Red Rock Premium Root Beer

I opened this while cooking Reubens this afternoon: 

Brand: Red Rock Premium Root Beer.

Origin: Austell, GA.

Purchase Place: Blue Sun Soda, Bloomington, MN.

Sweetener: Sugar.

Review: This was an generically OK root beer. It didn't "take a stance" and try something quite specific (other than being just slightly red as you can barely make out in the photo). It had a slightly caramel flavor, and was pretty neutral on the "bite vs smooth" scale. Not bad, but nothing special. I'll rank it just a bit better than an average "5."

Score: 6.5 out of 10.

NEW! Coca Cola Zero Sugar Limited Edition "Starlight" Space Flavored

So, what is the flavor of "space?" 

Brand: Coca Cola Zero Sugar Limited Edition "Starlight" Space Flavored.

Origin: Atlanta, GA.

Purchase Place: Target, St. Paul, MN.

Sweetener: Aspartame.

Review: My wife grabbed a small pack of these tiny 7.5 oz cans for my this morning at Target. She had to Google the flavor to make sure I wouldn't hate it, and what she found out was that people were calling it very sweet with a raspberry or minty flavor (which seem VERY different to me).

First of all, it's quite red which was surprising. There's really no "normal" Coke taste to it. It has a strong "vanilla" flavor, but more like "plug in air-freshener woodsy vanilla" and not a preferable "vanilla bean." There's a hint of "abandoned humid cardboard warehouse" in there as well. So what I'm saying is that I'm not a fan.

To be honest, if I wasn't expecting Coca Cola, I'd maybe rank this a bit higher. It's a unique flavor, and I can give them that. But when I'm expecting just a "twist" on Coke Zero and get hit with air freshener in a damp cardboard factory, I'm not happy about it. I didn't even finish my 7.5 oz can, and I don't know what to do with the rest of the cans she got me.

Score: 2.5 out of 10.

Cripple Creek Brewing Celon's Mythical Creme Soda

I opened this with my boys tonight:

 

The label looks like an old stock certificate. Love it.

Wait, are they "Filbert's" in disguise?!? Because the bottom cap seems to say so!

Brand: Cripple Creek Brewing Celon's Mythical Creme Soda.

Origin: Naperville, IL.

Purchase Place: Blue Sun Soda, Bloomington, MN.

Sweetener: High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Review: At first sniff, this was a sweet vanilla-heavy cream soda. And the flavor was about the same. It was quite smooth, but it had a surprisingly sharp little bite in the aftertaste that wasn't fantastic. But decent flavor. This must be related to Filbert's as it's getting a pretty average score like the vast majority of Filbert's sodas I've had (except for the "8 out of 10" I gave their root beer a long time ago).

Score: 6 out of 10.

Walking to and from school, uphill both ways, in the snow, barefoot.

To be clear, Coca Cola didn't have 3.5 grams of cocaine, but maybe 1/400 of a grain (less than 0.0002 of a gram - less than 2 ten-thousandths of a gram) per ounce of syrup in 1902 according to Snopes. Just wanted to make that clear, but the image is still funny though!

State Fair Soda Cotton Candy

I was doing a lot of cooking last night, and I cracked into this:

Brand: State Fair Soda Cotton Candy.

Origin: Spring Lake Park, MN.

Purchase Place: Lunds & Byerlys, St. Paul, MN.

Sweetener: Cane Sugar.

Review: Well this tasted EXACTLY how it should have. It had that perfectly sugary flavor of cotton candy. I really don't know what else to say: if you like cotton candy and think it would be good as a liquid, then TRY THIS.

Score: 7.5 out of 10.

Northern Soda Company Black Cherry Soda

Three non-bottle reviews in a row?!? Yep. I had my second (and final) can from last weekend's Kowalski's trip:

Brand: Northern Soda Company Black Cherry Soda.

Origin: Arden Hills, MN.

Purchase Place: Kowalski's Market, St. Paul, MN.

Sweetener: Cane Sugar.

Review: This was really good! Just a solid and deep flavored black cherry. I was surprised when I poured out a sip for my boys and saw it was nearly clear (just the slightest pink tint!). I thought it was a bit on the sweet side, but my wife (who hates overly sweet things) thought it was quite tasty. There's nothing special about this, but it tastes really good! Solid soda!

Score: 8.5 out of 10.

Olipop Vintage Cola Sparkling Tonic

I was in Kowalski's with my family this weekend, and my wife spotted this: 

Check out that huge ingredients list!

Brand: Olipop Vintage Cola Sparkling Tonic.

Origin: Oakland, CA.

Purchase Place: Kowalski's Market, St. Paul, MN.

Sweetener: Stevia.

Review: So this is marketed saying that it's a "soda that's actually good for you." Well, I don't really buy that, but they're just trying to add things to soda while not adding too much sugar. That's the simple version. There's just 2 grams of sugar (they used Stevia), and they've added prebiotics and fiber... yes, NINE grams of FIBER... to the can.

So how does it all taste? Honestly, better than I thought it would. With the prebiotics and apple juice and fiber and all of those roots, I expected this to taste a bit like licking a hippies armpit. Like a bad kombucha. But it had a lot of deep flavors. It was herby and almost a bit smokey at times. The cola flavor was similar to "Bottle Caps" cola, which is not a bad thing. I don't care for the aftertaste of Stevia, and maybe that was the biggest downside to this soda. SUPER unique, and I'll gladly try some of their other flavors even though I didn't absolutely LOVE this.

Score: 6 out of 10.

 

Duff A L'Orange Soda (Energy Drink?)

I cracked into the "Duff" soda based off "The Simpsons" that I picked up last week at Legacy Toy Store at MOA:

 

 

The soda can is pretty true to the can on The Simpsons.

Only 20 calories? And lots of B vitamins? I think this is meant to be an energy drink.

Brand: Duff A L'Orange Sparkling Beverage / Soda / Energy Drink

Origin: Woburn, MA.

Purchase Place: Legacy Toys, Mall of America, Bloomington, MN.

Sweetener: Sugar.

Review: This isn't bad for being just 20 calories. But the orange flavor is what you'd expect from something that is meant to be an energy drink: it's sharp and almost just a touch bitter. Not bad, but just not great. It will be more enjoyable for you if you like the flavor of energy drinks. I'm ranking this right down the middle at an "average 5" on my scale.

Score: 5 out of 10.

Candy at Legacy Toys at the Mall of America

My boys and I were at the Mall of America on Friday morning. They wanted to stop at Legacy Toys on the 3rd floor, so I looked at sweet treats as they browsed the toys:

 

5 lb gummy bears!

I haven't seen candy cigarettes in MN for a while, but these don't
say "cigarette" anywhere on them so maybe that makes them legal again. 

You can make some happy little trees with this Bob Ross gummy candy kit!

These are one of my favorites, so I got a few (including one to sneak into my wife's lunch for her).

 
I grabbed a can of "Duff Beer" (not actually beer) that was packaged to look just like the "real thing" from The Simpsons. It's in the fridge and I hope to crack into that shortly! They didn't have as much soda as I showed in this post from last year, but they still had a few fun bottles.

p.s. I realized that maybe the candy cigarette issue was just with St. Paul as I went back and looked at this post from 2013. So maybe the packaging has made them OK again, or maybe it was just St. Paul that banned them, or maybe Legacy Toys is breaking a law that no one cares about.  :) 

The Pop Shoppe Root Beer

My wife recently grabbed 2 bottles of soda for me at Lunds and called them my Valentine's Day present (I'm not complaining, as it was more than I got her - we don't do Valentine's Day). Here was the first one I cracked into: 

Brand: The Pop Shoppe Root Beer.

Origin: Ontario, Canada.

Purchase Place: Lunds & Byerlys, St. Paul, MN.

Sweetener: Cane Sugar.

Review: This was decent! It had a deep almost smokey flavor that was quite smooth. It did little to stand out from other root beers, but it was relatively classic flavor (maybe a slightly modern take on a classic root beer, but nothing drastically different). 

(And whooooa... this makes 5 out of the last 8 posts being root beer related! Nice!)

Score: 6.5 out of 10.