...hafta throw in my .02 for Cock 'n Bull: it's exactly what I look for in a ginger beer...burny stopping just shy of mind-altering and unlike other Jamaican derivations I've tried, not too sweet, or, rather, the rootiness is counterpointed enough by the sugar...

The great pepsi taste-off (some pics coming later):

1 - corn syrup (16oz plastic bottle)
2 - natural (12oz glass bottle)
3 - mexican (12oz glass bottle)
4 - Kosher for Passover (sugar) (2L Plastic bottle)

Individual results from coworkers, ranked favorite to least favorite:

Me: 3412
Erik: 2134
Trey: 3421
Sam: 2134 / 2314
Kevin: 4132
Olivia: 1432
Dan: 3241
Jesse (not blind, not counted in scores below): 3142

Olivia, Sam, and Trey all said they preferred pepsi to coke when they drank colas. The others preferred coke or weren't big cola drinkers.

Scores (4 points for first, 3 for second, etc):

1: 16.5 points
2: 16.0
3: 20.5
4: 17.0

Mexican: 20.5 pts (2.929 avg)
Kosher for Passover:17.0 points (2.429 avg)
Corn syrup: 16.5 points (2.357 avg)
Natural: 16.0 points (2.286 avg)

Notes: 4 people found the natural truly objectionable, but a couple really preferred it. Very polarizing. Many people also said they had a lot of trouble distinguishing Mexican Pepsi from KfP Pepsi, but clearly Mexican Pepsi was the big winner.

So there you go, as rigorous as I'm willing to be: Mexican Pepsi wins.

Big backlog today, with a lot of hazy memories:


Mason's Root Beer: Indistinct.. not bad, nothing special.



Zuberfizz: Same situation. Not memorable at all. Average.


Virgil's "Special Edition Bavarian Nutmeg": Not really my bag. I'm not a big fan of the regular virgil's, and this is too heavy on the nutmeg. At $5/bottle, a C+ at best.


IzzeEsque Black Raspberry: Better than the mandarin, but I'd rather just have regular Izze. B-.


IzzeEsque Mandarin: Meh. C.


Dublin Dr Pepper, 12oz cans: At 48 for $48, a true deal, and every bit as good as the glass bottles (sorry, aficionados). A.


Ooba Hibiscus/Orange: Actually very nice. Not as sweet as most jamaicas, the orange was a nice touch. I'd drink this again happily. B+


Archer Farms Wild Berry: The Pink Peach (photo didn't turn out) was much better. This had that sort of fake berry taste so many of these things have. C-, but the peach gets a solid B.


Bundaberg Root Beer: I love Bundaberg ginger beer, but this was disappointing. Not terrible, just not quite the right mix of flavors for me. Too much licorice, maybe. C+.


Dr. Pepper Cherry: Not an improvement on the original. Very pretty in the glass, though. B.


Sonoma Sparkler, Apple and Pear. Pear was the winner here, with the apple being inferior to even the cheapest grocery store sparkling apple cider. The pear was delicious. C and B+ respectively.


Sidral Mundet: The classic mexican apple soda. The apple taste wasn't very pleasant, sadly, and I didn't finish the bottle. D.


Boylan's Birch Beer: Not as good as AJ Stephans' Birch Beer above, but a very tasty rendition nonetheless. B+/A-.


Jarritos Toronja - I wish it had some real grapefruit juice in it, it would probably bring it from an average drink to a very good one. C.


Red Bull Cola: I really expected to hate this, but this is probably the best non-coke cola I've had in a long time. The big flaw is that it has a bit of a bitter aftertaste, maybe from the extra caffeine. Also neat: the label lists all of the flavors individual... licorice, anise, lime, etc. A-, with points off only for the bitterness at the end.


Sonoma Sparkler Lemonade: Still not as good as the pear, but better than the apple. Refreshing with a real lemon aroma and flavor. B.

Nesbitt's Orange Soda: Just like any other mediocre orange soda out there. Kind of a chemical orange flavor and way too sweet. D+

Nu-Grape Soda: It's no Pennsylvania Punch, that's for sure. I would be hard pressed to tell you the difference between this and grape Crush. D-.


Cherry Republic/Boom Chugga Lugga Cherry Ginger Ale: Very little ginger taste, but good cherry flavor. I wonder why they sweeten this with HFCS instead of sugar.. doesn't make much sense to me. B-.

Intriguing words about Red Bull Cola. I shall try some.

Just curious, in the Pepsi tasting, did testers drink a full glass or just a relatively tiny shot? Malcolm Gladwell relates enlightening conclusions regarding the Pepsi Challenge in Blink, summarized here: wherein it’s explained that people usually prefer sweeter if they’re taking small doses, but that drinking a normal serving of such sweet stuff becomes unpleasant.

Testers had about 4oz of each. Not a full can, but a decent amount.

Virgil's "Real Cola": They may call it a real cola, but Coca Cola and Pepsi have forever taken over that name. And, in any case, there's no kola nut in this stuff. If you don't think of it as a competitor of Coke and Pepsi, though, and just as a drink on its own, it's very good. B+.

BTW, Ed - I appreciate your careful tasting notes - from the beverages you list that I've tried myself, I can now assume we have similar taste and buy accordingly!

Mhays wrote:BTW, Ed - I appreciate your careful tasting notes - from the beverages you list that I've tried myself, I can now assume we have similar taste and buy accordingly!

Thanks for your kind words. I'm mostly posting them so I remember not to buy the crap again.. I'm glad someone else is getting some use out of it. If you ever need to know where to find one of these, I'll try to dig it up. Most of the latest ones are from either Woodman's or Cost Plus World Market.

Speaking of things at Woodman's...

Maine Root Blueberry: Most of these Maine Root sodas were a letdown. They were beautifully cloudy, sugar-sweetened, nicely designed, but the flavors just weren't there. This paled in comparison to Izze Blueberry, its only real competition. It's just an average soda. C.

...did you ever try the Blumer's blueberry which I posted about here? I picked it up at Woodman's several times while shooting the raccoon podcast and my kids are quite fond of it, I like it too.

Mike G wrote:Speaking of things at Woodman's...

Maine Root Blueberry: Most of these Maine Root sodas were a letdown. They were beautifully cloudy, sugar-sweetened, nicely designed, but the flavors just weren't there. This paled in comparison to Izze Blueberry, its only real competition. It's just an average soda. C.

...did you ever try the Blumer's blueberry which I posted about here? I picked it up at Woodman's several times while shooting the raccoon podcast and my kids are quite fond of it, I like it too.

I didn't, sadly. I've got a limit to how many 4-packs of something I'm willing to buy (I almost always buy single bottles), so I didn't get a chance yet. Hopefully I'll see it on my next trip to America's Market, or I'll find it elsewhere in single bottles. I'm looking forward to trying it.

David Hammond wrote: Malcolm Gladwell relates enlightening conclusions regarding the Pepsi Challenge in Blink, summarized here: wherein it’s explained that people usually prefer sweeter if they’re taking small doses, but that drinking a normal serving of such sweet stuff becomes unpleasant.

Edging off topic, but I long ago figured that this was why the winning recipes in the Pillsbury bake-off were so often excruciatingly, almost unbearably, sweet.

Gus Dry Meyer Lemon - I don't really get a lot of the sweet fragrance of a meyer lemon in this. It tastes like any other lemon soda, except not quite as sweet and not quite as carbonated. Give me San Pellegrino Limonata over this any day. B-

gleam wrote:Red Bull Cola: I really expected to hate this, but this is probably the best non-coke cola I've had in a long time. The big flaw is that it has a bit of a bitter aftertaste, maybe from the extra caffeine. Also neat: the label lists all of the flavors individual... licorice, anise, lime, etc. A-, with points off only for the bitterness at the end.

Great call! I've been a fan of this stuff since I first saw it in a "New Product"-type cardboard tub at the Jewel near my place. I bought it under the premise of "I'm tired & could use the caffeine, and it's GOTTA taste better than normal Red Bull", but it is now my favorite cola-flavored beverage.

I'm also with you on the coolness of the ingredient list...it's sad that it's such a novelty for a soft drink to be 100% comprised of stuff one can both pronounce & recognize. I'm especially amused (and pleased) by the "caffeine from coffee beans" at the end of the list.

I actually rather like the slight bitterness at the end, probably because, on a subconscious level, I tell myself it's the taste of natural herbal goodness

A good sugar-soda haul at the Jewels today: Kosher for Passover 2L coke for $1/each(!) and, breaking the official street date of 4/20, Pepsi and Mountain Dew Throwback:

Boom Chugga Lugga Cherry Soda Pop - Good real cherry flavor, a little tart, but the sweetness is a little overwhelming. 35mg/8oz is 25% more than Cherry Coke, putting it at the same level as the equally too-sweet Fanta Orange. If they just cut down the sweetness, and used sugar instead of HFCS, this could be great. Too bad. C-

Mountain Dew Throwback: Cane Sugar does not make this bland, overly sweet drink any more palatable. Really disgusting stuff. I once liked Mountain Dew, when I was 17... I don't know why. D-.

Pepsi Throwback: I want to say that they've changed the formula for this concoction, because it tastes very different and much better than my memory of HFCS pepsi -- not as sweet, and more like Coke than regular pepsi. B+

Boom Chugga Lugga Cherry Root Bear: Cherry and Root Beer do not belong in the same bottle together. It's not bad, but it turns an OK root beer or an OK cherry soda into a poor cherry root beer. D+

Dog 'n' Suds Root Beer: 32oz bottle opened with barely a hiss, and the soda is disappointingly flat (reviews online indicate this is a common problem). It also has a very aggressive wintergreen aroma, which is a little overwhelming on its own. I ate it with a polish sausage, though, and the wintergreen faded and it became a fine root beer. B.

Boom Chugga Lugga Real Cherry Cola: This is probably the only one of these that I'd buy again. Decent cola with a much better cherry flavor than cherry coke and its ilk. I think I'd still rather just pour a little cherry juice into a cup of coke, though. B

gleam wrote:I think I'd still rather just pour a little cherry juice into a cup of coke, though. B

Ed,

I'm a fan of cherry juice, have a really pleasant memory of being about 8-years-old sitting at a north woods Wisconsin resort bar with my grandfather drinking coke laced with maraschino cherry juice while he had Cutty and soda.

That said, I identified myself as a cocktail rube at Bar DeVille by asking for a maraschino cherry in my rye old fashioned. Seriously, the cocktail centric buddy I was with and owner Brad Bolt gave me a simultaneous You Are Kidding look that, had I actually been a sensitive person, would have whithered me.

Love the Pop/Soda tasting notes, going to look up a bottle of Boom Chugga Lugga Real Cherry Cola, either that or buy a jar of maraschino cherries.

Enjoy,
Gary

The only place I know to buy the Boom Chugga Lugga sodas (and where I bought mine) is the Sprecher Brewery in Glendale. They've also got a good selection of their own sodas (reviews forthcoming) and, of course, their decent beers. We also picked up two growlers of the XXX root beer on our recent trip, and they were pretty good -- sweet, but with a unique (and pleasant) flavor from the bourbon barrels.

Goose Island Spicy Ginger Beer: I think this is only available at the restaurant. It's sort of like their root beer - good flavor but skewed too heavily to the sweet end. If they amped up the ginger and dropped the sugar a bit, it'd be great. As it is, it's not bad. B-

Sprecher Cream Soda: Not as overwhelmingly sweet as a lot of cream sodas, with a nice vanilla flavor and aroma. One of the better cream sodas I've had, B+.

Sprecher Ravin' Red: Cran-Cherry Soda with Ginseng. Maybe the most local soda Sprecher makes, and one of the most local sodas in the region. Door County cherry juice, Wisconsin Rapids cranberry juice, Wisconsin honey, Wisconsin ginseng, corn syrup (iowa?). The flavors of the fruit are a little muted, and the whole thing is a tiny bit too sweet, but honestly, it's very good, and I think the cherry/cranberry balance is great. There is a little bit of a cough/sore throat finish, but it's not bad for a cranberry drink. Give it a try if you have a chance. A-

gleam wrote:Faygo Original Rock & Rye - I actually grew up with this much more than I did Red Pop (although neither were as much a fixture as Vernor's). Maybe it was more popular in the upper peninsula, or maybe it was more popular with my detroit-raised father. It's a cherry cream soda, and it's not very good, but it reminds me quite a lot of my childhood. I gets a B for sentimentality but a C- for flavor.

Hi Ed,

I also grew up drinking Faygo Rock & Rye (but quite a few years earlier than you). My family would spend summers in a little town near Muskegon and it was my favorite soda. I saw one a few years ago, and built up great expectations for my wife. We were also disappointed. I guess as I developed my palate for wine, it doomed me for Rock & Rye .

Izze just sent me an email announcing three new flavors:

Izze Sparkling Lime
Izze Sparkling Birch
Izze Sparkling Ginger

All available immediately at Whole Foods and at other retailers later this summer. I'm going to cruise by Whole Foods this weekend and see if I can pick up a bottle of each. Please post if you get a chance to try any of them.

Sprecher Ginger Ale: The cloudiness got my hopes up. The actual product is almost impossibly bland. I'd say it has less ginger bite than Seagram's or any other mass-market ginger ale. It's less sweet of course, too.. but it mostly comes off as barely sweet/barely gingery/barely carbonated water. Not worth drinking at all. D-

gleam wrote:Sprecher Ginger Ale: The cloudiness got my hopes up. The actual product is almost impossibly bland. I'd say it has less ginger bite than Seagram's or any other mass-market ginger ale. It's less sweet of course, too.. but it mostly comes off as barely sweet/barely gingery/barely carbonated water. Not worth drinking at all. D-

I disagree. I found it to be a refreshing beverage with a ginger flavor similar to strong ginger teas I make. The light sweetness is nice and I found the carbonation level good. I give it a 4 out of 5.

Sprecher Root Beer: Pretty close to my ideal root beer. Creamy but not too sweet, a moderate bite, not too minty. The honey is a nice touch, and I think is what makes me forget that it's made with HFCS instead of sugar. A.

Izze Sparkling Birch: This is the first Izze I've seen sweetened with sugar instead of fruit juices. Presumably to let the birch oil shine through. Unlike most birch beers, the only flavor in this seems to be birch oil. I can't say I like it more than a good birch beer, though, or that I feel much of an urge to drink it again. The aroma is amazing in that way only birch is, but the flavor just doesn't deliver. C+/B-

gleam wrote:
Red Bull Cola: I really expected to hate this, but this is probably the best non-coke cola I've had in a long time. The big flaw is that it has a bit of a bitter aftertaste, maybe from the extra caffeine. Also neat: the label lists all of the flavors individual... licorice, anise, lime, etc. A-, with points off only for the bitterness at the end.

MrsF's cousin works for one of their distributors, and shipped me four four-packs of this stuff. I can't say that I love it as much, mainly because of the licorice. Its ingredient list has several very interesting items, including galangal, vanilla, pine, mustard seed and the above-mentioned licorice. I think it's those last two that provide the bitterness, it's the licoricey flavor that turns me off.

It also has a high creamy head -- something you don't usually see in a cola, more of a root beer phenom.

It does remind me strongly of a long-lost drink: 7-up Gold. It had a lot of the herb notes of this and Coca-Cola, with gingery notes and a smooth finish -- none of this bitterness or head though.

JoelF wrote:It does remind me strongly of a long-lost drink: 7-up Gold. It had a lot of the herb notes of this and Coca-Cola, with gingery notes and a smooth finish -- none of this bitterness or head though.

Interesting.. I'd never heard of 7up Gold, but digging around I found this fascinating article:

7-UP GOLD: THE FAILURE OF A CAN'T-LOSE PLAN

Apparently the recipe was something that had been created but not used for Dr. Pepper.