JACKSON HOLE SODA CO. STRAWBERRY RHUBARB, Soda Pop Review

I loved the Jackson Hole Soda Company’s High Mountain Huckleberry. It was really fruity without the syrupy sweetness. This one had to be good too, although strawberry is really easy to make too sweet. I’m cautious.

Cool label, once again. No photo for this one.

The first sniff is promising. Enough strawberry, but not too sweet.

The sip is good. Yes, folks, we have another winner. Got balance of fruit and sweetness. It’s full and complex and fruity.

Wait for the aftertaste and there it is, even better than the sip.

It’s like your whole mouth is filled with fresh strawberries.

Wow, this one is very good. I’ll be buying this one again. Yes, I will.

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FENTIMANS TRADITIONAL VICTORIAN LEMONADE, Soda Pop Review

FENTIMANS TRADITIONAL VICTORIAN LEMONADE

How can anything that’s named “Victorian” be bad? I mean that was a gentler time when people had refined tastes, right?

This was going to be great stuff.

Look at the bottle. How cool is the bottle. If you look closely, you can see that the glass has a slight blue/green tint to it. The shape is unique. It feels good in the hand, just the right size and shape.

The first smell. Nothing. Maybe a tiny whiff of something like lemon, but there’s no real smell here at all.

OK, so it’s gentle and Victorian.

The first sip and bammo! This stuff tastes like battery acid! There’s no sweetness to it. There’s not even a lot of lemon, just sour, sour, sour.

Bleck. Wow. My jaw is hurting. This is the most sour drink I’ve ever had.

I try another sip. Woo. Woo. Woo. This is strong and sour and this is not a pleasant experience at all!

I try to man up and drink the rest. I can’t. This is the first soda that I can not even finish.

I dump it out in the kitchen sink. It instantly cleans the rust spots.
(OK, that last one wasn’t true.)

I save the bottle for my wife because she thinks it’s pretty.

Just don’t think about how it tastes…

INGREDIENTS: Carbonated Water,Fermented Ginger Root Extracts,Sugar,Lemon Juice Concentrate,Glucose Syrup,Natural Flavours(Lemon,Speedwell and Juniper Extracts),Pear Juice Concentrate,Cream of Tartar

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PLANTATION STYLE MINT JULEP, Soda Pop Review

PLANTATION STYLE MINT JULEP

I had high hopes for this one. I expected so much from this one that I bought three bottles of it.

I do love real mint juleps. I hate mouthwash.

This could go either way. Was I wrong? Would my bet pay off?

The smell was perfect. Nice, sweet, mellow, fresh mint. It was not too much. It was just enough.

The flavor was perfect. The aftertaste was perfect.

This had the perfect blend of mint flavor and sweetness. You can taste the sugar. It was smooth.

Wow. My bet paid off. I love this stuff.

It tastes like a Mojito.

The difference between real sugar and real mint compared to something called “artificial flavors” is so evident in this soda.

I could drink these all day.

I just might.

INGREDIENTS: Carbonated Water, Sugar, Flavor and Citric Acid.

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LORINA SUGAR FREE SPARKLING LEMONADE, Soda Pop Review

LORINA SUGAR FREE SPARKLING LEMONAD

I’ve seen knock offs of this bottle in supermarkets. It must be good stuff. I actually bought a couple bigger bottles from another store because I expected this to be so good.

It does have a great bottle shape. Unusual and sophisticated. I would expect this in a high end restaurant.

The bottle opens without a real pop. This could be a bad bottle. I’ll taste the others and edit this post if they are different.

There’s not a lot of smell to it. That’s OK. I expect this to be delicate and sophisticated. There’s just a hint of lemon.

The sip is unexpected. There’s not a lot of flavor. There’s not a lot of carbonation.

There’s not a lot of anything.

It tastes flat and boring and blah.

There’s a hint of lemon. There’s a hint of sweetness.

This is more like a flavored water than a soda pop. It’s very disappointing.

I think you could get more out of one of those single serving packets of flavoring you get at the store.

I’ll taste the other bottle of this that I got later, but I’m not expecting it to be much different.

Don’t waste your time with this one.

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THE ORIGINAL MABI DRINK, Soda Pop Review

THE ORIGINAL MABI DRINK

I love Alton Brown on Food TV. He’s done a couple “Eating on Asphalt” shows where he traveled around and reported on the local food that he found. The last one he did was “Eating on waves” and was food around the Caribbean.

I remember his finding a local soda pop called “Island Maubi”. He found out and toured where it was made, in this families kitchen. They brewed and bottled it for the whole island.

I was looking forward to drinking this when I found it. It would be exotic, no matter how it tasted.

I open it. I smell. I wonder what that is. There is a smell to it, but it’s unlike anything I imagined it would be.

I take a sip. OMG. This is amazing. I’m not sure I like, but I think I do. I can not tell what those flavors are.

There’s a richness to it. It’s deep and complex. It tastes “brewed” with almost an alcohol after taste. There’s something like Root Beer in it. It’s definitely an earthy flavor.

Then I get apples, or raisins, maybe, something fruity. There’s earthy and fruity and it’s brewed somehow.

This is a strong flavor, but not overpowering. It’s… I don’t know. It’s enticing somehow.

There is sweetness, but also some bitter and some fruit. It’s very carbonated, more so that most sodas.

Wow. I’m repulsed and enticed all at the same time. I want to stop drinking but I can’t.

This is unlike any other soda that I have ever, ever tasted.

I got dig out the Alton Brown show and watch how they make it again. It starts off with Maubi bark, from a tree, that they scrape off and let dry. It’s bitter. then dried oranges. They put that in a big pot and boil it, along with Star Anise, Allspice, cinnamon, and clove.

Clove! That’s taste that I couldn’t identify. It doesn’t taste like clove, just a hint maybe. Nicely done.

They boil that all down and then add more water, before letting it ferment. They bottle it just before it starts to produce alcohol.

I’m sure that this bottle was produced in a sanitized, stainless steel, industrial bottling plant with high quality control standards and not someone’s kitchen, but I wouldn’t care if it wasn’t.

This is good stuff.

INGREDIENTS: Filtered Carbonated Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Natural Mabi Bark Flavor, Citric Acid, and Natural Color. Pasteurized.

Posted in Soda Pop |

SWEET BLOSSOM SODA – LAVENDER, Soda Pop Review

SWEET BLOSSOM SODA – LAVENDER

How good could lavender soda be? I do like lavender. I am a guy, but I’m in touch with my feminine side. I can handle that.

I expected this to taste like perfume. It should be all flowery and taste like soap. Everything else that I’ve seen that is scented with lavender is soapy.

This is soda that you should make your 13 year old boy drink when he says a bad word, right?

I open the bottle. It smells like, well, like nothing. There’s not really a scent to it.

That’s strange and unexpected.

I take my first sip. There is sweetness. It’s fresh and crisp.

Totally unexpected. This is really good. I like it a lot.

There is some lavender flavor in there, but it’s not unpleasant at all. It adds a bit of fruitiness to it. You get the most lavender in the aftertaste.

It lingers at the back of you mouth in a very pleasant, Summer day kind of way.

Images of mountain meadows on a sunny day pop into my head.

Yes, I like this a lot. I will be buying more of it. You can really tell that it’s made with real cane sugar in a glass bottle. It’s got that fresh “real” goodness to it.

Don’t let the lavender scare you off.

This is good stuff. Don’t waste it on your 13 year old son.

INGREDIENTS: Filtered Carbonated Water, Cane Sugar, Natural Lavender Extract, Citric Acid and Vegetable Juice for color. Pasteurized.

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JACK BLACK’S BLUE CREAM SODA, Soda Pop Review

Jack Black's Blue Cream Soda

I really didn’t want to try this one after the last soda pop with a skull and cross bones on it, but this could be totally different. I was getting ready to ride my bike and thought maybe this was an energy drink. It’s not.

The label says “It’s better to live for something than to die for nothing.” Of course, I think it’s better to live for nothing than to die for something too…

First smell was a good sign. It seemed sweet and fresh and not too bad. Was this going to be too sweet? I was intrigued. I think I’m going to like this.

First sip and, yes, this is a creme soda. Straight up creme soda. This is good. It’s smooth. It’s got the creme flavor. No bitterness at all. Very nice.

Not getting anything that’s “blue”, which is kind of funny that I would think that “blue” is a flavor.

The worry is that it might be too sweet. I hate the sticky, syrupy sweetness of some creme sodas, but this one is nicely done, laid right down the middle of the sweetness spectrum.

It’s got a nice, fresh sweetness to it, just the right balance. I’m surprised that it’s not cane sugar. It’s got a clean sweet flavor.

I’m very impressed with this one. I really like it. I like it a lot. It’s a nice, fresh, clean, sweet, creme soda. I’d buy it again.

Plus it’s got a skull and cross bones on the label! How cool is that?

INGREDIENTS: Carbonated Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Citric Acid, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Sodium Benzoate (Preservative), Yellow #5 & Blue #1

Wait! What is this? The web site says “High Fructose Corn Syrup”, but the bottle says “Cane Sugar”. I knew it! I knew it tasted like real sugar. I’m getting the knack for telling when it’s got real sugar. It really does make a difference.

This stuff rocks!

It's better to live for something than to die for nothing.

Posted in Soda Pop |

DOUBLE COLA, Soda Pop Review

DOUBLE COLA

I opened the bottle and the smell definitely had twice the aroma. This was going to be good.

I took a sip and the cola taste hit me like a bus. This lived up to the “double” name. It’s flavor was really strong.

It was like they took a regular Coke and boiled it down so it was twice as strong. I could imagine someone boiling down a pot of Coke until it was thicker and syrupy, then yelling “It’s ready, master!”. It tastes like that.

I like cola, but maybe not this much. This really had the cola taste.

It was also made with real cane sugar, which really has a different taste than the corn fructose stuff. The initial taste was of the cola flavor, but it was followed by the sweetness of the sugar. The aftertaste was really sweet, mixed with the bitter cola flavor.

Very interesting stuff.

Here’s what’s in it.

INGREDIENTS: Carbonated Water, Cane Sugar, Carmel Color, Phosphoric Acid, Caffeine, and Natural Flavorings.

If you think Coke is too watered down, then you’ll like this one. It’s got a great, full flavor, with a sweet aftertaste.

I liked it, but I’m probably not going to get another one.

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