I’ve been a pretty simple Coke and Dr. Pepper guy for a long time. Recently I’ve tried to branch out a bit. Here are some of my findings – good and bad. (Surprising or not, none of them contain high fructose corn syrup.)
Sprecher Cream Soda
★★★★★
Came across this incredibly tasty glass-bottled cream soda at Bread & Cup last year, then again a few weeks back at Menard’s. Amazingly sweet and with a tinge of caramel and honey as the label states. Loaded with real sugar, but what did you expect?
Natural Brew Cream Soda
★★☆☆☆
Another glass-bottle entry, I was not in a hurry to drink this stuff. It was a little too acidic, but somehow a strange leafy aroma still came from it. Not overpoweringly sweet, which was a nice change, but not nice enough to outweigh the other strangenesses. Wholly unenjoyable for me.
Virgil’s Black Cherry Cream Soda
★★★★☆
Another premium glass-bottle cream soda. Equal parts black cherry and cream soda, more or less. Definitely a tasty variation, and not nearly as sweet-overloaded as Sprecher. Apparently they produce a regular cream soda as well, so I’ll be excited to try that out to see how it compares with Sprecher’s.
Sobe Strawberry Daiquirri
★★★★☆
Plastic bottles now! Hooray. Smooth with milk in it. A little on the sweet side, but it keeps you from slogging it down right away, which is good, because each bottle sneaks in 2.5 servings – 300 calories in a hurry.
Sobe Orange Cream
★★★★☆
All of the above applies, but thankfully, it’s a bit less sweet. The orange flavor isn’t as prominent as the strawberry flavor of the above variety, but again, that keeps it from being quite as much of an attention-stealer.
Red Bull Cola
★★★☆☆
I’m a pronounced fan of regular Red Bull (gtfo SFRB), so I was excited to try their entry to the simpler cola world. Unfortunately, I was let down. Yep, it’s all natural, but the end taste reminds me of something we might have come up with in our 8th grade “synthetic cola” lab: it tastes like cola, plus lime, minus sugar. Red Bull, I know you have some sucrose and glucose sitting around – let some more into this drink and it would have been perfect.
First Blush Grape Juice – Merlot
★★☆☆☆
How in the hell do you screw up grape juice? I have no idea, but these people seem to have managed the feat. It tastes like grape juice concentrate, which is completely overpowering. It’s not that it tastes bad – perhaps mixing this with seltzer water (Ã la Izze) or even just water would have made this tolerable. But as it comes out of the bottle, it’s a bit like drinking the cherry sno-cone syrup out of the bottle – what tasted good in moderation requires conscious effort just to swig.
endnote
A few good ones, a few bad ones… worth a shot. In the mean time, Hy-Vee has started carrying real-sugar Coke and Fanta in glass bottles. Both of them are staples for my sugary-drink needs, but throwing in some variety makes every bottle of whatever drink I choose a real treat.