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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.
Category: Energy drink
Ratings (out of 5)
Taste: 4Fizziness Factor: 4Bottle/Can Design: 2Availability: 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
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.
Category: Cola
Ratings (out of 5)
Taste: 2Fizziness Factor: 5Bottle/Can Design: 3Availability: 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
Category: Flavored Cola
Ratings (out of 5)
Taste: 4Fizziness Factor: 3Bottle/Can Design: 4Availability: 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.
Category: Ginger Ale/Ye Olde Soda
Ratings (out of 5)
Taste: 5Fizziness Factor: 5Bottle/Can Design: 2Availability: 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
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.)
Category: Ye Olde Soda
Ratings (out of 5)
Taste: 5Fizziness Factor: 3Bottle/Can Design: 4Availability: 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
Category: Ginger Ale
Ratings (out of 5)
Taste: 2Fizziness Factor: 3Bottle/Can Design: 3Availability: 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
Category: Energy Drink
Ratings (out of 5)
Taste: 4Fizziness Factor: 5Bottle/Can Design: 4Availability: 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
Category: Root Beer
Ratings (out of 5)
Taste: 5Fizziness Factor: 5Bottle/Can Design: 2Availability: 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
Category: Ye Olde Soda
Ratings (out of 5)
Taste: 4Fizziness Factor: 5Bottle/Can Design: 4Availability: 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
Category: Energy Drink
Ratings (out of 5)
Taste: 1Fizziness Factor: 5Bottle/Can Design: 3Availability: 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
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.
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.
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.
Category: Adult Contemporary Soda
Ratings (out of 5)
Taste: 4.5Fizziness Factor: 5Bottle/Can Design: 4Availability: 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
Category: Flavored Cola
Ratings (out of 5)
Taste: 4Fizziness Factor: 3Bottle/Can Design: 4Availability: 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
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.
Category: Cream Soda
Ratings (out of 5)
Taste: 2Fizziness Factor: 3Bottle/Can Design: 4Availability: 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
Category: Adult Contemporary Soda
Ratings (out of 5)
Taste: 4Fizziness Factor: 4Bottle/Can Design: 4Availability: 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
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.
