Goya Coconut Water

While technically not a soda, I opened this with my boys a few days back: 

 I took a photo of it, and later realized it was the Spanish side...

... so I had to turn the can and take one of the English side.

Brand: Goya Coconut Water.

Origin: Jersey City, NJ.

Purchase Place: Aldi, Minneapolis, MN.

Sweetener: Sugar.

Review: This smelled nicely like lightly sweetened coconut. But it was odd tasting. (Even after shaking it well like it said to.) The biggest thing that put me off was how thick it was. It had the thickness of syrup, but it wasn't nearly that sweet. So it was odd to wrap my head around. Sure, I'm not a huge fan of coconut-flavored things, but this I couldn't do. And neither could my boys - they both gave up on it after a sip. No thanks. I have to rate this pretty poorly.

Score: 2 out of 10.

Goya Cola Champagne

I took a gamble here... what flavor is "Cola Champagne?"

Brand: Goya Cola Champagne.

Origin: Secaucus, New Jersey.

Purchase Place: Frattallones Ace Hardware, St. Paul, MN.

Sweetener: High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Review: So it turns out that "Cola Champagne" is much like a cream soda, but maybe a little heavier. There was no real "cola" flavor. It was pretty tasty - very sweet and pretty smooth. I was pleasantly surprised.

Score: 7.5 out of 10.

Goya Coconut Soda

I recently finished off my small stash of sodas from the Mexican Food section of Cub that I picked up a few months ago.

Brand: Goya Coconut Soda.

Origin: Secaucus, NJ.

Purchase Place: Cub Foods, Minneapolis, MN.

Sweetener: High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Review: I'm not a fan of coconut flavored things - I'll admit that. So the best coconut soda might only be able to reach a mark of 7 out of 10 on my scale. Well, this one will do just that. When I opened this, it had no smell what-so-ever, and that worried me. But the first sip was decent. The problem with coconut flavored drinks is that sometimes it tastes like you're drinking sunscreen, but this one didn't taste like that. It was a good, smooth coconut flavor. It tasted very clean and pure. If you like coconut flavored things, give this a shot - it was as good as it could have been.

Score: 7 out of 10.

Sidral Mundet Apple Soda

Last week, I grabbed 3 sodas from the Mexican Foods section of Cub Foods:

My 2nd Jarritos and Goya sodas (on either end), and my first Sidral Mundet.

This was the first one I tried:

Sweet embossed bottle.

The cap.

Brand: Sidral Mundet.

Origin: Mexico.

Purchase Place: Cub Foods, Minneapolis, MN.

Sweetener: Sugar.

Review: This is a simple soda: it's tastes a lot like a sweet, carbonated apple juice. If that sounds good to you (which is does to me), try this. I'm actually surprised this is labeled as "less than 1% apple juice" because this could have a lot more in it based on it's flavor. It's an apple SODA, when it really could just be an apple JUICE with some carbonation (that would make it better for you too). Anyway, it was tasty and sweet - tastes more like juice than a soda though.

Score: 8 out of 10.

Malta Goya

I knew nothing about this when I grabbed it. I thought it sounded Mexican.

It had a distinct (not good) taste. I had to look up more info. I found this on Wikipedia:

Malta (also called young beer, children's beer, or wheat soda) is a type of soft drink. It is a carbonated malt beverage, meaning it is brewed from barley, hops, and water much like beer; corn and caramel color may also be added. However, Malta is non-alcoholic, and is consumed in the same way as soda or cola in its original carbonated form, and to some extent, iced tea in non-carbonated form. 

In other words, Malta is actually a beer that has not been fermented. It is similar in color to stout (dark brown) but is very sweet, generally described as tasting like molasses. Unlike beer, ice is often added to Malta when consumed. A popular way Latin Americans sometimes drink Malta is by mixing it with condensed or evaporated milk.

It DOES taste like molasses. And not in a good way. I'm curious how it would taste with condensed or evaporated milk as suggested. I might have to try that. Key word: might.


Brand: Malta Goya.

Origin: Wilkes-Barre, PA.

Purchase Place: Frattallone's Ace Hardware, Burnsville, MN.

Sweetener: High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Review: It wasn't good. Not at all. It wasn't even that "interesting." It tasted like thin, carbonated, nutty molasses. Yuck. Maybe the best line I found about it online was on UrbanDictionary: "A substance so terrible that it's creators should be murdered, or worse, forced to drink it themselves." Yep, that's about right. I'm giving this my 2nd ever "1" rating.

Score: 1 out of 10.