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: 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.