Victorious Valloweaster!

It's that time of year again: when stacks of plastic sacks of miniature Baby Ruths and Milky Ways clog the aisles of grocery stores across the land, preventing that one artistic checkout clerk from fully implementing her vision of a Nativity scene crafted entirely from Chicklets and Necco Wafers. Halloween is the third jewel in the Triple Crown of candycentric holidays (following in the sticky footsteps of Valentine's Day and Easter), and in my lifelong quest for efficiency, I propose that we combine the three into one uberholiday to be known as Valloweaster.

Think about it. What are the chief complaints about the celebrations of the saccharine? 1) Valentine's Day is too couple-y, 2) Easter is too Peeps-centric, and 3) Halloween takes too much planning. So the main event of Valloweaster would gently mock couples (1) by having them hop door to door dressed in municipally-issued, matching rabbit suits (3), delivering candy to single folk who would be free to pelt the bunnies with their choice of Peeps products, which no one but the most desperate would have to eat (2). I'm not sure what else would happen, but it's a start.

Fairground Cuisine Update: Fried Coke

First came deep-fried Twinkies, then deep-fried Snickers, and now deep-fried Coke. Here is the scoop from Yahoo News.

Abel Gonzales, 36, a computer analyst from Dallas, tried about 15 different varieties before coming up with his perfect recipe—a batter mix made with Coca-Cola syrup, a drizzle of strawberry syrup, and some strawberries.

Balls of the batter are then deep-fried, ending up like ping-pong ball sized doughnuts which are then served in a cup, topped with Coca-Cola syrup, whipped cream, cinnamon sugar, and a cherry on the top.

"It tastes great," said Sue Gooding, a spokeswoman for the State Fair of Texas where Gonzales' fried Coke made its debut this fall. "It was a huge success."

Gonzales ran two stands at the State Fair of Texas and sold up to 35,000 fried Cokes over 24 days for $4.50 each—and won a prize for coming up with "most creative" new fair food.

Gonzales says he is working on fried Sprite and—perhaps the purest manifestation of the American dream that I have ever encountered—fried Diet Coke. As much as I itch to condemn this as a clear sign of the End Times, I sure would love to taste it.

POP OF THE DAY: Bundaberg Ginger Beer

Category: Ginger Ale
Ratings (out of 5)
Taste: 5
Fizziness Factor: 3
Bottle/Can Design: 5
Availability: 2

Tasting Notes: I never would have heard of Bundaberg if it weren't for the splendiferous Anita, my sassy Australian paramour. Anita hails from Queensland, which is not only the ideal setting for the Eddie Murphy/Arsenio Hall fishes-out-of-water-search-for-second-wives sequel Coming to Australia, but also the home of the Bundaberg brewery, maker of an enticing line of sodas that includes a Horehound Beer. The best adjective to describe Bundaberg Ginger Beer is gingeriffic. If you want something sweet and bubbly to settle your stomach on an airplane, reach for the Schweppes. If you want a drink that is so full of actual ginger root that you can't see through it, Bundaberg's your only man. It's the kind of soda that manages to taste a bit hot even when it's ice cold. I love me some ginger, so I'm a Bundaberg booster—even the bottle feels charmingly archaic, with its quirky pull-tab and suggestion to "Invert bottle before opening." If only you didn't have to schlep to Cost Plus World Market to buy some... By the by, if you're a fellow ginger enthusiast and happen to be anywhere near LA, try the gingerita at Buddha's Belly. For my money, it's the best non-soda beverage in the universe. (Total Score 15/20)

Suggested Food Pairings: Tim Tams, pad thai, a Bloomin' Onion

SODA SCIENCE: Benzoate + Ascorbic Acid = Panic

In Apparently Alarming News About Innocuous Things That Turn Out to Be Almost Entirely Harmless, a report on WPXI in my homeland of Pittsburgh (go Stillers!) screeches that SODA WILL GIVE YOU CANCER. Well, that's what it leads with, but here's the real Soda Science: a few sodas that contain the preservatives sodium benzoate or potassium benzoate AND ascorbic acid (you know it as Vitamin C), CAN, in the presence of copper and iron (common elements in water), form benzene, a badass chemical also found in gasoline and cigarette smoke.

First of all, this news will only serve to encourage nihilistic teens to seek out and guzzle the killer sodas so as to get the combined effects of huffing and smoking, all with a delightfully fruity taste. Second of all, I checked out the actual FDA report, which reveals that only four (4) out of 100 (one hundred) beverages tested had levels of benzene higher than the legal level for drinking water, and all the offending companies are reformulating those sodas. Thirdwise, look at that picture. I refuse to believe that any molecule shaped like a Nerf throwing star can hurt me.

POP OF THE DAY: Vernor's Ginger Soda

Category: Ginger Ale
Ratings (out of 5)
Taste: 5
Fizziness Factor: 5
Bottle/Can Design: 4
Availability: 2

Tasting Notes: Vernor's is the oldest soda in America, tied with Hires Root Beer. As the story on the bottle says, when Detroit pharmacist James Vernor was called off to the Civil War in 1862, he left behind a "secret mixture" of 19 ingredients in an oak cask. Why was Vernor called away so quickly? The answer is lost in the mists of history. What we do know is that 4 years later, he came home to a taste sensation. Vernor's is still aged in oak, but I can't say I tasted much tree in it. What I could taste was sweet vanilla, which contrasts nicely with the tangy ginger finish. Vernor's is apparently famous for its fizziness factor, which I found strong but not overwhelming. The cheerful troll you see at left is on the bottle as well, which gives it a pleasing air of old-world goofiness. Vernor's is not available everywhere, but if you were juding by quality rather than quantity, Detroit would be called the Soda City. (Total Score 16/20)

Suggested Food Pairings: Sauerbrauten, pemmican

POP OF THE DAY: Dry Soda Kumquat

Category: Adult Contemporary Soda
Ratings (out of 5)
Taste: 5
Fizziness Factor: 5
Bottle/Can Design: 4
Availability: 1

Tasting Notes: "Kumquat" is one of my favorite words—try saying it: "kumquat"—and I once stole a couple of kumquats from a Parisian grocery store to impress a girl I had a crush on. (We later made out on the banks of the Seine, but she ended up getting back together with her estranged boyfriend, who was some sort of minor Russian royalty.) And guess what? Dry Kumquat is exquisitely tasty. The delicate, fresh orange taste is lightly sweet, with a tart finish that puts it in the Adult Contemporary category—this is the soda equivalent of a rockin' Death Cab For Cutie song. And it has only 50 calories. Dry Kumquat's score is pulled down by a couple of factors. First, the bottle is not a twist-off. More damaging is the fact that Dry is only avaialble at specialty stores, restaurants, and some Whole Foods stores on the West Coast. And the website is kinda pretentious, referring to the drink as "the first culinary soda," and offering suggested food pairings (!) for the four flavors: kumquat, lavender, lemongrass, and rhubarb. Oh, and one other thing: kumquat. Hehehehe. (Total score 15/20)

Suggest Food Pairings: Pasta with pesto, herb roasted chicken

Coke Crooks Cop a Plea

According to the BBC, two men have plead guilty to trying to steal secrets from Coke. Says the Beeb, "Ibrahim Dimson and Edmund Duhaney admitted the charge of conspiracy and could face up to 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000 when sentenced. A third defendant, former Coca-Cola secretary Joya Williams, is due to stand trial on 13 November. She is accused of stealing samples and giving them to the men to sell." Is cola espionage such a high-stakes game? Seems so. Prosecutors set up a sting by offering Williams $1.5 million for some papers and Coke samples, then caught her theft on tape. The moral of the story: if someone offers you a million five for a soda, walk away.

POP OF THE DAY: Limo Lemon

Category: Citrus soda
Ratings (out of 5)
Taste: 4
Fizziness Factor: 4
Bottle/Can Design: 4
Availability: 1

Tasting Notes: Yesterday I ate lunch at Kilikia Grill, a four-table Armenian restaurant in Glendale, and I couldn't reist taking a Limo. The giant-shoed, backward-hatted, skateboarding rabbit on the bottle is just the sort of "look, we are of America" touch that connoisseurs the world over have come to expect from the makers of Kotayk beer. Limo was tangy and not too sweet, with a minor metallic aftertaste—it was only when I looked at the bottle that I realized it was sweetened with aspartame. The overall soda experience was good enough that I would certainly seek out Limo's tarragon flavor. (Total score 13/20)

Suggested Food Pairings: Armenian chicken kebab with hummus

Lazy Superheroes - Coke

The best 19 seconds I've spent all day.

POP OF THE DAY: Jolt Blue

Category: "Caffeine-enhanced beverage" (see below)
Ratings (out of 5)
Taste: 2
Fizziness Factor: 3
Bottle/Can Design: 4
Availability: 3

Tasting Notes: I bought a 23.5-ounce torpedo tube of Jolt Blue because I thought it would be a blue cola. And how freakalicious will that be? I thought. Like Crystal Pepsi, only BLUE? Alas, no amount of italic musing will make Jolt Blue taste like anything other than cotton candy. Its high caffeine content, massive metal packaging, and abundant use of lightning-bolt graphics put it squarely in the category of Trucker Fuel, but of course the Jolters themselves beg to differ. To them, "It is regarded as a caffeine-enhanced beverage, which is a segment different than isotonics and energy drinks. Jolt contains 72 mg per 12 oz serving...which is twice the amount of caffeine found in Coke or Pepsi...and 42% more caffeine than Mountain Dew." (Their ellipses, not mine. I would have replaced them with a comma and an em dash, respectively, but I digress.) Bottom line: too big, too sweet, and it's making me lightheaded. (Total score 12/20)

Suggested Food Pairings: Corn dog, roadkill

New Soda Will Have "Negative Calories," Will Also Make You Fly

A joint venture of Coca Cola and Nestlé, Enviga will apparently use a combination of green tea and caffeine to create what Dr. Rhona Applebaum, chief scientist of The Coca-Cola Company, calls "a negative calorie effect." Studies at the Nestlé Research Center (a lab made of chocolate in Lausanne, Switzerland) have estimated that if you drink three (3) cans of Enviga, "healthy subjects in the lean to normal weight range can experience an average increase in calorie burning by 60–100 calories." So Enviga is some sort of high-tech anti-food, which fills me to the brim with skepticism about how it will taste (or anti-taste). But still, when Enviga (available in green tea, berry, and peach flavors) comes to LA in January 2007 (along with all those actors looking to score in pilot season), you can be sure that I will be all over it like ugly on a monkey.

POP OF THE DAY: Mountain Dew LiveWire

Category: Citrus soda
Ratings (out of 5)
Taste: 3
Fizziness Factor: 2
Bottle/Can Design: 3
Availability: 4

Tasting Notes: Oh, PepsiCo, you can be so cruel. LiveWire debuted in 2003 as a summer-only soda—the Mallomar of carbonated beverages, if you will. The autumnal disappearance of LiveWire inspired at least one online petition. Evenutally, the groundswell of support earned this "orange-ignited" flavor a permanent place in the Pepsi Product Pack, but it still doesn't have the rock star status of the original Dew—which, by the way, was originally created as a mixer for whisky. Who knew? LiveWire tastes like a melted orange gummy bear with a whisper of carbonation. It's also surprisingly filling, so if you're on a road trip and stop for caffeine and candy, LiveWire lets you skip the candy. It's best served really, really cold, in a clear glass that allows you to appreciate how the Yellow 5 and Red 40 mingle to create a shimmering, luminescent orange. (Total score 12/20)

Suggested Food Pairings: Sourdough pretzels, ramen noodles

Soon I Will Be Invisible...and Elsewhere

This may look like the world's most expensive roll of duct tape, but it is, in fact, a cloak of invisibility. Cool, huh? My inner 10-year-old would be completely geeked out if only someone would get to work on teleportation. Oh wait. They already have.

POP OF THE DAY: Coke (From a Fountain)

Category: Cola
Ratings (out of 5)
Taste: 4
Fizziness Factor: 4
Bottle/Can Design: 3
Availability: 5

Tasting Notes: This is not so much a review of a specific soda—although my Coke from Rubio's was swell—as it is a celebration of the entire fountain drink experience. What's so enticing about fountain soda? Well, first you have the word "fountain," which brings goodness wherever it roams. Fountain of Youth? Makes you immortal. Fountains of Wayne? "Stacey's Mom" is the perfect rock song. Fountain Avenue? Much less traffic than comparable Los Angeles streets.

Now I was going to get all scientific about how using a straw directs soda to a different part of the mouth than sipping does, causing it to hit different taste buds and taste less sweet, but according to the folks at Wikipedia, that whole "tongue map" theory is bogus. Even so, fountain drinks have several advantages. 1) Ice. I find filling the cup 1/3 of the way is ideal, and of course crushed ice is best. 2) The straw makes drinking tidier, and until Wikipedia tells me otherwise, I will also believe that it focuses the fizz. 3) Freshness. Again, I have no data to prove this, but "freshness" is another word like "fountain." It just sounds happy. Speaking of which: 4) Sound effects. Nothing builds sweet anticipation like the sound of soda whooshing out of a fountain, burbling over ice, and gently hissing as it crowns the top of the cup. 5) Customization. The various permutations and combinations that you can create at a sodsa fountain could take up a week's worth of posts, so let me just say that if you want Sprite and Coke, let there be Spoke. (Total score 16/20)

Suggested Food Pairings: Cheeseburger and fries

BRING BACK THE (RC) DRAFT: The Opening Salvo

Anyone who ever tasted the mighty RC Draft during its brief reign as King of the Colas knows that whoever the heck owns Royal Crown these days needs to BRING IT BACK. RC Draft was made with pure cane sugar, it came in what looked like a beer bottle, and it was sweet like molasses...rich like chocolate...overall the best freakin' cola ever invented. This summer I checked with the experts at Galco's Soda Pop Stop, and they said it was no longer available. Anyone know different? If so, please let me know where I can get some. If not, let this serve as notice that the groundswell has begun, and I will not rest (except at night) until they Bring Back the (RC) Draft.

POP OF THE DAY: Hi Ball Orange

Category: Energy Drink
Ratings (out of 5)
Taste: 2
Fizziness Factor: 5
Bottle/Can Design: 4
Availability: 4

Tasting Notes: You know how most herbal teas smell great but taste like ditchwater spiked with rosehips? Hi Ball Orange (seen above at left) has a minor case of Herbal Tea Disease. When I sniffed it, I thought "fresh-picked orange." When I sipped it, I thought "um...bubbly water." Halfway through the 10-ounce bottle, I detected something orangesque, but mostly I got that vaguely aggrieved feeling I used to get when I was a kid and somebody offered me a "soft drink" that turned out to be tonic water. Hi Ball is certainly a grown-up beverage: no sugar, no carbs, nothing artificial, less than 10 calories. It contains the Holy Trinity of energy drinks (taurine, guarana, and caffeine), plus ginseng and B-vitamins. B-vitamins? In my soda? The only thing playful about Hi Ball is the snazzy clear glass bottle, which fits in your hand just like a water balloon. (Total score 15/20)

Suggested Food Pairings: Cornish game hen with fennel pomegranate reduction, a handful of sugar

Diet Coke and Mentos fountains

This, to me, is the only viable use for diet soda.

POP OF THE DAY: Vault

Category: Energy Drink/Soda
Ratings (out of 5)
Taste: 3
Fizziness Factor: 4
Bottle/Can Design: 2
Availability: 5

Tasting Notes: This sharp, citrusy enersoda faces the challenge of many hybrids: Will it be the worst of both worlds, like a DVD/VHS player, or will its two elements combine to create something miraculous, like a Junior Mint? The answer is somewhere in the middle.

As a soda, Vault, like fellow caffeine missile Mountain Dew, has a slightly disconcerting viscosity (must be all that high fructose corn syrup) and leaves behind a microcoating—perfect to protect your tender mouthparts from, say, that microwave burrito you were a little too eager to devour. The flavor, as it says on the bottle, is citrus, without actually having any hint of lemon or lime (or orange for that matter, although it contains concentrated orange juice). The closest I can come is "liquid pixie stick." As an energy drink, it has pulled me out of many a 3 o'clock mini-coma, and unlike so many of that ever-growing horde, doesn't need taurine or ginseng or royal jelly to do it. Vault just locks in the good old sugar and caffeine. (Total score 14/20)

Suggested Food Pairings: Caramello Koalas, searing hot pizza