Fergie, Please Let Me Teach You English

I'm well aware that pop musicians have a long history of mangling English grammar ("I Can't Get No Satisfaction") and spelling (The Beatles, The Monkees), but Fergie, the lead singer of the Black Eyed Peas and sometimes solo artist(!), has committed so many crimes against my mother tongue that I have to, as the kids say, call her out.

First, there is "My Humps." This is a song that, like all of Fergie's oeuvre, consists of Fergie rhapsodizing about her own hotness. In it, she refers to her breasts and/or her butt as "my humps" and "my lovely lady lumps." I appreciate the rhyme and the alliteration, but when I think of humps I think of Quasimodo and when I think of breasts and lumps I think of cancer—and no, Artist Formerly Known as Stacy Ferguson, I don't want to touch your cancer, thanks.

That's just a case of awkward word choice, but the title of Fergie's new album is downright dumb. It's called the The Dutchess. That's right, The Dutchess. I get that she was trying to play off the fact that she's called Fergie—like that red-haired English chick—but isn't there someone in her entourage or at her label who could tell her that "dutchess" is NOT A FREAKIN' WORD? But it gets worse. In her latest single "Fergalicious," which is, shockingly, about how all the boys want to have intercourse with Fergie, she refers to herself as delicious, which she spells out correctly, and also "tasty," which she spells, and I quote, "T to the A to the S T E Y." If you're scoring at home, that spells "tastey," which, like "dutchess," is almost, but not quite, an actual English word. But who knows? Maybe Fergie isn't really to blame. After all, she works closely with the gramatically mangled will.i.am. And she's so busy that she sometimes has no time for basic personal hygiene.

So rather than mock, I hereby offer my services to Fergie and any other singer/songwriter/multiplatform performer. Add me to your entourage at a reasonable rate, and I promise from the bottom of my pedantic heart that the tastey dutchess will reign no more.

POP OF THE DAY: Jones Cream Soda

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

Okay, so it took me a while to get over the All-Soda Thanksgiving Dinner, but now, 'tis the season for redemption. People the world over are gearing up to celebrate the birth of Jesus, Rocky Balboa is back in a cinema near you, Miss USA got a Get Out of Underage Drinking Free card, and I've let Jones Soda back into my life despite the fact that I still tremble a little when I think about turkey soda.

Unlike that abomination against carbonation, Jones Cream Soda tastes like something clearly definable: cotton candy dribbled with vanilla extract. Is that good or bad? It was good for the first six ounces or so, but after that the sweetness became overwhelming. I did like the fact that the photos on the bottles were taken by Starbucks employees. Mine had a simple black-and-white portrait of a baby, which I'm taking as a harbinger of the rebirth of my love for soda. (Total Score 14/20)

Suggested Food Pairings: A hot dog and fries

The All-Soda Thanksgiving Dinner: No Thanks

I'm a big fan of Jones soda. They make crazy flavors, they put customers' photos on the bottles—I feel like they're good people. So naturally I was enticed by the Jones Holiday Pack. In case you're not familiar, the flavors include Turkey & Gravy, Pea, Dinner Roll, Sweet Potato, and Antacid. This Saturday, after I had eaten the traditional Thanksgiving dinner both Thursday and Friday nights (thanks, Melanie and Chase!), I gathered a duo of guinea pigs (thanks, Anita and Sean!) for what I was hoping would be the First Annual All-Soda Thanksgiving Dinner. We begin with the main course.

Turkey & Gravy
This suspiciously murky soda contains not only sucralose, but also something called saib. I always thought that this was the name that colonial Indians called their English overlords. It is actually, says this study, SAIB, an acronym for...

Sucrose Acetate Isobutyrate...has been used for over 30 years in many countries as a 'weighting' or 'density-adjusting' agent in non-alcoholic carbonated and non-carbonated beverages...

Also, the third ingredient is salt, but the soda tasted nothing like turkey OR gravy. What did it taste like? Our distinguished panel came up with "salty," "mint?" "the ocean off Santa Monica pier," and "tuna in olive oil." After a few bemused sips each, we poured about half the bottle down the drain, hoping that, as with many Thanksgiving dinners, the side dishes would save the day.

Dinner Roll
Again, the name and the taste failed to match up. Although it looks like champagne, Dinner Roll "smells like soap" and tastes like either "movie theater butter," "skim milk," "yeast," or "white lifesavers." And again we poured out about half the bottle, praying that the soda gods would reward our sacrifice by making Pea the best vegetable soda ever.

Pea
Well, maybe not so much "pea" as "crackers,"sweet and salty," or "chemical-ly." Oh, and it "looks like a bog." Another half-bottle down the drain.

Sweet Potato
Far and away the best of the bunch! From its striking golden color to its taste, which was likened to "butterscotch candy with a touch of earthiness" and (gasp!) "sweet potato," Sweet Potato was an oasis in a desert of awful, even if there was a suspicious layer of oil floating on top of it. Sean and I actually had second tastes, and damn near finished the bottle.

Antacid
Okay, I get the joke, and I appreciate it on an intellectual level. But if we're getting intellectual, then I have to ask why would you make a soda that, if it succeeds in tasting like what it's supposed to, has a taste that most people associate with wanting to barf? Anyway, antacid was "minty," "chalky," "medicinal," and made Anita say, "I feel like I'm not supposed to swallow it."

And that was that. The First And Only All-Soda Thanksgiving Dinner.

After a dinner that consisted of the liquid form of food that is usually solid, Sean figured we should have a solid form of something that is usually liquid, so he made a red wine pie. Sean, like Jones Soda, gets an A for creativity...and something in the F- range for actual taste. But I encourage both Sean and Jones to keep experimenting, and I thank them for an experience that I am glad I had—and am equally glad that I never have to have again.

POP OF THE DAY: Love Potion No. 69

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

Tasting Notes: Okay, so this is a shocking-pink soda that shares its name with at least two adult films. And the bottle features a bony hand lacerating a giant heart. And the contents smell like children's cough syrup. But once you close your eyes and get past that first sip, LP69 brings to mind the mediciney goodness of Luden's Wild Cherry cough drops—you know, the ones that De La Soul namechecked in the song Can U Keep a Secret on Three Feet High and Rising? (See how my brush with Flavor Flav has taken me back to my hip-hop roots?) LP69 is chock full of ingredients like buchu, jasmine, and damiana, which sound like either superherbs or porn stars. It also contains the ginseng and guarana that put it in the energy drink category, but LP69 is an energy drink in the same way that crotchless panties from Frederick's of Hollywood are underwear. (Total Score 12/20)

Suggested Food Pairings: Bananas, carrots, strawberries, figs

Yeah, Boyeee!

Like so many Americans, I have a long and glorious history with Flavor Flav. Mine began in 1991, when I saw Flav and the fellas from Public Enemy fight the power and bring the noise in Burlington, Vermont (meteoroligcally and demographically one of the whitest places in the country). More recently, I have followed Mr. Flav's antics on The Flavor of Love, but because I don't have a TV at home, I only see him at the gym, where the sound is always off. So as far as I know, in addition to being the father of seven, he has become our foremost silent rapper.

Last night, a new chapter of The Book of Me and Flav was written. Having returned from a wedding (way to go, Laura and Shane!), I was waiting for my luggage with Anita, my sassy Australian paramour. Behind us was a tiny man in a Reggie Bush jersey that came down to his knees. Anita noticed a camera flash and asked me if the tiny man's shirt had anything to do with our Commander in Chief. I was deep into an explanation of the difference between Reggie and George W. when someone said, "You got your claim check, Flav?" With that, the tiny man and his entourage of two college-age white boys decamped for the lost luggage desk, with me in hot pursuit. Here we were again: me and Flav. Alas, I was too meek to ask for a picture to capture the moment, but I can tell you two things about the artist formerly known as William Drayton: 1) He's even shorter than me. 2) He was in fact wearing his trademark massive clock necklace—this one was a simple white design appropriate for air travel. I bet Flav's never late for a flight.

POP OF THE DAY: Pepsi

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

Tasting Notes: I've never been a Pepsi drinker. I've always thought of it as the flatter, sweeter cousin of Coke. But blogging about soda for a month without undertaking an official tasting of the pride of New Bern, NC, is tantamount to writing a history of the United States without mentioning anyone named George. So first of all, good for Pepsi for running one of those "1 in 6 wins more Pepsi" contests. Nothing builds loyalty like freebies. (Of course I didn't win, but I know I was this close.) Second of all, I was pleasantly surprised that my Pepsi didn't taste sweeter than melted rock candy and that it actually did make my mouth buzz with bubbles. I was, however, equally befuddled at my inability to pinpoint any single component of its flavor. If you were to ask me what Pepsi tastes like, the closest I could come would be "brown." I assume that "brown" is in fact a chemical synthesis of the cola nut, but since I have never tasted a real, live cola nut, let's focus on trivia: one of the theories about the origin of the name Pepsi Cola is that it is an acronym of Episcopal, and there was a church across the street from the drugstore where Caleb Bradham concocted what was originally called "Brad's Drink." Pepsi is the khaki pants of pants of colas: I would never search it out, but if there's nothing else around, it'll do. (Total Score 15/20)

Suggested Food Pairings: Chocolate pudding, fried chicken

POP OF THE DAY: Cricket Cola

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

Tasting Notes: Some things taste delicious but not interesting, like toast. Other things taste more interesting than delicious, like guava or Cricket Cola. As you can see from the equation above, it combines real kola nuts with green tea to create what the Cricket people call "Happiness in a Bottle." (Hey, that's a great B-movie title: The Cricket People. Tagline: Chirp This!) Cricket also contains cane sugar rather than the hated high fructose corn syrup (ptoo!*), and it comes in a slender bottle with a hipsterish, earth-toney label. In short, all the planets are aligned for this to be a great drink—but Cricket doesn't quite click. The molasses part of the taste works for me, but a shortage of fizz coupled with the green tea flavor give Cricket a slightly flat, metallic aftertaste that remind me of the old days when I licked batteries for fun. Wait a minute. Batteries tasted good once you got used to the tingle. Maybe I need to try Cricket again. (Total Score 13/20)

Suggested Food Pairings: Fried plantains, cucumber rolls

*This is the sound of me expressing scorn for high fructose corn syrup by spitting vehemently on the ground. Tomorrow I will love it again.

POP OF THE DAY: Barritts Pineapple Bermuda Stone Ginger Beer

Category: Ginger Ale/Ye Olde Soda
Ratings (out of 5)
Taste: 5
Fizziness Factor: 5
Bottle/Can Design: 2
Availability: 1

Tasting Notes: Barritts is a mysterious little ginger beer. First of all, there's the missing apostrophe in the name. Then there's the circa-1990 website. And the fact that it's aged in stone crocks. What I do know is that Barritts tastes like, as the bottle copy says, "the beverage Bermudians have savored for 130 years." It's got a nice ginger kick that's balanced by the pineappley sweetness. The overall taste made my mouth water—it would go well with a big, spicy dinner. I could tell you more about the ingredients of Barritts, but here again, things get murky. The ingredient list is in such a small, tight font that it makes my eyes water to look at it for longer than a few seconds. So don't try to read Barritts or correct its grammar. Just go to your local BevMo or track it down online and drink it. (Total Score 13/20)

Suggested Food Pairings: Jambalaya, spicy Chinese broccoli

SODA SCIENCE: The Harcourt Theory of Flavor

Here's the latest dispatch from Kris Harcourt, Aussie entrepreneur extraordinaire, who posits a scientific connection among three of the most popular sodas out there:

Only 3 sodas in the marketplace (that I can think of) are unique and original flavors...Coke, Mountain Dew, and Dr. Pepper. Everything else is a plagiarism of pre-existing flavors from nature, usually fruit-derived. Coke and Mountain Dew introduced something completely original that are derivatives of nothing that came before them. As for Dr. Pepper, given that it was created by a pharmacist means it definitely makes the list of "invented in a lab."

I have previously suggested that root beer was another sui generis taste, but my homonymic homie Harcourt argues that root beer is based on the sarsaparilla root, which comes from nature, not from a lab. What do you think? (And no, that's not a picture of Kris. It's a baby yak.)

POP OF THE DAY: Frostie Concord Grape Soda

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

Tasting Notes: For a soda that contains 0% juice, Frostie does an amazing job of mimicking the unique taste of Concord grapes. For those of you who didn't grow up with a tiny German grandmother who grew these hardy fellers in her backyard, feeding some to the children but using most of them to make her own wine, Concords are the dark purple grapes that you squeeze out of their skin before you eat them. Frostie captures Concords' earthy sweetness AND the tinge of tartness that puts the pucker in Smuckers. Even the ridiculously purple color is right—so what if they used Red 40 and Blue 1 to create it? What any of this has to do with a cheerful elf who appears to have impaled a strawberry on his moustache is unclear, but I like the retro look of the Frostie bottle anyway. And I savor the fact that the first batch of Frostie was made in an abandoned jailhouse. (Total Score 14/20)

Suggested Food Pairings: Peanut butter sandwich, sauerbraten

POP OF THE DAY: Pangleheimer's Diet Hot Ginger Ale

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

Tasting Notes: Things I like about Pangleheimer's Diet Hot Ginger Ale: 1) The name. 2) The fact that its creators, the Pangles, feature their dog Teddy Bear on the bottle and their website. Things I don't like about Pangleheimer's: everything else. It smells like hair dye and unlike, say, Bundaberg, which gets it heat from real ginger, Pangleheimer's tastes like some trickster tossed a pinch of cayenne pepper into each bottle. It's heat without flavor. And now if you'll excuse me, I need to go drink some chocolate milk to cleanse my palate. (Total Score 10/20)

Suggested Food Pairings: Strawberries and cream Lifesavers, garlic mashed potatoes

POP OF THE DAY: 180

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

Tasting Notes:180 is an energy drink that actually tastes good. My whacked-out explanation for this is that its creators (either a team of mischevious animated spheres or Anheuser-Busch Inc, whichever you prefer) took the radical step of giving 180 the flavor of a naturally occuring food item—in this case, an orange. 180 also lacks that slight whiff of urine that taints many of its competitors. The 8.2-ounce can is pleasingly brand-appropriate, showing the rocket-like logo right-side-up on one side and flipped 180 degrees (get it?) on the other. 180 also works well as mixer: for quite some time my signature cocktail was a festive combination of 180 and a Spanish citrus liqueur called Licor 43 that I call—using Pittsburghian mathematical naming slang—a 223. (Total Score 16/20)

Suggested Food Pairings: Paella valenciana, tater tots

BRING BACK THE (RC) DRAFT: Rise Up, RC!

Third-Party Cola Demands Ad-Campaign-Finance Reform

POP OF THE DAY: Rat Bastard Root Beer

Category: Root Beer
Ratings (out of 5)
Taste: 5
Fizziness Factor: 5
Bottle/Can Design: 2
Availability: 2

Tasting Notes: Rat Bastard Root Beer (hereinafter RBRB) is a teenage boy of a soda, complete with PG-13 name, slogan-covered bottle ("It's them against us," "This time, put it in your mouth"), and surprising complexity (it contains something called gotu kola). RBRB is definitely of the rooty rather than creamy family or root beers, which leads to the Challenging Question of the Day: What, exactly, does the root in root beer taste like? if you can put your finger on some specific flavor analog, please write and tell me.

I could say that RBRB is an artful melange of molasses, ginseng, jasmine, and clove, (all on the ingredients list) but who's to say that the real flavor isn't coming from the mad dog weed or the dong quai? What I know for sure is that it's a tasty soda, if not exactly my gotu kola. (Total Score 14/20)

Suggested Food Pairings: Funyons, macaroni and cheese

POP OF THE DAY: A.J. Stephans Wild Strawberry

Category: Ye Olde Soda
Ratings (out of 5)
Taste: 4
Fizziness Factor: 5
Bottle/Can Design: 4
Availability: 2

Tasting Notes: Based in Cape Porpoise, Maine, the A.J. Stephans Co. uses "Pure Carbonated New England Water" to make a line of what it calls "tonics," thereby suggesting that yesterday's pop vs. soda vs. Coke debate should have at least one more entrant. This is pretty much all I can tell you about ol' A.J., since the company appears so devoted to its old-timey image that it has no website. As for Wild Strawberry, it's quite tasty. In my experience, strawberry soda can fall into two traps: flatness and sweetness. A.J. Stephans deftly avoids the first—the French might call it a fizzy fraise—but gets a few toes caught in the second. I would've preferred a little less cane sugar and a little more bite in the finish. Still, drinking this cheerfully red tonic with its simple, text-based label made me think of a sun-dappled autumn afternoon spent strolling though a country store that sells maple candy, apple cider, and bricks of cedar to keep the moths away. (Total Score 15/20)

Suggested Food Pairings: Salt and pepper potato chips, shepherd's pie

POP OF THE DAY: Cocaine

Category: Energy Drink
Ratings (out of 5)
Taste: 1
Fizziness Factor: 5
Bottle/Can Design: 3
Availability: 1

Tasting Notes: Hey kids, beware of Cocaine! Each can has 280 mg of caffeine! (Three times more than Red Bull!) It got banned by 7-11! The name on the can appears to be written in some sort of white powder! Oh, and it tastes like the kind of cough syrup that parents give their children as a punishment.

I must admit that the Cocaine marketing machine sucked me in. The provocative name, the promise of a lightning bolt of energy with no high fructose corn syrup, the fact that the only place in Los Angeles that sells it is a liquor store on the Sunset Strip. But none of that changes the fact that Cocaine is borderline undrinkable. Downing 8.4 ounces of Cocaine was like forcing down that first Coors Light in (for me, anyway) 11th grade. My stomach knew from the first bright red, hypersweet sip that it did not want anymore of this stuff. In fact, that first sip made my tongue tingle, scorched my throat, and even went up my nose a little. (Just like cocaine!) Halfway through the can, I was pretty sure my vision was blurring. I considered quitting, but the hope of a buzz kept me going, as did the fact that Cocaine tasted a bit less medicinal when I poured it over ice. Time elapsed from first sip to last: 1 hour 29 minutes. Did Cocaine get me high, you ask? (In a strictly "legal alternative" way, of course.) It did. My head felt like it was full of helium so that my skull was pulling up and away from my brain, and I found myself talking loudly and at length to coworkers with whom I previously had had nothing in common. So Cocaine was a qualified success as a social lubricant, but a debacle as an actual beverage. (Total Score 10/20)

Suggested Food Pairings: Whole wheat bread, kale

ELECTION DAY SPECIAL: Pop vs. Soda vs. Coke

While many news outlets will be showing you red state/blue state maps today, we here at Soda Pop Culture are going the extra mile and presenting you a map with LOTS of colors. This little beauty is from a website called popvssoda.com, and it shows the results of a survey that correlates your birthplace with the generic term you use for soft drinks. (Granted, the site says it was last updated in 2003, but carbonated-beverage colloquialisms, thankfully, do not shift as quickly as the winds of politics.) Your basic color code: the blue area is where the term "pop" prevails, those in the red area tend to call every fizzy drink a "Coke," and natives of the khaki/camo precincts favor "soda." What conclusions can we draw from this data? Survey creator Alan McConchie makes the deceptively clever observation that, "People who say 'pop' are much, much cooler," and I would add that people who knowingly call a Sprite a Coke may, perhaps, have spent too many roasting-hot summer days mixing said Coke with Everclear and drinking the resulting hellbrew out of the gaping mouth of some sort of bullfrog.

BRING BACK THE (RC) DRAFT: It's Not a Sprint, It's a Marathon

After three (3) e-mails went unanswered, I finally warmed up my dialing finger and called Cadbury Schweppes Americas Beverages, the maker of RC Cola. I spent a mere two (2) minutes on hold, after which one (1) very nice woman confirmed my worst fears: RC Draft Cola is no longer available anywhere in the world, and there are no plans to bring it back.

Cadbury redeems itself slightly for crushing one dream by resuscitating another. According to a number of interweb sources, Cadbury's Curly Wurly bar is very similar to the late, lamented Marathon, which was essentially a yard of braided, chocolate-covered caramel. So at least I can get a sugar buzz to help me plan the next stage of the Bring Back the (RC) Draft campaign. Cause you know this isn't over. Oh, heck no.

Sealed With an Ad

If you buy cans of soda with any frequency, you have surely encountered sodasludge, the brown grit of uncertain origin that sometimes besmirches the inner rim of your favorite container. Now a company called Advercan is offering a defense: the Cleancap, a biodegradable biofilm that seals out the grit and seals in—you guessed it—a tiny can-top advertisement. In a world where more and more available space, up to and including a winsome toddler named Jake, is covered with ad copy that does nothing but sit there and advertise, I think the hygiene-for-ad-space swap is a reasonable quid pro quo. So carry on, Advercan. You have my blessing.

POP OF THE DAY: GuS Dry Valencia Orange

Category: Adult Contemporary Soda
Ratings (out of 5)
Taste: 4.5
Fizziness Factor: 5
Bottle/Can Design: 4
Availability: 3

Tasting Notes: How can you not love a soda called GuS? Gus is the name of that old friend of every family—the one who works in a garage, fixing cars and maybe building his own airplane. Gus always has fresh donuts for the kids and a dirty story the grown-ups. Speaking of which, "GuS" actually stands for Grown-up Soda, and it is one. The bottle is a marvel of cheerfully accurate advertising: it shows a juicy orange and a host of bubbles, and that's almost exactly what GuS tastes like. GuS is light, fresh, effervescent, and a little sweet. The only reason the flavor came a half-point short of Piehler perfection is that the finish tastes less like zest and more like pith—which, by the way, can be electrically charged using static eletricity. I suppose it's that pith-y edge of bitterness that makes GuS grown-up, but my ideal soda is just a little more adolescent. All in all, though, good old GuS is definitely worth a visit. (Total Score 16.5/20)

Suggested Food Pairings: AsparaGuS and prosciutto appetizer, pepper-encrusted AnGuS steak

POP OF THE DAY: Coca Cola Blak

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

Tasting Notes: This one goes out to Kris Harcourt, Aussie entrepreneur extraordinaire. Neither Kris nor I drink coffee, but we agree that the concept of Blak is oddly compelling. Although Blak's name suggests some fancy new IKEA shelving unit, it is, in fact, Coke with a twist of coffee, served in a curvaceously retro 8-ounce glass bottle that is, in turn, wrapped in an off-putting plastic label that looks like a melted leopard. As far as my discriminating soda palate can tell, Blak's flavor profile contains four sequential tastes: Coke, caramel, coffee, and aspartame. This means that each sip takes you on a trip from sweet and bubbly to rich and creamy to pleasingly bitter to...lingering chemical aftertaste. Three out of four ain't bad, but why add synthetic sweetener to a drink that already lists high fructose corn syrup as ingredient number 2? Added bonus: the Blak website lets you create your own art using silhouettes of the bottle. (Total Score 15/20)

Suggested Food Pairings: Dr. Pepper steak tacos, chips and salsa

Soda and Soldats

In the Defying Stereotypes deparment, it seems that the French are drinking so much less wine that French vintners are using excess grapes as an ingredient in a number of spin-off beverages, including soda. According to timesonline,

Le Soda de la Vigne is on sale in a 25cl can for €1.50 (£1) in Paris. “It’s a way of opening up new markets and helping to cut the overproduction of grapes,” said Jean-Louis Escudier, the head of the INRA laboratory in Pech Rouge. Another company exploring the same avenue is Lir, near Bordeaux, which revealed a fermented and canned grape drink at the Paris food fair this week.

And for those who still insist on making the stalest joke in the world about how the French should thank us for saving their bacon in World War II, I would kindly like to remind you that, without the French navy, the U.S. would still be a western suburb of London. And now, back to the fizzy drinks.

POP OF THE DAY: Virgil's Cream Soda

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

Tasting Notes: Like a 36-year-old man meeting his 18-year-old girlfriend's parents for the first time, the Virgil's Cream Soda bottle says all the right things: "microbrewed with real vanilla beans," "made naturally for the cream soda conoisseur," and a list of ingredients that are "unbleached," and "purified." But the bottle also features a picture of that man in all his faux-gentle creepiness: black-eyed, bearded, and wearing a camoflage jacket, he serves a tray of what appears to be Bud Light to two kids seated on top of a mountain. I guess this is supposed to tie in with the devastatingly catchy slogan, "Using Natural Ingredients, We Brew a Cream Soda So Pure, So Rich and Creamy, You'll Swear It's Made in Heaven," but in retrospect I should have know that something was askew with Virgil's.

My first whiff of it, though, was awesome. It smelled like rich molasses and vanilla, and the first sip had a creamy, caramelly taste that actually made me say, "Wow," out loud. As I progressed through the bottle, however, the richness faded and was replaced by an overpowering, almost fruity sweetness that I finally recognized as the taste of sugarcane—too sweet even for me, a guy who considers "sugar shots" a viable part of the restaurant experience. My advice to Virgil? Change that slogan to "Using Natural Ingredients And a Dash of Red Food Coloring Left Over From Valentine's Day, We've Made The First Soda for Hummingbirds." (Total Score 11/20)

Suggested Food Pairings: Barbecued beef brisket, Altoids

POP OF THE DAY: Izze Sparkling Apple

Category: Adult Contemporary Soda
Ratings (out of 5)
Taste: 4
Fizziness Factor: 4
Bottle/Can Design: 4
Availability: 2

Tasting Notes: I kinda wanted to hate Izze Sparkling Apple, partly because I had to grab it from lifestyle dictator Starbucks, and partly because it contains the concentrated juice of something called the acerola (which, as it turns out, is just a fancy cherry). But Izze was a pleasant surprise. It contains 70% juice (although it's telling that grape comes before apple on the ingredients list), so it tastes fresh and healthy. My only issue with the taste is that a certain sweetness in it reminded me of sticky grade-school field trips where somebody had barfed in the back of the bus. It also made me think of the Jensen twins, a pair of tennis-playing brothers whose "road diary" I transcribed as my first job as an editorial assistant, and who drank apple juice to help them fart competitively. But the sweetness was redeemed by the sparkliness, and I liked the simple, colorful bottle design. (Total Score 14/20)

Suggested Food Pairings: Brie, Virginia ham

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