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: Jone's Soda Root Beer

Before

Background: I bought this from the Starbuck's at my school for $1.39. Jone's Soda is not hard to come by at all, this is probably the most mainstream soda I have reviewed with the possible exception of the Izze I did a few weeks back. I have Jones before and I have a good opinion of it. Even back in middle school when I had this my friends advertised that it had real sugar and said that it really tasted better because of that. At least back when I had it then I liked it quite a bit.

I despise this marketing. They are selling this stuff as hipster juice. I mean really, check out the text that they use as their marketing blurb.

Hipster Rhetoric! Yay!

Text from the bottle:

"Independent since '96

If you're like us, you think for yourself. Come on...do they really believe we'll fall for flashy ad campaigns that cost more than a solid fold private jet? Don't expect to find any of that here - we let what we do speak for itself. At Jones we';re just regular people who make good soda. While we can't promise you more popularity or better hair, if we like your photo, we'll put it on a bottle. Jones Soda, independent since 1996. Your photo. Your soda. Your brand."

"If you're like us, you think for yourself." I just really hate that line and how they are implying that they are somehow not a corporation. The fact of the matter is that the Jones Soda Company had $17.625 million in revenue in 2010. That is serious money. Perhaps they are not making solid gold jets but to try to look down on other soda companies for having money is just plain stupid. Compared to something like Boylan's which only makes about $5 million in revenue they are massive.

Inverted Cane Sugar - sorry for picture quality

Okay, so complaining aside there is a whole ton that is right about this bottling. The font of the logo is fantastic. Bold and readable, sticks out and is not annoying to read at all. The photos on the bottle are indeed made by fans.  That's pretty cool, you can even see the name of the person who submitted the photo and where they are from. The main qualm I have with doing that though is that it lends itself to just completely random and off topic things as the main focus of the label. This bottle in particular has two people holding hands. What this has to do with root beer is beyond me. It is a nice picture but it just feels very out of context to me.

I really like this bottle because of an extreme subtlety that really makes the bottle unique and good. The neck is actually very very slightly bulged. This makes it so that your fingers wrap around the area right above the main body of the bottle perfectly. It's like there is a very subtle lip there that holds the bottle ever so slightly on your finger. They did something very similar with the strong curve which transitions from the body of the bottle to the neck. It bulges out slightly from the body so that when you hold the bottle from the body. I actually checked my other bottles and I noticed that this bulge is present in every bottle. I suspect it is an artifact from the bottle making process. I will definitely look in to this more and do an article on it soon. I'm really interested in why that bulge occurs.

Overall, the bottling is a bit boring. I like that the coloring of the label is custom to each flavor so that it matches the color of the liquid inside. Just a good little touch.

During

Open opening there are the perfect amount of bubbles. Just like 3 layers find their way up to the neck as the great little "pssh" sound escapes in to the air. I absolutely love that the cap is resealable. The cap also off perfectly easily. I usually don't notice this too much but this is definitely a beautifully done cap. There is a message under every cap. Mine was "turn off your cell phone." That's actually a really really cool thing to put. First off, we are way too connected to our phones lately and second off it really just says "sit down for a moment and enjoy this soda, forget about anything else like your emails or your texts." I'll follow the direction! Bottle holds fantastically, it has a perfect weighting distribution to have presence in your hand but not be too awkward. Sometimes a bottle will be too awkward and it will feel too heavy in the hand or be too slender and you can barely feel anything because the weight is so distributed.
First sip, it has a nice somewhat mild root beer flavor. The after taste is almost stronger than when it goes down. I notice this for a lot of root beers and sodas in general. I could be that once it gets aerated it hits the nose and the taste is stronger then. I really love the carbonation levels. It has a full body when its in your mouth, giving nice good burps that aren't total belches. If I chugged they would be though! Flavor is a bit mild but I burnt my tongue pretty recently so that might be it. That actually has me very worried. I think I might not be giving the flavor of this soda justice because of my tongue. Darn. Chugging really fills the belly quickly but then the burps didn't come, wuh oh. Not recommended. This just leaves me feeling bloated and the flavor isn't much stronger when I chug. Some sodas are really powerful when chugged but this one not so much. Now I'm slowly burping it up so it's not as bad but still, sip this one down.
It doesn't have HFCS which makes it naturally quite a bit thinner than something which does have the syrup. The cane sugar doesn't have the body that syrup does. To make up for this lack of body they put in more carbonation which I think is really brilliant. I often find that the sodas that lack HFCS also lack body in general. This doesn't have the "hit you in the face" total full body that a Boylan's has but it is still pretty good.
The only failing of this I think is the somewhat weak flavor. Carbonation really pulls this together and makes it a good soda, but without that carbonation it would be pretty weak because the flavor isn't great. I've just had root beers that are so much stronger than this, and they didn't have to go for the HFCS either.
Overall, I think that the marketing is terrible, the flavor is not as strong or as complex as it could be but the brilliant carbonation and overal goodness of everything else ties it together and makes it a good soda.

Same soda, different environment!

After

The cap goes on nice and tight which is fantastic for my collection purposes. I've been keeping the empties of every bottled soda I drink as of late. Most of the caps for these sodas go back on but loosely at best. I like having the cap because then I keep the logo that they use for the cap, which tend to be a nicely made and simple logo. Overall, I would recommend this not as a party soda, this is a soda either to be drank on its own or to wash down a good American meal. Burger, fries, and a Jone's Root Beer sounds like a damned good time. Bottling leaves a bit to be desired but it has the best carbonation and cap of any soda I have encountered.

Izze Sparkling Clementine Review

Excuse the photo quality, I had to use my phone

Background:
Izze is a soda that I have been drinking for years, most notably their Pomegranate soda. I remember early on that was one of my first "weird" sodas that I tried out. This particular soda was bought by me from the Starbucks at my college. I got to use my monopoly money to buy it too so it was basically free!

Pre-Drinking

Bottling is utterly boring. There is a minor bulging from where it transitions from being a perfect cylinder for labeling and the neck. Neck is fairly broad and very straight. Very sharp turn on the neck implies that it is trying to be a straightforward soda. Not a thin tall neck for something fancy and not a broad neck for something bold like a strong root beer. Just in between. It appeals to mass market well (this is Izze after all) but I don’t like it too much to be honest.

Labeling is of course amazing. Their logo is simply, colorful and invokes the idea of fruitiness well. They have a whole marketing term and graphic artists and stuff to figure this all out so I’m not surprised at all. The coloring is absolutely perfect too. This is awesome but I am not surprised again, this is a well-funded soda, not some tiny indie thing. The red and orange perfectly complements the coloring of the soda itself and the white border gives a nice clean look to the overall logo. For a fruit soda this is great, very clean, very colorful, invokes the idea of the soda perfectly.

Simply and cute logo

Apple and White grape juice come out above Clementine on the ingredients. This is actually a really geat idea and something I have seen before. Apple juice is so mild and cheap that it adds a nice little sweet flavor while being filler. White grape juice is similar, it is a nice and simple flavor that won’t get in the way of the clementine and should accentuate it in all reality. Sparkling water is fourth on the list, which is really cool; this is going to taste much more like a sparkling fruit juice than a fruity flavored soda. That was also the point of the apple and grape juices make it a juice instead of just a sugary soda. Really a great recipe, this strays far away from something like a Faygo grape soda, which I love.

Again, sorry if you can't read it

Their little marketing blurb backs up all what I wrote. “We stay true to the fruit. Izze is all natural. No refined sugars. No caffeine. No preservatives. It’s 70% pure fruit juice. With a splash of sparkling water.”

After seeing the ingredients I believe it too, very cool to see this in the world of HFCS taking over.

Strong marketing because this is from
a major company

Sugar count is really low as one would expect, only 27g. It is common to see upwards of 40g in something like a faygo soda of comparable size. Calories are on par with what I expect at 120. Somewhat low, but because the sugar is so low it makes sense. This is certainly going to be a much more healthy alternative to a standard sort of ultra sugary soda.

Drinking:

Twist off of course, I like that they label it so I know. With things like the Jarrito’s I had I expect a twist off and was wrong which was sort of frustrating but also I enjoyed it. I do prefer twist off to pop off. Nice simply pop and the scent is wafting, very very strong smell on this I love it. Not much carbonation on opening, as expected. This is a juice, not as much a soda.

That flavor is fantastic and reminds me thoroughly of the Cas Cal. It is much more citrusy than the Cas Cal but that sort of mixture of fruit juices with apple juice as a base all has a fairly similar flavor. Carbonation is fairly non-existent. I don’t even notice it chugging and putting the bottle on the table fairly hard really results in not much more than a small flurry of bubbles popping up to the surface.

Lack of HFCS is perfect. I wouldn’t want this sticking in my mouth and it lends a very clean flavor that washes down nicely. The very slight bite of the citrus acid is fantastic to remind you of the soda without being over bearing. It is a little bit thinner than I would like. It doesn’t have HFCS to thicken it and since they are essentially watering down juice it comes out a bit more thin than a fruit juice would. This gives it very little presence as it is in your mouth and as it goes down. I think this might be a situational soda.

Post-drink

The flavor is so good. This really is a soda that is done very very right. The only complaint I could think is that I wish it did have more presence. However I feel like that might be more of a stylistic choice than anything else. The fact that it is thinner than say a bold root beer or a pure fruit juice makes it so that it is absolutely perfect for washing down food. I imagine this soda is intended to go with meals and for that purpose it is absolutely perfect. My recommendation then would be to not have this soda on its own, the flavor is good but I got used to it quickly. With some sodas like the Jarrito’s or the Cas Cal the flavor was subtle enough and washed out of my mouth quickly enough that I kept wanting to drink more to get a handle on what the flavor actually was like. This has less of that since I know what it tastes like pretty much after the first 2 or 3 gulps. Fantastic soda nonetheless, my hat goes off to Izze. They have chosen to use their money and success well to create a better product rather than just copping out and going for a HFCS lame fruity soda. I am going to look into the history of the company a bit as well. I imagine they started out as a small independent bottling company and their initial ideas behind the soda were held true even through the company’s massive success. 

New posts soon!

Hey there, I'm still at college. It has been a damned fun time and I can comfortably say that I am making the most of it in my first term. My winter break starts fairly soon so I will obviously be doing reviews when I am back home but I have even better news. I expected there to be no good soda but I was totally wrong. At the book store I was able to get some Jone's soda and at the Starbucks I picked up some Izze. The Izze Clementine soda review is done at the moment, just needs to be prettied up a bit. My friend who is from Schenectady also said that there is a store I could go to that has all sorts of great sodas so hopefully I will be able to stop by there sometime.

There is also the matter of some old notes I have that never got finalized. For 2-3 sodas I drank them, wrote up notes and saved them as a draft on the blog but never put the actual post together. I have stuff going all the way back to January that I totally forgot about! So I'm going to finalize those posts and get them up, they will be light on pictures though because I don't have the bottling on me(they are at home in my empty bottle collection).

So that's some good news, I'm really glad that I get to keep writing from school!

Cas Cal All Natural Soda Review

Background:

Sell by July 11 2011... oops.

 This is an old soda. I mean like I bought this back when I bought the Sidral Mundet that I did for my first review. Proof is that way -->
Oh well, soda doesn't really go bad if it was bottled properly. For whatever reason getting this review out has been a huge problem for me. I have had it sitting on my desk for about a week waiting to get opened but whenever I had the freetime to do it I would always find myself straying to Reddit and wasting time there which I heavily regret. I wish I had been able to do more reviews while I still had so much time, but here we are. I'm also going to be trying a bit of a different review style to bear with me and if possible leave a comment letting me know what you think. I got this for $1.79 from World Market.

Particulate matter. Too. Freaking. Cool.

Pre-Drinking
Okay with that out of the way let me say that I am absolutely pumped to drink this soda. It is such a completely different direction that I have not seen at all so I know it is going to be a very unique experience. What that picture to the left looks like is an embryo in an egg. However it is actually the pulp of the soda. Yes, you heard me right, this soda has solid particle matter in it. How freaking cool is that! I had to shake it up a bit and it makes the soda foggy which is pretty cool, although I'm not a bit afraid to open it.

Fermented? Oooooo

"Serve chilled in good company"

The other huge thing that I noticed immediately is that the writing on it is really out of the ordinary. Here's some picture to show what I mean. It says it has Black currant, Cherry and Mirabelle which is nothing I have ever tasted before. It is only 60 calories. 60 calories! That is insane, even for a juice that is low. It makes me fear that it might be lacking in flavor but we'll find out soon enough. The logo is absolutely brilliantly done, it is very simple and classy and it fits the color scheme of the soda which I absolutely love to see. The color of the soda is also brilliant, it is a nice healthy red that is clearly not dyed that way at all. It just looks natural in it's color and I love that. The font is custom and fits in beautifully with the design of the logo which I adore.

100% refreshing!

This is the strangest nutrition facts I have ever seen on a bottle. No seriously, this is unlike anything I've ever seen on any bottle of soda or anything else. It is high(ish) in carbs because of the fruit but it has basically no calories and the ingredients list doesn't include a "natural flavorings" or "artificial flavorings" or and food coloring at all. That alone has gotten me really excited for this soda because it really looks like it is indeed mature. This is a soda for classy people to enjoy, not to be guzzled because you are thirsty. They did a great job on the labels too, they used paper instead of plastic which gives a better feel while you hold it especially for a glass bottle. They also got it on extremely evenly, often when there is not a wrap around design to the label it has a tendency to have edges that don't quite get glued on or that come off because they are a bit weaker on there but this is very solidly on. Even after over 3/4 of a year in storage there is nothing more than a few knicks on the paper.

The bottle is genius. I can't say I've seen masterful bottle design in many places besides root beers but this really nails it. It bulges out slightly in the bottom. It just feels so appropriate to not have an absolutely insane bottle but just this very minor customization that makes it different and makes it sit a little bit better. It has a very short neck as well which I really like. I have seen long necks that work very well like what Boylan's does but this just drives home the concept of simplicity. This is a light soda, as they say on the text on the neck. It doesn't need extravagance, it needs a normal bottle with just a hint of class added. The bottle cap says "Cheers! Salut!" which is perhaps a bit odd. Salut in French is the less formal way of saying hi, I mean I suppose it's sort of appropriate but it feels more like they were just adding random French to try to class it up some more. Random French for classing things up a bit is not a bad thing, messing up a translation is!

Drinking:

Oh my, it's a pop-top not a twist off! Didn't see that one coming, pop-tops are a more or less dead breed. I suppose I don't have terribly strong opinions but I prefer twist off, they both keep the soda vacuum fresh and twist off is more convenient. I do like the old-time feel and the more interactivity of a pop-top. I think if any soda should have it it's this one. Anyways I'll go get my bottle opener!

Okay opened up and popping the top was admittedly quite fun. The pfft wasn't as good as a twist off but what can you expect. It looks to be very carbonated. First drink now! Oh my god this is really great. Wow, it's very much different from what I have had before. I really like the Black Currant flavoring, it gives a great after taste. The carbonation is super appropriate, it is definitely strong and there but the bubbles are fine, not over bearing at all. This soda really has found what it wanted to do and delivered. I got some mild burps which were fun but like everything else they weren't over powering. This is just exactly the sort of soda I would have with a salad for lunch, it's so legitimately fruity without tasting like juice. It tastes like it uses apple juice as a core liquid and then had the other flavors stacked on top of it. I find I'm not writing too much because I just want to drink the stuff! I am having some trouble tasting the cherry, if anything at times I feel the Black Currant is a bit too strong that it doesn't let the other flavors blend with it. It has a definite bite to it as well. That is the fermentation which I really quite like. It again gives it a mature flavor. Just burped straight into my nose, burned sort of but not nearly anything like a Vernon's nose burn. When I let the flavor sit in my mouth for a while without taking another sip it starts to have a bit of a nasty feeling, I definitely didn't have the cleanest mouth going into this but the fruits have amplified that. The only criticism I could think of is if I was looking for something different. If I was trying to quench a thirst and expected to do that with this like it were a Sprite I would be let down. If I were looking for a soda that I could drink on it's own and have it have a lot of sweetness I would have been let down. But I went into it with thinking that this was a light, classy soda that wasn't going to ball me over with sweetness. It really does do a great job of delivering on flavor. I like to feel that the nutrition facts that a soda chooses to use are setting its limitations. For example, if I decide to make a soda and I figure I can have 50 grams of sugar per serving then it will be very easy for me to make a very flavorful and sweet soda. What Cas Cal has done magnificently is deliver a unique, interesting and powerful flavor with nothing but some fruit juices (not even any added sugar which kind of blows me away), 60 calories  and 7 grams of sugar. This really is the healthiest soda that you will find and if you put it in the right context it will serve you amazingly well.

Post-Drink

This is not a soda for kids, this is not a soda for a party, this is a soda for you to enjoy when the weather is nice out and you want a drink to go with a nice meal. This is a soda which you would enjoy with friends outside. This is just a classy soda that could enhance and offset other flavors marvelously while still being it's own thing. It's not a fun soda, it's not a HFCS sweet to the max soda, it's an artisan soda. This is very much a crafted soda and you can tell from all the little details that were done so amazingly right.

I also was doing a bit of research on this soda and stumbled upon this review which hated the soda. I don't want to make any commentary because you should decide for yourself. I just thought another opinion might be interesting for all of you.

I liked that format for reviewing quite a bit better, it made me feel I was rambling less (my bubble pop review felt really rambly) so I think I will stick with it.

I also very much regret to say that this blog will not be doing reviews for the next 10 weeks because I'm going to college! All of my fancy sodas for review are being left at home so I won't have any material. Hopefully while I'm there I can stop by some stores and get a collection going. I'm attending Union College in Schenectady New York and I'll be studying Computer Science. I will try to keep this blog going because it is quite a bit of fun to do but if I don't have any material there's no way to get reviews done. Sad sad stuff but I'm excited to go anyhow.

Sodamancy - another blog about soda creation

I sort of regret not posting this sooner because to be perfectly blunt I haven't been keeping up with the comments section on this site. I really didn't know anybody at all went here until I checked my Google Analytics a few days ago. One fellow by the name of Ricky posted on my Open Cola post discussing how much soda it made and he referenced his own blog. I was shocked to find an absolutely fantastic blog on brewing all sorts of your own soda. I'll definitely be frequenting there and trying out some of the recipes around Thanksgiving (college soon, won't be able to get any resources).

Thanks Ricky for the comment, here's the link to the blog

http://sodamancy.blogspot.com/

Opensoda.com - for those interested in soda creation

I was thinking about doing another article on Open Cola since it seems that there is some interest in it based on my traffic figures and I happened upon a site all about making your own soda. It has the Open Cola recipes but what is even cooler it is has lists of equipment, videos and even a recipes page. It is unfortunately pretty dead and it doesn't look like it has really been updated since 2009 but still, very cool to look through. All of it is very straightforward and easy to browse. The person who made the site also is very dedicated to his soda, he made a number of soda dispenser rigs the most recent one being this:
I thought it was pretty cool to check out just the once and maybe if I do decide to make my own soda I'll use it as a reference but the fact that it has died means I probably won't be stopping by there very often at all. So without further ado, here is the link.
http://www.opensoda.org/