Northern Soda Company Toasted Pecan Root Beer

I opened my 2nd soda from my "root beer variety pack" earlier today:

 

In front of goodies from our garden.

Brand: Northern Soda Company Toasted Pecan Root Beer.

Origin: Arden Hills, MN.

Purchase Place: Remix, St. Paul, MN.

Sweetener: Cane Sugar.

Review: I swore that I've had this before, but I found no record of it on this blog. So I was going in for the first time. And it was good! It really wasn't much like root beer, though. It was very sugary and sweet. The pecan flavor was strong and pretty spot-on: it tasted like a pecan pie. A very sweet pecan pie with a lot of butterscotch notes as well. Again, there's not much of a root beer flavor to this as it's more of a "sweet pecan/butterscotch soda" instead of a "toasted pecan root beer," but it's still very tasty!

Score: 7.5 out of 10.

Class Action Lawsuit Against A&W

If you've had an A&W in the past few years, you're entitled to compensation.

From a USA Today article:

People who bought an A&W root beer or cream soda product with a "Made With Aged Vanilla" label between February 2016 and June 2023 may be eligible for a cut of a $15 million settlement the beverage maker must pay after a court decision.

The rebate results from a class-action lawsuit claiming A&W Concentrate Co. and Keurig Dr Pepper Inc., which makes the drinks, misled consumers by labeling products as being "Made With Aged Vanilla" when the vanilla taste is created by using artificial flavoring.

You have a chance to be reimbursed between $5.50 and $25.

A Homemade Blackberry Soda from Cold Front

After one of my son's soccer games, we stopped at Cold Front for some treats:

My boys with their cones.

My blackberry soda that the jerk whipped up for me.

Sipping on my blackberry soda.

 
Brand: Blackberry Soda at Cold Front.

Origin: St. Paul, MN.

Purchase Place: Cold Front, St. Paul, MN.

Sweetener: Unknown.

Review: As I find with most "homemade" sodas, this was very crisp with lots of carbonation. The blackberry was sweet and fruity, and it had a juice-like quality to it - that made it a little less soda-like, but it was still very good. It was a great end to an afternoon at a soccer game.

Score: 7 out of 10.

Zero Sugar Lemon Lime Starry

I've been seeing this around lately (a "rebrand" of Sierra Mist), and I grabbed one on a walk around the neighborhood with my son recently:

On the back wall of Marshall Stop.

 
Brand: Zero Sugar Lemon Lime Starry.

Origin: Purchase, NY.

Purchase Place: Marshall Stop, St. Paul, MN.

Sweetener: Aspartame.

Review: I didn't need to try this. It was a pretty generic lemon lime soda. Sure, it *WAS* good, but it wasn't doing anything different from 7Up, Sprite, Sierra Mist (what it replaced), etc. It's just another decent lemon lime soda. It's a lot like a 7Up, but just slightly sweeter (which I guess is pretty impressive for it being a 10 calorie drink). I like lemon lime sodas, and I liked this... I just wish it was trying something new.

Score: 7 out of 10.

Black Bear Root Beer

My wife was walking through Menards last week and picked up a 4-pack of these for me:

 

Brand: Black Bear Root Beer.

Origin: Glendale, WI.

Purchase Place: Menards, St. Paul, MN.

Sweetener: Glucose Syrup.

Review: This is a different "label" from the Sprecher brand - it's made by them. The label is very simple, nearly laughably plain (look at the "root beer" text at the top and how the "12 FL OZ" is oddly placed within that orange-ish stripe at the bottom.

But onto the flavor: it's decent. It's nothing too special, and it's a bit heavy with a caramel aftertaste. It's pretty smooth with a little hint of wintergreen, but then there's the caramel flavor that's a bit too much. Not bad, but not great. A decent root beer.

Score: 6 out of 10.

Freddie's Old Fashioned Root Beer

I grabbed this bottle from a cute little store on a mountain biking trip with my boys:

On the ice cream freezer in Victual.

Brand: Freddie's Old Fashioned Root Beer.

Origin: Frankfort, KY.

Purchase Place: Victual, Crosby, MN.

Sweetener: High Fructose Corn Sweetener and/or Cane Sugar.

Review: This was OK. The initial sip is very "classic" and has a pretty deep flavor, but then there's an extra cinnamon-like aftertaste that just isn't QUITE right. It was decent and smooth, but not my favorite. I'll give this a pretty average score. (See more from my mountain biking trip up north in this post.)

Score: 5.5 out of 10.

Northern Soda Company Root Beer

I just HAD to start with the "normal" root beer from my "root beer variety pack" that I just got for Father's Day:

Brand: Northern Soda Company Root Beer.

Origin: Arden Hills, MN.

Purchase Place: Remix, St. Paul, MN.

Sweetener: Cane Sugar.

Review: I've had this one before, but I made it a point to NOT look back at my old review before trying this again. When I first took a sip, it had a nice, classic root beer flavor that was immediately followed by a pretty strong brown sugar flavor. The brown sugar flavor was nice and a bit unexpected. It was unique and quite good.

So now that I've tried it (again), I looked back to my old review from 3 years ago. I described the aftertaste as "cherry-like" back then, but now I would stick to my thoughts of it being more "brown sugar-like." Interesting. I don't know if it's me or their recipe that has changed. Either way, I gave it the same score now as I did then, so my feelings are consistent!

Score: 8.5 out of 10.