"The Bottlecap Score:" a tasting journal for tracking your soda experiences!

I was recently contacted by a fellow Minnesotan named Jason who was finishing up a new book. He wondered if he could send me a copy and I could review it here. It's SUPER appropriate for this blog, as it's called "The Bottlecap Score: A Tasting Journal for Pop Connoisseurs, Soda Jerks, & Soft Drink Enthusiasts." I was pumped to receive it!

My copy in my hand!

This is a great book (and for sure great GIFT IDEA) for those like me who (one) love soda and (two) like to keep track of what's good and what stinks. This book goes a bit more in-depth than I do for each review, but we'll get to that in a moment.

Jason writes about how this ranking system works, he has a chapter on different ways to host "tasting parties" (which I have wanted to do for YEARS), he has a section for tracking your favorite and your worst sodas, and then he has a lot of room for your personal reviews that are broken into 13 different flavor-based sections (like cherry, citrus, cola, cream soda, diet, etc).

He writes a lot about the intricacies of his ranking system, but here's the simple breakdown after all those pages:

There's a lot to unpack there, but like I said, this comes AFTER a lengthy description of how to break this all down, so this is like the Cliff Notes version. Just like my blog, a "5" is considered an average score. Notice you rank ALL kinds of things. I like the idea of including things like carbonation, aroma, and memorability into the system! Those are NOT things I have in my personal ranking system (or maybe I DO have those, but they're not explicitly stated like this). But I don't know if the bottle shape or the value are things I'm personally concerned about. But the great thing is if you think the same as me, you could just decide to give everything the same score for a category or 2, and then you're just effectively ignoring it. (If it's not something you care to rank or to consider for every soda.) Overall, I LOVE how there's more info/categories here than what I share in my reviews. I'm sort of excitedly jealous of his ideas in this system!

Here's what all the later pages look like where you review your sodas:

Picture of the top half of a page in the "root beer and sarsaparilla" section (sure to be my favorite).

Each review is a half page, so you can see 4 reviews/spread. You note the brand and flavor, and then you can circle the "flavor type." I REALLY like the idea of having a scale where you can mark the "flavor strength" anywhere between "too weak," "just right," and "too strong," because that's TOTALLY something I write about, but have never thought to put in a "scale" form. Nice! 

Below the flavor scale, you can make notes, write down the date, and note if it has caffeine (something readers have asked me to note as well, but I haven't implemented that). And then there's the "bottlecap score" tally on the right.

The "favorite" and "worst" listings. Also, there's a "favorite brands" list which I would use.

There are also fun soda-related illustrations alllllll through the book:

Notice the tiny man in the corner: the entire book is a flip book of him enjoying a soda.

Jason and I emailed back-and-forth a few times about this book. In his final note, he said something that I could see happening: "As an aside, I sincerely hope you like and enjoy the Bottlecap Score. My own family has. Sometimes there is temptation to fudge numbers for the category to force a particular score, but I am generally impressed how close on the scale the final number is to my true feelings." I had already looked through the book and had that same thought of "well, I wonder if all these points would REALLY add up the way I'd WANT them to" before I went back and read that he addressed that in an email from a week ago. The book must work!

Side note: I also spotted the book in a post on Blue Sun Soda Shop's Facebook page about 2 weeks ago:

You can find it there, or check it out on Amazon here. Good luck with the book Jason! It's very helpful and a lot of fun! I'm hoping people pick it up as a gift for the soda lover in their family...