Review: Waialua Pineapple Soda

For a summary of this review please go here.

Before Drinking

Background:
I got this soda from World Market for $1.49. It is also available online. I am quite excited for this soda because I have never had Pineapple soda before and it sounds really yummy. I have had plenty of pineapple before though, in fact once I had so much pineapple in a week that the acid made my mouth raw. Very uncomfortable, partly because of the pain of eating any salty but mostly because then I couldn't eat anymore pineapple for a month!

Generic, especially the fonts

Bottling: The bottle shape is quite standard, I think that they probably just buy something generic. There is a little bit less of a transition from the body to the neck than I am used to, but it isn't bad. Just really boring and kind of bleh, doesn't show at all what the soda will be like. The labeling is okay, font wasn't chosen very carefully and although it isn't ugly it isn't anything special. It doesn't feel like terrible professional labeling, the fonts are pretty normal and outlined for no particular reason. No clue why they put the logo in red besides it matching with the blue background. It's neat that they did the blue for the sky and the yellow circle for the sun. The logo is pretty cool, gives the Hawaiian feel for sure. I am also quite fond of the cap, it is simple and to the point.

Despite the pretty lame branding I am excited because this soda is so legit. When things have generic themes like "Hawaiian" it is often a concern that they are just doing it for marketing purposes. A lot of tourist traps do cheesy stuff like this. This soda is not messing around at all though. Not only is the company actually in Waialua Hawaii but the ingredients are even Hawaiian. The sugar used is a mix of generic cane sugar and Maui White Cane Sugar. That's awesome and it's probably going to lend a very unique flavor.

Ingredients are normal besides that. I wish that I saw some pineapple juice in the ingredients though. The nutrition facts are similarly normal. No sodium is a bit out of the ordinary and there is maybe 6 or 7 less grams of sugar than is usual, so nothing terribly exciting.

During Drinking

Popping the top made a nice sound and my nose is immediately filled with the flavor of pineapple. I can tell already this is going to taste amazing. There is no visible carbonation when I opened it which is a bit discouraging. First taste and the flavor isn't over whelming. Really a fairly subtle pineapple taste. Carbonation is a little bit stronger than most fruity sodas, but that's the way I like it. The lip of the bottle is fairly thin, which I really like the feel of. I feel like the flavor is just sort of underwhelming. Just last night I had a pineapple freeze pop (I'm a kid at heart) and it had a much stronger flavor. I think that probably the cane sugar is what is not doing this soda justice. Yes, I know that it is heresy but I think that pineapples as sticky and sweet. Sodas with high fructose corn syrup just simply have a lasting effect in your mouth, a sort of sticky sweetness that cane sugar does not offer. Cane sugar is a very clean flavor that gets washed down easily and that isn't something I associated with pineapples. I appreciate that they used the Maui Cane Sugar but I will always choose quality over pride.

After Drinking

I think that ultimately this soda falls flat in a lot of areas. It has a boring bottle, boring flavor, generic logo and dull fonts. I am still enjoying it because it is sugary and sweet, but I feel this soda could be so much more than it is. Pineapple is a flavor that could be so wonderful but they don't seem to let be as strong as it should be. The only thing I am thoroughly pleased with is the level of carbonation, that is really spot on. I feel this might just be an unfortunate tourist trap. Just marketing "Hawaiian soda!" without caring too much about the quality of their product.

Overall, I would say that if you happen across it you might as well give it a shot just so you can say you've had pineapple soda. I wouldn't recommend that you go out of your way for it though. Not a party soda, not a meal soda, not a gourmet soda. This doesn't really fill a niche other than people going "Ooo pineapple soda, I think I'll have to try that!"

I hate doing negative reviews. You can notice that the during section is always really short when I don't have things to gush over.

Twitter!

I got a twitter page. Why? Well, no real reason. It will probably not be entirely soda related and I don't really know what I plan. I guess follow it if you want to have fun things to read every once in a while. I'll maybe try to post something before I post as a little spoiler for fun. Here's the link!

http://twitter.com/juliansoda

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.