Irn-Bru
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Twist is actually 100% Scottish. He's 100% a lot of things though.
So I’m always on the lookout for a new soda to try… it’s kind of my thing. Any who, I was in HEB buying groceries and I noticed what I thought was another Kola Champagne, judging by the color and the fact that I was on the international isle. There sat this orange colored soda in a slender bottle called IRN BRU. At this point I wasn’t sure if the name was supposed to be capitalized or not, but I was sure of the fact that the name of the drink was probably supposed to be spoken as Iron Brew. Looking closer at the bottle I see that this IRN BRU is the “original & best”; it also comes from some company named BARR. I asked my helpful sidekick, Internet-Boy, to look up IRN BRU and tell me what he could. “First off,” he said, “the spelling is actually Irn-Bru. Secondly, it’s from Scotland. Thirdly, please stop calling me Internet-Boy.” I blankly nodded completely ignoring whatever the third thing was he said because I now knew that a Scottish soda was in my hands. You see I love Scotland. Technically I love Ireland and Scotland but today we’re talking about the latter. Scotland, from the one time I visited, was a beautiful country. I even thought about trying to work there at one point but failed at doing so because… well honestly I was lazy and really didn’t put much effort into it. If I could have chosen any other accent in the world I would choose the Scottish accent. Scotland also produced two things I’m rather fond of, cobblestone roads, Haggis and Amelia Pond. With all that said I’m not sure I’ve ever had a Scottish soda. With that said, let’s try this Scottish soda!
This smells a lot like a cream soda, which is fairly close to what Kola Champagne is. The back of the bottle lists Irn-Bru as a “citrus fruit flavor soft drink,” but I’m having a hard time smelling any citrus. If I truly try and just imagine some I get just the hintiest hints of orange. Enough of that though… it’s time for a drink.
You fooled me Irn-Bru; you only seem to taste like cream soda in the first few moments of your journey down my gullet. In fact there were a couple of citrus flavors hiding behind that sweet creamy aroma. Orange is definitely the ring leader here, but I think I taste a bit of tangerine as well as a hint of lemon. Honestly when you mix a bunch of citrus flavors together it’s hard for me to single them out. The carbonation doesn’t really appear until later in the drink when you swallow the Irn-Bru. What at one time was sitting on your tongue in a rather docile manner attacks the back of your throat with a cluster of microscopic explosions. Going back a few steps, I can’t say that I’m all that impressed with the flavor either. According to Internet-Boy, Irn-Bru has a cult following in the U.K. and I having a hard time seeing why. Then again I’m not really sure why people love Coke as much as they do here. Irn-Bru has your basic ingredients list with the exception being sugar over HFCS. You start off, as I said, with a hint of cream soda, followed by the citrus flavoring and eventually the tiny carbonation explosions. These three experiences don’t really work well with each other. There isn’t a smooth transition between each one making the drinking experience awkward at times. If the secondary flavor was just orange you’d probably have a cleaner transition between steps one and two, but you’d probably lose whatever makes this amazing in the U.K. With all that said I still love Scotland. You just keep producing your delicious sheep organ dinners, redheads, and cobblestone roads, and we’ll call it even.
~A
