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Category: Adult Contemporary Soda
Ratings (out of 5)
Taste: 5Fizziness Factor: 5Bottle/Can Design: 5Availability: 3
I first tasted Orangina at the only fancy food store that existed in Pittsburgh in the late 80s—but I didn't really appreciate it until I went to Paris as an exchange student. I had never been to bars or cafes before, and I couldn't get enough. When I wasn't gettind drunk on vodka orange with some English paratroopers or watching in amazement as my friend Joe Nocito tried to scuttle down the sidewalk with a cafe table hidden beneath his overcoat, I was doing my best to look mature, even going so far as to cough my way through a Pall Mall bummed from a girl on whom I had a monumental crush, and who repaid my affection by going to the prom with my best friend.
On that trip I sampled the delights of table wine, unrequited love, the Musee D'Orsay, and Orangina: the artistry of the potbellied bottle, the precision blending of the fruit elements (12% juice! 2% pulp!), and that inimitable taste. Yes, it's orange, but it's also tangerine, with a hint of bitter grapefruit to keep it all grounded. And you can shake it. Orangina is uniquely pleasing to all the senses, and in this age of energy drinks and fortified waters, I fervently hope that it has enough admirers to stay on the shelves. But if, some day, Orangina vanishes from the Whole Foods down the street, well, we'll always have Paris. (Total Score 18/20)
Suggested Food Pairings: Croque monsieur, steak frites
Category: Adult Contemporary Soda
Ratings (out of 5)
Taste: 5Fizziness Factor: 4Bottle/Can Design: 4Availability: 2
Happy New Year! I had such a swell time toasting the end of 2006 with a bit of the old fizzy grape that I thought I'd keep the ball rolling for my first post of 2007. If you're looking for a soda to help you keep to your New Year's resolution of eating heathily, check out the Fizzy Lizzy line, which boasts an average of 65% actual fruit juice. Fizzy Lizzy Concord Grape only has 51% juice, but it tastes a whole heck of a lot like a concord grape. And that's a damn fine taste, if you ask me, with a good burst of sweetness tamed by a touch of tang. Added bonus: apparently, concord grape juice can help lower your cholesterol. (Total Score 15/20)
Suggested Food Pairings: Stone ground wheat crackers and brie
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: 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: 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
Category: Adult Contemporary SodaRatings (out of 5)Taste: 5Fizziness Factor: 5Bottle/Can Design: 4Availability: 1Tasting 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
Category: Adult Contemporary Soda
