that I think it would distract from a meal rather than add to it. Unless you considered it as being a side-dish to the meal instead of just a liquid to wash the meal down with.


Overall, I highly recommend it to anyone who likes soda at all. It is a new twist on a classic flavor that is completely unique to anything I have had before and it tastes amazing.

DizzyFrinks.com - Social Soda Reviewing Site

What if you could join a worldwide community of soda lovers like you? What if by joining that community you could help to document sodas, helping history by saving these sodas forever, helping others to decide what they want to try(or not!) by giving your opinions on the sodas you drink and love. What if you could even  trade sodas with anyone in the world to give the gift of your favorite soda and receive an exotic new sodas? What if all of this was totally free to do on a not for profit website? Then Dizzy Frinks is there for you.

A website where you can review sodas already on the site, submit sodas that aren't there already or just browse and get new ideas for what to try out. I know that I am personally having fun going through the "most popular" sodas and seeing which ones I have tried and getting ideas for how to get every other one that I haven't. I'm definitely going to be participating in the soda trading as well soon enough. I imagine there are some really cool sodas over in other continents that I would otherwise not have a chance at getting.

I definitely highly recommend this site if you are any sort of soda fan! Hope to see all of your reviews showing up there soon!

The link is http://dizzyfrinks.com/ for those that didn't catch it in that intro paragraph.

Review: Frostie Blue Cream Soda

Please excuse my absence.

Background

     Well, it's starting to get into that holiday time of year so I decided to get into the spirit with some Frostie brand soda! Frostie is a truly old style of soda, the root beer flavor that Frostie makes has been around since 1939.

Frostie Root Beer cans circa 1975

I tend to really like the older brands like Boylan so I hope that Frostie keeps that trend going. I bought this from World Market for $1.29 and  it is available online as well. There was some apparent controversy over Frostie using cane sugar or High Fructose Corn Syrup as well. They started off just like every other old soda brand with real cane sugar but then they attempted a transition into HFCS with a new "retro" flavor which apparently failed because the bottle I am holding has pure cane sugar listed as one of its few ingredients.

Review

     Never thought I would say this but I really don't like the bottling. It's so generic, doesn't grab your eye at all. It's just sorta clear glass which can be nice but here it's nothing special. 

Furthermore the label is absolute crap!

Look at that, it's peeling away! They literally just take a clear glass bottle, pump their soda in, slap some glue on a piece of paper, toss that on there and out the door is goes. Boylan is ink laid onto the glass so it will never wear off. I have been keeping a collection of all my bottles recently and this one just will look awkward. The IBC Black Cheery with it's no-paint no-label all glass design is nice. The simple and bold expression of a Boylan label. But this is just a picture of an old guy with an odd red growth coming off his head.

Seriously, what is that?

Before I have even opened it I am unimpressed. Please prove me wrong Frostie! On an unrelated note, I wonder what blue cream is? I think that if you ever find blue cream you probably shouldn't drink it, it's probably been out a bit too long.

     I had a lot of trouble getting the cap off. Gonna blame that one me, it's been a while that this soda has been sitting there. My very very first thought was "well, it smells like cream soda." I really wonder what makes it so darned blue. On the topic I do really love the coloring. I know it's probably killing me but look at it!

The coloring is so darned pretty!

There is absolutely not visible carbonation which could work well or not, we'll see. Definitely not impressed with the carbonation just looking at it though. Okay, first taste. Hmmm it really does taste mostly like cream soda. Whoa after taste is a super duper powerful burst of cream soda. The after taste actually lends itself to that feeling of after you take a swig of HFCS. There's 48 grams of sugar which isn't ridiculous, but fairly high for only a 12 ounce bottle. I dunno I suppose it tastes pretty good. It's basically just a flavor like a cream soda with a little bit extra layered on top of it. I'm just wondering what that extra flavoring is on top since in the ingredients is just lists the generics like carbonated water, preservatives and sugar then is has "artificial flavor". That could be anything. Carbonation is non-existent. Total let down in that department, I can't feel it, I can't even hardly see it!

    I do not like the flavor in comparison to other things. If I didn't have to pay for it and it were offered to me I wouldn't turn it down it's just that the flavor doesn't mesh well with itself. Like I said there's an extra layer. It's sort of fruity. This has a lot of the failings that Sidral Mundet did. It's so damned middle of the ground. It's not a cream soda until after it's out of your mouth then it just kicks you. It's also not really a fruity taste because it's so subtle. If I had to describe it I would probably say that it's basically cream soda with way too much sugar. This may be blasphemous but they may as well use HFCS. The feeling I get in my mouth is so similar that even if they used HFCS I don't think I would notice at all.

     Overall, this is probably the bottom of the non-generic sodas I have had. It definitely beats out your Coke, Pepsi, Mountain Dew and all those others but it's left behind by something like a Henry Weinhard's Vanilla Cream soda. Maybe give this to a kid? They would like the sweetness and probably the flavor and the glass bottling. That would be the only reason to really get it though.

Soda Review: IBC Black Cherry

Background

    IBC is a very well known brand, most notable for their Root Beer. IBC Root Beer is sort of the generic good soda that restaurants and places will buy because it's in a glass bottle and is pretty cheap and pretty good tasting. I know this was bought at Meijer but it was bought a very long time ago. In fact, this was purchased back before I really had an interest in soda. It was the first time my dad brought home a 6-pack of soda in a glass bottle because he knew I liked sweets and would appreciate it. Actually, come to think of it this really had a large part in this site and my interest with soda in general. It introduced me to "good soda" and glass bottling as a serious thing. The design on the 6-pack really is superb, makes me thirsty just seeing it.

Really is just a pretty box, the lighting isn't great but the colors on there are very vivid and nice. For a little while I drank them voraciously, but then I had one lonely little one that you can see pictured above.

A little proof, mold from age in my basement. Ew.

I really have no idea what this cost, I'll give a rough estimate of 4 dollars for a 6-Pack though. All that being said, Black Cherry is an extremely interesting flavor for IBC to tackle, it's really not something that you would normally expect. In fact, I don't think I've ever even had a black cherry. Do those even exist? Whatever, I'm a soda taster not a food critic! On with the analysis!

Review

     The bottling is fantastic. Come to think of it, I actually haven't found a bottle I didn't like. Well, who's to complain. Here's a picture for you:

It was hard to get a picture because this bottle is pure glass. The only paint you will find is on the bottle cap! I think that's great because when you put paint on a can or bottle when it gets recycled it's actually bad for the environment because to remove those paints before they melt down the metal they have to use highly toxic paint removers. This bottle however is simple and efficient. The lack of paint is also why I included a cap picture at the top, it almost tells more of a story than the full body picture. Look at that color as well. Such a nice, dark rosy color.

    I first opened it and the first thing to really hit me was a nice "pop!" sound no "psst". Usually the nature of a screw off is more of a slow release of carbonation but not in this case. Second I notice the carbonation, ther was just the perfect sizing of the bubbles.

Yep, that's pretty much perfection. This just got me really excited to start drinking it. The carbonation simply looks to be really good!

Oh god, the smell. Seriously some of the best smells I have gotten off any soda ever. It's like an extremely strong Dr. Pepper smell.

    On first taste I notice the High Fructose Corn Syrup pretty immediately. Yeah, IBC uses High Fructose Corn Syrup but that's because they aren't very small at all. Companies like that tend to go only for the corn syrup. The big difference between Sugar and Corn Syrup is that is leaves an after taste. In this case I actually found it pretty unpleasing. I had just finished drinking and then it stuck there for a little while, it was strange. However, I feel the High Fructose Corn Syrup is not overdone at all. It has a definite sweetness that distracts from the real flavors of the soda, but it's not over powering. It makes the soda nice and sweet rather than being purely flavor. It's like Boylan's Root Beer versus a normal nothing fancy root beer. Boylan's has a pure flavor with little sweetness layered on, but IBC layers sweetness on top of the flavor.

    I really don't know what to think of this soda. I like it, it tastes good but it's not a party soda like Henry Weinhard's Vanilla Cream. That soda was just mild enough you could serve it anywhere and it would go over well. This is fruity so it almost seems childish. I personally like fruity sodas but I think that others might not. However, I could definitely see this as a gift. The glass bottles, 6-pack design and flavor are all nice enough and non-controversial enough that people would not be disappointed by it.

     I've got it! This is a mainstream soda! It's just got a pretty nice, nothing special flavor with not much going on. It's got High Fructose Corn Syrup sorta acting as a safety net so that it will taste nice. The only real difference between this and a Faygo Black Cherry is the glass bottling.

     Taking that idea to the next level what I would really, really love to see is this but with pure sugar. Then stack some more flavors on top of it. This is a good flavor that's nice and sweet with corn syrup but imagining this with cane sugar and a twist or vanilla. Oh man, that would be so good. The black cherry flavor would hit you hard since the sugar would not distract and then after that's done you'd have a lingering feeling of vanilla and that would make it go down super smooth. With this sort of carbonation as well it would be such a fantastic soda. A dash of chocolate too would be amazing.

     If anything, I sort of wish that this were just a flavor included in something like Torani's Italian soda syrups. I want to mix it around and be able to choose my own sweetness rather than be given preset parameters for what this soda should be.


Overall, it's not a bad soda at all. Good bottling, good flavor all that. It's just that it could be sooo much more! It went the generic, mainstream route and if it were run by a smaller brewery it could really pop and be an absolutely amazing soda rather than nothing special that you drink on the side with a meal.

Soda Review: Boylan Root Beer

Background

     Boylan Bottling Company is a soda bottling company that has been around since 1891, being one of the older bottling companies still in existence today. I bought this bottle locally at Busch's for $1.29, very widely available in general you can get it online from Amazon. They also have many flavors other than Root Beer that I will hopefully be reviewing sometime. They take a lot of pride in their soda, sporting slogans like this:

They seem to be very serious about all this indeed. More importantly, they trash on the more Faygo brand of sodas that have plastic bottling and lots of High Fructose Corn Syrup. I think I'm in for an interesting one this time around.

Review

    The bottling is just so darned good. Look at the shape, it's so simple and elegant. A nice curve to the stem that just pleases the eye. The overall design is just so crisp and simple. A big circle with their name around it to just say "This is our root beer. We don't mess around with all that fluff, just drink it and love it." The cap is weirdly huge and wraps around quite a bit more than a normal cap but that's because it's resealable! How nice is that! There is a belief that to cut down on the calories and sugar intake of soda you should just have half of one, then the rest later on. I try to do this with Faygo since the sugar levels are so high and it's nice to see that it's a possibility even in a glass bottle. Speaking of the bottle, that thing is freaking thick.

2 quarters thick, that is.

They say that the thickness and dark color helps to preserve freshness because then no sunlight gets in. I know that for Beers that is a big deal, so why not for Root Beers?

     As far as the ingredients go you can see from the top image that they sport real cane sugar. The full ingredients list is nice and short, which it should be for a soda and it does indeed deliver on the Cane Sugar.

Only 7 ingredients and one of them is Cane Sugar

    When I first opened it up it made a lovely little "ssss" sound, not a pop at all due to the design of the cap. You can only really slowly release it, not blast it off all at once. The smell is just exactly like a Root Beer you have had many times before and it really reminded me strongly of being a kid and opening up a Barq's Root Beer which to me was clearly superior to A&W. I would even go a few days without Barq's so that I would forget what it tasted like then when I had it again it would be so damn good. I think that smell should give some memories to just about anyone who had a childhood with soda in it or Root Beer Floats.

    First sip and it's smooooooth like you wouldn't believe. The carbonation is such an after thought, I love it. It's like the bubbles stick to the soda so well that you don't even barely feel them be in there but then you get all the nice side effects like good burps. On the topic, I seriously had one of the best burps from drinking this than I have had in months. It was a good, long burp that reminded me of the flavor and smell of the root beer and it wasn't one of those gross ones that gets forced out, it was just a release. So nice.

    After getting to know the flavor a bit more I can say that it's just a pure root beer. Like if you put basically no sugar in a root beer this is more what you would get. The flavor is just very there, it's not masked by lots of sweetness, you just get to bask in the Root Beer flavor and enjoy it fully. The bottle continues to come into play here. It is so thick that the hole for drinking is small so you have to go slow, which is a very good thing. One thing that really confused me however was the distinct lack of froth.

You can see that it's basically just a small ring on the top, almost nothing. For a solid root beer like this I would have expected a solid inch of froth floating joyfully on the top of the liquid, but nope. I like froth in my Root Beer, quite a lot actually but for this I don't know. It was such a solid soda that having too much bubbles on the top may have taken away. I really wish it did at least have some though. Not a huge deal, just disappointing.

      This soda really just makes me happy. It's such a no non-sense soda. It just has a nice, delightful Root Beer flavor and it just hands it to you. The Vanilla Cream Soda from the other day was a total party soda. Like you would have it in Solo cups but Boylan Root Beer is a really authentic soda. I want to point out the logo again. You can see that it's just 3 colors: yellow, white and black. That is totally what this soda is, it doesn't mess around with zany in-your-face logos and flavors. It just presents itself and lets you judge.

     Overall, this is definitely the best Root Beer I have personally ever had. It's not overly sweet and it's extremely root beery. I just loved basically everything about it, I would drink this forever if I could. Spike from www.rootbeerreviews.com gave Boylan a B. You can check out his review on this page. I noticed that he said that it was the foamiest Root Beer he has ever had. I find that interesting since I found almost the complete opposite. I'll definitely check out some of his "A" sodas like the Henry Weinhard Root Beer sometime and see how much I agree with him.

A Unique Dr. Pepper Experience

This will be a bit more writing intensive because I don't really have any cool pictures that would make sense so sorry about that.

So, I've been at theater for the past week for "tech week". For those that do not know, in a theater the week before the play is called "tech week", that is the time when everyone in the whole theater, actors and technical crew stay until 9 PM everyday after school. That's the reason I haven't posted but you know, no excuses, no regrets. Anyways so we always get fed right after school but that's it. Right around 8 last night Jason and I were on the sound board and we got pretty hungry. We both asked Eitan to go out and grab some McDonald's for us. We both ordered a Big Mac, Fries and a Dr. Pepper.

I was having my meal and then I sipped the Dr. Pepper but it wasn't quite right. To explain why it was "off" and tasted different from canned Dr. Pepper you need to understand how a soda machine works. When you are dispensing the soda into a cup you can see a stream of clear liquid and a stream of colored liquid. The clear is basically just bubbly water and the colored is just syrup. So as you can imagine, too much syrup and you get a very sweet soda, too much water and you get a watery soda. Most people have probably experienced the latter because places that are really cheap will actually turn down how much syrup is dispensed since the syrup is much much more expensive that the carbonated water.

This soda that I had from McDonald's was basically a normal Dr. Pepper but with way too much syrup. Even Jason noticed it and pointed it out. What the most noticeable change was is not the flavor but the feeling in the mouth. When I had finished a sip my mouth would have some saliva and when I swallowed that it actually tasted like Dr. Pepper. Not something like watered down Dr. Pepper but exactly Dr. Pepper. This was due to the large amount of High Fructose Corn Syrup in the soda. The High Fructose Corn Syrup basically sticks the the roof of your mouth. On a bottle of Boylan Root Beer they said that the reason they use sugar instead of High Fructose Corn Syrup is that is leaves a sticky feeling in the mouth. I definitely felt that but I actually really liked it.

I ended up liking the Dr. Pepper quite a bit and it made me wonder if a fast food restaurant could get well known for having sweeter, better tasting sodas than the other ones ad thus sell more. Make it almost a destination "come taste the super Coke!" It would be interesting, there is already about a 10,000% profit on soda sold in Fast Food places so upping the syrup would not hurt you too much and it could really increase sales if you advertise and market it right.

Soda Review: Henry Weinhard's Vanilla Cream

Background

I bought a six pack of this locally for only $4.69, a fair price for a glass bottled soda. Very easily available online as well, for example from

here.This is a soda that markets itself as being old fashioned and hand crafted and having the recipe passed down for generations on a scroll that was kept in a vault where the only person who knows the code is the man who tames and owl to caw the morse code and blah blah blah. Basically, it's just a pretty standard soda but they chose to give it a sort of rustic boxing and such. I chose to have this particular soda with a side of 2 slices of bacon pizza from Cottage Inn, what a lovely meal!

Here's one of their little blurbs as read on the bottle. Like I said, "We proudly present", all that jargon. Except there's one major catch!

Yep. High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Now, I wouldn't really have all that much of an issue with HFCS(as it will hereby be referred to) but all over the bottle it touts all this stuff about "natural ingredients" and "hand-crafted". Yeah, hand-crafted with freaking HFCS! So right off the bat I hate the marketing. They are just totally lying about who they are, but let's not let this cloud our judgement and jump right into it!

Review

First off, the bottling really is pretty well done. I know that it's misleading but the art and coloring is really just pretty good overall. It's a twist off, yay! It popped open with a nice little "bop" sound and I took a whiff. Oh man, I'm salivating this stuff smells gorgeous! It's so sweet but yet it still has an interesting flavor, something I don't think I've had very often. I admittedly haven't had very much cream sodas so I was really pretty excited for this one.

On my first sip I immediately just think "wow, this flavor is amazing!" It was definitely not like anything I had had before. It was in the ball park of a regular Faygo cream soda but it definitely had more to it. It had that underlying vanilla flavor carrying it along. I expected it to be as mouth-puckeringly sweet at faygo sodas due to the HFCS but I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was very, very sweet but not overwhelming. The carbonation is so so, I think I would have liked more because I like to feel the bubbles but they are there and they don't make you burpy so whatever.

I take a sip of water to refresh and then I taste again and I just feel the exact same way, what an amazing flavor. But it's not a deep flavor. For example, I have had sodas made with nothing but ginger and other spices and those sodas are like an ocean. You can take as many sips as you want but you'll never get to experience the whole thing because there are so many levels to the flavors. This is just sort of a "party soda" because it has a consistent but really good flavor. I can taste it over and over and it's always the same but it's always good. If anything I would recommend this as a soda for kids because of this quality. It would be a great gift as well because it comes in such an attractive little 6-pack with such nice labeling and bottling so it looks classy but it just tastes so good, nobody will complain. Oh yeah , did I mention the froth?

Beauty.

Seriously, just look at that. It's a solid centimeter of froth just from me drinking normally. That is just so pretty! I've never seen froth like that on anything but a root beer.

Overall thoughts:

This is a great soda being marketed totally incorrectly. The glass bottling and old, stern man on the front doesn't fit it's tasty and playful qualities. This would be so much better suited to come in a plastic bottle with a friendly, bright logo shouting out "Hey! Buy me and have a great time!" Right now the only way I would get this is if I knew that it really was just another fun candy like soda(like you do now!) or as a gift to someone. I really liked the soda itself, marketing basically just failed on this one.

Ingredients: Carbonated Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Pure Vanilla Bean Extract, Citric Acid, Sodium Benzoate (Preserves Freshness), Botanical Extracts, Caramel Color, Honey, Natural Flavors.

Soda Review: Sidral Mundet Apple Soda

Well this is my first review so it might be a bit spongy. Bear with me, criticisms welcome.

Background

Sidral Mundet is an imported soda from Mexico. It is available quite widely in states. I purchased my 2 bottles locally, I believe from a "World Market" store for 89 cents a bottle. Obtaining it online is also not too difficult, you could try here. It has a pretty big following online because of its somewhat exotic nature. Definitely a large draw to hipsters. I definitely went into this one with a fair bit of skepticism.

Review

Well my first thought was "how the hell and I supposed to get the top of". At first I was twisting and twisting, I actually ended up hurting my hand a little bit but then it turned out it was a pop off. Damning all old fashioned purists, I proceeded to go upstairs and scour for a bottle opener. I actually didn't find one oddly enough, seems like it should be something in every kitchen. I found out my can opener had a handy little thing that let me open it up. It made a nice little pop and I brought it back downstairs.

I gave it a whiff and it had a definite appley smell but it was very subtle. I started to like it right there, I go like a subtle soda. The coloring is quite attractive as well, looks like a deep apple juice but not quite as dark as a cider. Of course, natural sugar in this one. High Fructose Corn Syrup is not something you'll usually find in a glass bottle of soda. Speaking of bottling, this is one of the most attractive bottles I've ever seen. It's just a simple glass bottle with no real paint on it and a label. Simple, classic and wonderful.

I decided to drink it chilled straight from the bottle, no ice. The first taste was an overwhelming "meh". I tasted the apples and I liked it, don't get me wrong but it was like the whole taste was an aftertaste. I actually found myself not taking sips and thinking I was basically just downing it because once the liquid is off the tongue, the flavor almost disappears. It is also absolutely nothing like sparkling apple juice. It is much less powerful than any apple juice I've had or any sparkling apple juice. I would recommend it for a drink with dinner, not as a soda that you have on its own as a treat.

The carbonation was really really good, not overwhelming not underpowering. Fine bubbles that tickle the mouth and you feel them but they aren't overbearing. This is definitely the one very strong suit of this soda. This let you take multiple sips or take huge mouthfuls without encountering major issues. Taking multiple sips like that where I guess it's more on the side of "chugging" is way, way more satisfying than sipping. Definitely the way I recommend to drink this soda.

There is a slight lip to the top of the bottle that makes it hug nicely to the contours of my lips. This makes the soda wash nicely over my tongue. Really not a huge deal but it's the small things that make you realize when you're having a soda with some thought put into it.

The reason that this doesn't hit as hard could be due to the "natural sugar" versus the Corn Syrup. It really doesn't punch you in the face at all, it just sort of lightly taps you with a nice, sincere apple flavor. I sometimes really like the natural sugar but for this particular soda, I would have liked more sweetness.

Overall it's a pretty decent soda but it's just so, so middle of the road. It's not too flavorful, not too carbonated not too sweet not too anything. It's just sorta there as a side thought. For this reason I don't recommend it as a treat, I would recommend it with a meal to be used to wash down something else. I think it would go very well with any fruit dish or perhaps even with some meat.