Old Jamaican Ginger Beer

I'm not sure if they're insinuating that this a style of ginger beer that you would find in an older period of Jamaican history, or if an old person from Jamaica made this.  Either way I'm scared.  This seems to be the most hardcore ginger beer I've ever set my eyes on.  No real reason, I'm just worried.

Thankfully the ingredients aren't something I have to worry about:  water, sugar, natural and artificial ginger flavors, gum arabic, citric acid, carbon dioxide.  That's not much of a lineup, and less usually seems to be better.  I think I'm just going to jump into this one.

Wow, the smell really concerns me.  That's a very bold, powerful ginger smell.  And there's no mistaking it for a ginger ale smell, this is ginger beer.  The taste is surprisingly clean.  Like, ridiculously clean.  It's like if they were able to get liquid ginger and water to separate like oil and vinegar, I can imagine water surrounding liquid ginger as I drink it.  Very crisp, however, not the burn I expected.  It put up a pretty good front, but this is a reasonably mild ginger beer.  Very sweet, very crisp, extremely mild carbonation, and a good ginger flavor, with just a bit of burn.  

One odd note, it says it's a "Product of Canada."  That seems to be the opposite direction of old, or new, Jamaica.

-Mike

Bundaberg Peachee

Peach doesn't seem to be the most common flavor for soda.  We've done around 160 reviews now, and this is only our second that involves peach, which is a shame because it's a good, sweet flavor.  We have done Bundaberg products before, and they've had a good track record, so seeing this recently on the shelves I had to give it a go.

First off I enjoy how they call it "Peachee."  That's whimsical.  Already you know it has to be good.  I know as we get older that our tastes can become a little more mature, but with sodas my tastebuds almost always act like a child, and what does a child want to eat, Fruit Loops or Froot Loops?  Actually I preferred bran, but that's a whole other issue.

Another good sign came with the ingredients.  Aside from the bummer of having sodium benzoate, it's sweetened with cane sugar and involves something called "peach brew" which is an ingredient that has it's own ingredients.  The highlight is it does contain 5% peach juice, and it's always good to throw the real thing in there.  One more note about the ingredients, one of them is "antioxidant."  Maybe that offsets the evil of the sodium benzoate.

Enough of the build-up, this is quality stuff.  It's definitely the best peach soda I've had, again, not that there have been many.  It's quite sweet but with a bold peach flavor.  Very smooth too, with mild carbonation and just the tiniest bit of bite to give it some variety.  In fact each time I take a sip it's a layered experience, where I get the sweet peach candy-type flavor first, and then it ends on the slightly sour bite.  

The best peach soda I've had, the best Bundaberg product I've had, and one of the best fruit flavored sodas I've had.  

-Mike

Hansen's Original Cola

We found it amusing that Hansen's was making a new product called "Original Cola" but there's always the chance that it's decent, so we tried it.  While it might not be the original cola of colas, it's still pretty tasty.

It's very sweet, and thankfully that sweetness is from cane sugar, as noted boldly on the label.  The carbonation is a little heavy, but still refreshing, considering.  The cola taste isn't anything special, but it's still cola, so it's a winner with me.

The ingredient list thankfully doesn't contain any HFCS, as state, nor does it contain any sodium benzoate. This was on the shelf here for five bucks for a pack of six, which isn't too bad.  

While everything sounds kind of mediocre it is a better than average cola and overall a quality soda that sits in the category between mainstream and gourmet.

-Mike

Mary Jane's Relaxing Soda

We mentioned this one enough that we figured we'd finally try it.  The gimmick, as you may guess by the name, is the soda is supposed to be calming, thanks to kava, rather than stimulating with caffeine as most sodas are.

Along with the kava is passionflower extract, which we both think we can taste even though we're not exactly sure what it tastes like.  The non-relaxing ingredients are fairly positive and include cane sugar, caramel color, phosphoric acid, citric acid and "natural flavor."  So no HFCS and no sodium benzoate.  

The taste is easy to describe, it's very much like an RC Cola.  I felt it was lightly carbonated too, so very easy to drink.  Extremely tasty.  Don't go pounding these down, though, as there is a warning on the bottle to not have more than two per day.  But really, if you're drinking more than two sodas per day, you need to lay off.

We both felt we did get a little relaxed, but were both pretty tired, so we're not quite sure if it made us more tired or not.  

Either way we were relaxed and we were very happy with the taste and the ingredients and would easily drink more of this...just not more than two a day.

-Mike

Sprecher Fire-Brewed Cream Soda

I figure I'd complete the Sprecher trilogy.  At least I've only seen three of their sodas.  Maybe they have more.  Who knows.  Anyhoo...

So this is their cream soda.  Their other two drinks have been winners, that being root beer and their amazing cherry cola.  I'm not a big fan of cream soda, though.  It's okay, but it never really floors me too much, with the exception of Virgil's which, if you recall, made me smile while drinking it.  I'd say they should put that on the bottles, but they don't need any help.

This is pretty decent, very smooth, lightly carbonated, has a mild cream flavor.  

Simple, but effective.  

One thing...the label.  There's a bee on it.  My greatest fear.  It's a cartoon bee, but not a happy looking one, a creepy one.  Gross.

-Mike

Gamer Citrus

Hey, remember when we did that show, and we talked about Gamer Soda?  Well, here's more!  This, I'm going to assume, is the citrus flavor.  It is not labeled, but I figure the grape is purple and the orange is orange.  So we'll call this citrus.  The drink, like all Gamer Sodas, is clear.

As a reminder, Gamer Soda is a lightly carbonated soda with pure cane sugar and B vitamins to I guess enhance your game-related staying power.  The cherry, which we had before, was crisp, and while you wouldn't think that would work for a cherry, it did, being a nice change of pace.  With citrus, though, that crispness would go perfectly.

Sadly, I have to say, the flavor is quite dull, almost like Diet Sprite, but sweet-er than a diet soda.  Actually it also reminds me of those generic lime seltzer waters you can get for like 50 cents a liter.  If you're looking for crisp, though, this is for you, just not flavorful or sweet enough for me.

We have some other flavors to try in this line, so stay tuned!

-Mike 

(Note:  This beverage was provided to us by Gamer Soda)

Deerfield Juicy Orange Cream

The last Deerfield product we reviewed, which in case you don't remember is a line of HFCS-free drinks from Walgreens, wasn't much of a winner (that was the root beer) but this one turned out much better.

This is a nice, crisp and sweet orange flavor, similar to Crush, but, again, without the HFCS.  The "cream" title is accurate, as this has a nice creamy finish to it.  I hate to use the dreamsicle reference, but it's pretty close. 

It certainly isn't a Virgil's Orange Cream, but it's easier to find in most cases.  Speaking of cases...

-Mike

Thomas Kemper Orange Cream

Back to the northwest we go, the land of Thomas Kemper, amongst other things.  Today we're going to take a look at their orange cream.  In fact we'll even one up that and not just look at it but taste it too.  Yeah, I'm sure I've used that joke already, but I refuse to go back through all my reviews and see if I did.  For all I know I used it last week.

Anyway, like other Thomas Kemper drinks it has the combo of cane sugar and honey.  Along with that you get some vanilla extract.  It also promises that you'll feel like you're 11 years old again, which I suppose if you had a good childhood, would be a nice treat.  I think I've pretty much felt the same throughout my life so I couldn't tell you what age I felt at the time I drank this.

The drink's biggest problem is it takes a page from the book of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.  Yes, they have a book, but only we in the foods industry are privy to it.  What I mean is it's not necessarily orange cream but rather cream orange.  Too much cream, not enough orange.  The flavor in general is a tad dull, to be honest.  The generic Deerfield from Walgreen's outdoes this, and both have the advantage of no HFCS. 

Sorry, TK, it's good, but nowhere near your ginger ale.

Finally, I got to use privy in a review.

-Mike

Waialua Soda Works Root Beer

Time to take a trip back to Hawaii.  I'm sure you've heard the phrase "when in Hawaii, do as the Hawaiians do." I'm pretty sure it's that.  Anyway, if I'm going to be in Hawaii (at least in my mind) I should drink beverages that I would, but Hawaiian.  I thought I did a decent job choosing Lilikoi, that's very Hawaiian, but why not see what Hawaiians can do to a mainland drink such as, oh, root beer?

It's alright.  Like before, I appreciate their ingredients.  Cane sugar along with Maui natural white cane sugar.  Giving it a variety of sugar is a fantastic idea to me.  Along with that some Hawaiian vanilla extract.  You can't get a more Hawaiian root beer than this.

Sadly it has a bit of a birch beer taste to it.  I know that some people can't distinguish between the two, and I guess I can see that, but I'm from Pennsylvania and we know our birch beer!

Also it has a little smokey flavor.  That may seem ridiculous, but I tasted it on each bottle I had.  Very unusual, not in a bad way, and hardly noticable, but interesting and unique when you do notice.

-Mike

Julmust Christmas Soda

For those of you who celebrate the Christmas holiday, as you know right now is the perfect time to start shopping for presents and holiday-themed beverages. No, I'm not talking about eggnog; I'm talking about Julmust Christmas Soda from the fine folks at Guttsa Kalla in Sweden.  If you doubt their Swedish-ness, check out their website at guttsakalla.com.  Their founder's name is Lars Andersson.  Need I say more?

Last time I checked Christmas is on December 25th, and this soda expires soon so I best drink it now rather than wait.  Besides, it's best to shop early.

As you can see in the picture it's a cola-colored beverage, with a slight red tint when held up to the light.  It has sugar, so no HFCS, which is good…but hops and malt flavors from barley?  Oh boy. 

Well, it sure smells bad.  Oh, good, it even tastes bad as well.  Wow, this tastes like an alcoholic beverage, but without the alcohol.  This is non-alcoholic beer.  If we liked beer, we'd do a beer site, but we don't.  We like soda.  This isn't soda, it's disgusting.  I know a lot of people didn't like that spiced Pepsi from a few years ago, but I did, and I was kind of hoping this would be like that.  I think even those who didn't like the spiced Pepsi would crave that over this waste of carbonation.  Yuck.

-Mike

Dewmocracy 2010

Instead of sitting back this year and letting people vote on the annual Dewmocracy decision without our input, we decided to instead tell you exactly which flavor to vote for.  No input, just commands.

First we have Distortion.  At first glance you'd think "gee, that looks like regular Mountain Dew."  Boy, are you a brand new level of wrong, my friend.  This is Mountain Dew which has been blasted with lime.  BLASTED.  

The Dew in this one is barely there, which is deceiving because when you smell it the lime scent isn't really noticeable.  It's good though, recommendable to anyone looking for a low-grade lime soda.

Next is White Out, described as having being a smooth citrus Dew.  I'd rather them save white for "mystery flavor."  Anything white should always be a mystery flavor.  What a waste.

Again, not bad.  Also, again, the Dew is hardly noticeable.  This is very Fresca to me, or, as I hear someone comment on after trying it on the Popcast, tastes like Squirt.  I suppose the mystery here is which flavor of citrus they were going after.

Finally we have Typhoon, which gives Dew a "punch of tropical."  I suppose this is different from a tropical punch flavored Dew.  

For having such a sweet candy flavor, it's disappointing drinking it.  It's definitely a tropical punch drink, but, again, not Dew-y enough.  This tastes like something you'd get at a dollar store cooler when you were a kid.

So what's the final verdict?  Go with Distortion...it's the lime that really stands out here.  While neither of us will probably buy another one of these again, it's important that we keep the best one out there in circulation so when future readers get to this article they say "boy, I wish I could try the best one of these" and then they can. 

-Mike

Deerfield Root Beer

So Dan Dub passed on the Deerfield line of products to us, a line of sodas available at Walgreens which contain no HFCS, and that's always a good thing.  Unfortunately I can't say the same for this root beer.

At the start the flavor is pretty average.  Then comes the subtle hint of beer, actual beer.  My first reaction, as with any strange taste in a soda, is to try it again.  Yep, beer, or at least some sort of fermentation.  Next I check the expiration date.  Still nine months till it expires.  Quite unusual.

Honestly even if that taste wasn't there this wouldn't get anything beyond buy a bottle, which is about $2.00 per.  It's average, and there is stuff out there like Jones which you can get much more for your money, which is surprising since this is a generic root beer from a Walgreens.  The aftertaste kills the whole experience, and because of that it drops a rank.

-Mike

Jones' Root Beer

Let's break down the two parts of this drink.  First there's the "Jones" part.  This means it's good, it's reasonably priced, but it doesn't use high fructose corn syrup.  Secondly, there’s the "root beer" part.  This means its root beer.  So this is a good tasting root beer that is reasonably priced and doesn't use high fructose corn syrup.

To go more in-depth to the taste, it's a very sweet root beer, and you can really taste the difference of having cane sugar in it.  It just adds an extra hint of flavor that you can't get from HFCS.  If I had to think of anything negative about it, I'd say that the sweetness almost overshadows the root beer flavor, but just by the slightest bit.

I like these products because they're like the gap between the really fine sodas that cost a lot and your cheaper, HFCS-loaded beverages.  So if you want a gentle entry to the world of finer sodas, especially if you want to get a large quantity of it for a group, here you go. 

-Mike

Reed's Cherry Ginger Brew

We welcome another Reed's Brew, this time it's a cherry and ginger combo.  We've had these before, with the Spiced Apple, which was amazing, and the Raspberry Ginger, which was...okay.  I believe I said it was more Ginger Raspberry than Raspberry Ginger.  I thought I'd be using that line again with the cherry this week but instead I have to say this:  It's not Cherry Ginger, it's not Ginger Cherry...it's just Ginger.

Thankfully a good ginger, and a red one at that.  That's about the only place I'm getting cherry out of this is the color.  It does claim to have cherry juice, 22% at that, but I guess they should have bumped it up a bit for balance.  I'd say a good balance would be...50/50?  

It does serve one big purpose though, it's the best middle-ground between ginger ale and ginger beer that we've ever had.  It has that burn, but it's very slight, it goes away reasonably speedy, and is tasty.  So if you're looking to get a hint of what a ginger beer could be without taking the daring plunge (okay, it's not that daring) then this is for you.

-Mike

Regina Pizzeria Raspberry Lime Rickey

To me a lime ricky is just a very limey drink, and I'm not making a deraguatory term about British people. Well, I looked it up, and a lime ricky can be anything mixed with lime really, alcoholic or not.

I wanted to find a drink unique to Boston while I was there, so in this case we have a raspberry one bottled by a local pizzeria.  Honestly I didn't see that it was raspberry, so when I first had it, it tasted like lime and a mystery flavor that was probably a berry.

Its okay, but just kind of bland for a lime drink. I think they need to up the lime more. The flavors seem too even to me, like a 50/50 blend, and it just doesn't work in this situation. The idea of lime and raspberry is great, just not this one. Combine that with the fact that this is an HFCS chemical cocktail and it's slightly below disappointing.

The pizza was good though.

-Mike

Organics Blood Orange Italian Soda

There is something really gross about the name "blood orange."  I guess it's because I'm a wuss and don't like blood.  But really, even if you're okay with Discovery Health or slasher flicks, does that really mean you'd want to drink something with "blood" in the title?  All my True Blood watching fans are saying "yes" right now, and "no" to me using so many quotation marks.  So we'll move on.

The last Organics brand drink we did (which, if you recall, is a Walgreen's brand) was a delicious pomegranate, in fact a pomegranate I'd gladly have again.  Let's find out how this...orange-type beverage fairs.

First of all this is, just like the pomegranate, very natural.  Organic blood orange juice, organic sugar, black carrot juice...very nice.  No HFCS, no sodium benzoate.  The scent is fantastic, it smells just like an orange slush puppy, if you know what that is.  The taste though is like carbonated orange juice for the most part.  That's not really a bad thing, but it does hurt the refreshness level.  I mean, orange juice isn't very refreshing.  The flavor makes the drink kind of "heavy" so to speak.  The carbonation is fairly mild, but the natural orange juice gives it weight.  Refreshness?

If you like orange, bloody or not, this is one for you to try.  It's very natural, but the heaviness takes some points off.

-Mike

Extenze Male Enhancement

So last year we decided to do a little “April Fools” thing and review something silly.  It wasn’t a joke in the sense that it was a fake review, we actually reviewed something, however what we reviewed was ridiculous.  Last year, it was Tab, the king of diet drinks and also somewhat of a joke now. 

Well, this year’s drink goes in the category of “oh, the things we do for you readers.”  Yeah, that’s a long title for a category.  Anyway, thanks to a co-worker, we bring you what is technically a soda:  Extenze.

You may have seen Extenze on TV.  In fact, it’s almost a guarantee.  If you don’t know what it is, you can look it up for details, but here’s the quick version:  it’s a male enhancement product.  Normally it’s sold in pill form, but why take one tiny pill when you can drink 8oz of carbonated liquid?

Maybe it tastes good.  All I know about the taste is that, according to one of the past infomercials, it does not taste like lighter fuel.  That’s always a positive. 

By the way, being a product that you should use at, you know…a certain time, you’d figure it’d give you some instructions on what time frame to use it.  Nope.

The ingredient list is crazy.  Here are some highlights:  HFCS, diarginine malata, GABA, betaine, rhodiola, panax ginseng, maca, yohimbe HCL.  You get the point…weird stuff.  It’s summed up as “male performance blend” on the ingredients.  1700mg of "male performance blend" per 8oz serving.  Here we go…

First of all it smells like Mello Yello (quite right) but appears to be clear.  Maybe it’s more lemon limey then.  At least this gets me a little positive about the drink.  The first sip is decent, it is like Mello Yello/Mountain Dew/off brand similar product. 

Then the aftertaste kicks in.  I can’t identify what it is exactly, not like a typical energy drink aftertaste.  The scary part is I have to keep drinking this to figure out what the aftertaste is, and I’m drinking way more than what I planned to. 

The aftertaste isn’t as bad now.  It's just something that's there that's not necessarily awful, but unidentifiable.  I will say this is very carbonated, only a few sips in and I’m already belching.  Nothing more romantic than burps.

Someone, I’ll say Dan W., said it’d be great if it tasted like something that you could trick somebody into drinking this, and honestly you probably could.  Of course we here at TSJ do not condone that, but it is April Fools.

So we’ll leave it at that.  I’d love to stick around and tell you if anything else happens but I’ll leave that to another site.  We just review flavors here.

Verdict:  Buy a …

Addendum:  So I almost gave this a verdict of “Buy a bottle.”  Again, just for flavor.  But after the left side of my head went numb for about fifteen minutes, and I could feel my blood rushing through me, particularly in my back (and, uh, nowhere else), I’m going with …

Verdict:  Buyer Beware!

-Mike

Americana Black Cherry

I'm not even sure what sort of joke to start this one off with.  How bout "if the bottle says vintage on it, just how old is this soda?  Is it out of date?"  Alright that was pretty awful.

Black cherry always seems to be decent.  You can't really screw up a black cherry.  Actually you probably could, but this one hits the mark for the most part.

It has a good black cherry flavor, but a little light than what you may expect from most.  Along with a good bit of sweetness (real cane sugar in this one) it also has a slight bite to it, something I never have had in a black cherry before, and I'm enjoying it.  

The carbonation feels a little overpowering at times, but if it were any other soda I probably wouldn't even make that comment.  I prefer my black cherry sodas to be smoother, and this is a case where that would improve it immensely.  After drinking this on the Popcast, I capped it up and put it in the refrigerator.  When I came back to it, it was just slightly flatter, and it made a world of difference.  That's not how it comes in the bottle though, so I stick with my original decision.

The ingredients are fairly solid, as I said no HFCS, but there is sodium benzoate.  The cherry taste comes from dark sweet cherry extract, which sounds like it could be bottled on it's own.

Aside from the ink on the label rubbing off on my hands as I drink it, and it's slight over-carbonation, this is a fairly solid black cherry with a unique bite to it.

-Mike

Nesbitt's of California Orange

I'm not sure if you can tell by the picture, but this is an orange soda.  The orange cap might give it away, or the orange label that has "orange" written on it.  I suppose the big tell is that the soda is colored orange.

The point I'm trying to get across, in case you couldn't tell, is that this is an incredibly orange soda, inside and out.

It took some time to assess this one, but this is how the flavor experience goes:  it's like the person who created this had an Orange Crush and said "back up the orange flavor a bit, back up the carbonation a little, bump up the sweetness some, and then give it a hint of orange Jell-O."

See the work we do for you?  To further enhance the flavor, make sure you swish it around in your mouth.  In fact, that's not a suggestion, that's an order.  I'm making you.

Aside from all the chemicals, this is a very good orange soda, one of the best I've had.

-Mike

Flathead Lake Monster Granny Apple

Sure, Twist doesn't usually appear in my pictures, but I had to show this chemical-filled "Flathead Lake Monster" just who was boss.

Legends live forever and are known the world over.  That's why everyone already knows about Montana's Legendary Soda, right?  You don't?  Hmm...

Well you had to have heard of the Flathead Lake Monster.  You haven't?  Not even Flathead Lake?

Neither have I.  I'm guessing that Flathead Lake is located in Montana and that there is a legend of a lake monster that, as you can see on the bottle, is so goofy looking you'd probably laugh at it instead of cowering in fear.

But we're not here to talk about monsters; we're here to talk about the lake's Granny Apple soda.  Thankfully this one isn't too bad.  It's got a nice crisp flavor that really sets itself apart from other apple sodas and does taste more like the granny variety rather than any other.  My only problem with it is the "gourmet" and "hand crafted" brandings on the front which become pointless when you look on the back and see all the chemicals. 

The sad thing is that this drink has a ton of potential.  I could have one now and then but the stickiness of the high fructose corn syrup is what puts a damper on this one.  If they replaced that with natural sugar it'd be a lot crisper and less “sticky” which would make it a real winner and possibly a rank higher if not more.

-Mike