Review of 4 Hard Sodas: Not Your Mom's, Henry's, Strongbow, and Coney Island

Here's my second an final "mini review" of some hard sodas / flavored beers that I picked up at Total Wine:

All the bottles from a few months ago, but this review is just for 4 of the 9.

Here's my review of the final 4 (in the order that I drank them):

Not Your Mom's Apple Pie: This was a beer flavored with vanilla and apple juice, which sounded good to me. It's rare that my wife and I have the same reaction to a drink, but this one was the exception. My wife's quote after taking a sip: "Mmmmm, oh that's goooo... wait, OH NO!" Yep, I had the same thought. It's a very sweet apple pie flavor initially, but then there's a HARD hit of over-the-top cinnamon. I see what they're going for (it's like a super rich pie crust flavor), but it's quite literally 10x what it needs to be. It was nearly undrinkable.  Score: 2.5 out of 10.

Henry's Hard Cherry Cola: I liked this. It was just a little malty and not too "beer-y." And it had just a good cherry cola flavor. This went down easy. Score: 7 out of 10.

Strongbow "Cherry Blossom" Hard Cider: I'll be honest - I don't remember drinking this one. It must have been OK, but not great. Or horrible. Oops. Sorry. Score: 5 out of 10.

Coney Island Hard Root Beer: Possibly my favorite hard root beer! It had a strong vanilla flavor, and not a huge bite of booze. Still, I couldn't help but thinking if did NOT have alcohol in it, it would have been a great root beer. Score: 8 out of 10.


So I need to try more Coney Island hard sodas, because (as seen in the link below) I've liked them quite a bit - they hold 2 out of my top 3 scores for these 9 beverages.

If you missed it, here's the review of the first 5 of these hard sodas/ciders.

First 5 Hard Ciders / Hard Sodas from Total Wine

Here's my first of 2 "mini reviews" of the hard ciders and hard sodas that I recently picked up at Total Wine:

All the bottles from last month, but this review is just for 5 of the 9.

Here's my review of my first 5 (in the order that I drank them):

Strongbow "Honey" Hard Apple Cider: This was very sweet and crisp. It was almost just apple cider with a bit of a boozy taste. I thought it was great, but my wife (who has a more refined wine drinkers palette) said it was too sweet. Score: 8.5 out of 10.

Coney Island Hard Lemon Lime Twist: This was stronger on the lemon, and weaker on the lime. So it was quite unique and didn't taste like 7-Up or Sprite. Also making it unique was the smooth finish - it sounds like it could be weird, but the vanilla aftertaste was quite nice. My wife really like this, and I thought it was pretty good. Score: 7.5 out of 10.

Henry's Grape Hard Soda: This was a bit like a grape beer. I don't care for beer, and this had just a little too much of a "hoppy" taste to it. The grape was nice though. If you like beer and grape soda, then try this. Being I'm not a huge beer fan, this was just OK. Score: 6 out of 10.

Not Your Father's Vanilla Cream Ale: There was a MAJOR vanilla smell when I cracked this open (it's made with Madagascar vanilla). The first sip was deliciously heavy on vanilla, but then the beer taste took over and totally ruined it. Again, like I said in the grape soda above, if you like vanilla and beer, then try this. But this was way too "beery" for me. Score: 4 out of 10.

Henry's Hard Sparkling Lemon Lime: This was stronger on the lime than the lemon (so reversed from Coney Island Hard Lemon Lime Twist above), but it was good. It wasn't as interesting as the Coney Island, but still decent. I'll rank this just a bit above average. Score: 6.5 out of 10.

Hard Sodas and Hard Ciders

We stopped at Total Wine in Roseville with my family this past week, and I was able to cruise the "by the bottle" aisle. I walked out with some hard sodas and hard ciders:

I'll have some mini-reviews of these in the upcoming few weeks. Stay tuned!

Minnesota Loon Juice Honey Crisp Hard Cider

I reviewed some hard ciders and flavored beers at the end of last year. I'm totally not making this into a beer or hard cider blog, but I tried this the other night (mainly because it was cheap and it was local) and thought I'd share:

It wasn't the best ever, but the carbonation was really nice and crisp. Really, the word here is CRISP because I feel like that's totally the best way to describe this. The flavor was OK, but I hoped it was a little sweeter. If I had to rank it, I'd have to give it a 6 out of 10.

Review of my final 5 ciders

I just finished my final 5 hard ciders from my Total Wine stash:

Sonoma Apple Cider: The Hatchet ($2.99): This was one of the 3 most expensive ciders I purchased (of the 10 I picked up, 3 were $2.99), but it was NOT one of the 3 best. It was OK. It had a slightly dry bite to it, like a white wine. I don't want wine - I want a sweet cider. I didn't taste apple at all; it was just like wine. No thanks. Score: 4 out of 10.

Angry Orchard Hard Cider: Crisp Apple ($1.79): This had a super fresh and super crisp flavor. It tasted like farm-fresh apple cider, and hardly tasted alcoholic at all. Pretty tasty, but just a bit too "sharp." Score: 7 out of 10.

Redd's Strawberry Apple Ale ($1.49): This one surprised me a bit. I wasn't sure I'd like this being it was an Ale, but it was just the slightest bit "beery" (malty). The strawberry was very tart and strong. Each sip lead with a strawberry flavor, and it tasted a bit beer-like at the end. Not bad. Score: 7 out of 10.

Hornsby's Crisp Apple Cider ($1.49): This had a slightly berry aftertaste that was pretty good. There was another strange (slightly off) flavor in there as well, but it was subtle. Otherwise it was a sweet apple cider. Score: 7.5 out of 10.

Sonoma Pear Cider: The Pitchfork ($2.99): A little drier than I would have liked, but not too bad. It had a little strange aftertaste, but it had a decent pear flavor. Not my favorite, but I could see how some would like it. Score: 6 out of 10.

So I didn't have too many that were great in this 5. I liked my first 2 that I had back in August best. I'd like to head back shortly and get a few more ciders.  Click here of my review of the first 5 ciders.

Review of first 5 hard ciders

I've had 5 out of the 10 hard ciders that I picked up earlier this month, so I thought I'd do a quick review of the 5 I've had so far.

Here are all 10 that I bought (seen in this post), but I've only tried 5.

Here are 5 reviewed in order that I had them:

Woodchuck Raspberry Hard Cider ($1.79): Great, crisp, raspberry flavor. It tastes sharp, but it goes down really well. This was sweet and tasty. Score: 8.5 out of 10.

Ciderboys "Strawberry Magic" Apple Strawberry Hard Cider ($1.49): Again, very crisp. More heavy on the apple flavor, but it's a good flavor. Just a bit tart (like a fresh apple), but otherwise pretty sweet. Score: 7.5 out of 10.

Abita Purple Haze ($1.79): This was a flavored beer. It's a lager brewed with raspberries added at the end. It tasted just like "normal" beer with just a little fruitiness. Just a LITTLE. It wasn't bad, but I'm not a fan of beer - I was hoping this was less beer-like. If you like a slightly sweeter beer, then try it. But I wasn't a fan. (I HAD to try this one because Abita makes my favorite root beer ever.)  Score: 3 out of 10.

Samuel Smith's Organic Cider ($2.99): This was really dry and reminded me of a white wine. It needed to be sweeter. No thanks. And it was the most expensive of all the 10 bottles I purchased (there are 2 more that I haven't tried yet that were also $2.99, but all the others were $1.49-$1.99).  Score: 3 out of 10.

Wyder's Dry Pear Hard Cider ($1.99): This was OK. It was dry (as implied in the name), but not as dry as the last one I had. The pear had a nice sharpness/tartness to it, and there was still a little sweetness in there too. It tasted refined (like wine), yet sweet (like a sweet cider). Score: 6 out of 10.


So Woodchuck won this round, and Ciderboys was close behind. But I have 5 more to try - I hope to be posting about the rest of these in about a month. Check back!

A little booze for a change...

Last week, my son and I stopped by "Total Wine and Spirits" in Roseville. We spent some time in their "Mix and Match" aisle where you can purchase bottle-by-bottle:

Henry helping me pick out some hard cider (I'm not a big beer fan).

My Hard Cider purchases from Total Wine and Spirits. (Technically 1 or 2 are flavored beer.)

I'm not going to turn this into a hard cider blog, but I'll maybe post about these all as a group once I've had them. (So far I've had 2.) Check back for that.