Cicero Beverage Co. Salted Caramel Root Beer

I had this after an 8K road race yesterday:

Brand: Cicero Beverage Co. Salted Caramel Root Beer.

Origin: Chicago, IL.

Purchase Place: "Minnesota's Largest Candy Store," Jordan, MN.

Sweetener: Sugar.

Review: I didn't expect much going into this because I'm not a huge "salted caramel" fan. But this was worse than I could have imagined. I thought MAYBE it was just me, so I had my wife try a sip - she loves salted caramel ice cream. But she took a drink and said "oh that's RANK!" It tasted like salty soda, which is not something that's good. I'm going to give this a score of 1.5, which makes it officially the WORST root beer I've ever had. I could only try 2 sips of it before dumping the rest.

Score: 1.5 out of 10.

Cicero Beverage Co. Cherry Cola

I pulled this out of the fridge last night:

Brand: Cicero Beverage Co. Cherry Cola.

Origin: Chicago, IL.

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

Sweetener: Sugar.

Review: This was just OK. It had a pretty weird aftertaste that I didn't care for, but the cherry flavor was good. It didn't stand out as anything special or horrible. Average score for this.

Score: 5 out of 10.

Cicero Beverage Co. Orange Cream Soda

I grabbed an Orange Creme soda to enjoy as I was grilling burgers the other day:

Brand: Cicero Beverage Co. Orange Cream Soda.

Origin: Chicago, IL.

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

Sweetener: Sugar.

Review: This was REALLY smooth and creamy. It reminded me of having Orange Floats and Root Beer Floats at my Grandma's house at Christmas and Thanksgiving. (Random but fun holiday tradition.) It was tasty, but had just a slightly odd aftertaste that made it less desirable. But if you like a good Orange Cream, check it out.

Score: 6.5 out of 10.

New Stash of Sodas!

Easter is this weekend, which means Lent will be over, which means I will be able to drink soda again! In celebration for this glorious day, I headed to Frattallone's Ace Hardware on Grand Ave in St. Paul earlier today to stock up on soda. But I encountered some bad news! They had NO root beer left on their shelves!!

Lots of empty spots where root beer once was.
(And technically, there's 1 diet root beer left on the 2nd shelf next to the blue stuff.)

This marks the first time a "stock up" of soda didn't include a root beer. Depressing. Here's what I brought home:

From left-to-right:

- Jones Cream Soda
- AJ Stephans Raspberry Lime Rickey
- Cicero Beverage Co. Chicago Style Cherry
- Faygo Redpop
- Saranac Black Cherry Cream
- AJ Stephans Black Cherry
- Jones Soda Zero Calorie Black Cherry
- NuGrape Grape
- Double Cola
- Cicero Beverage Co. Chicago Style Orange Cream

Check back early next week as I start to go nuts on this stash.