Health-Ade SunSip Cream Soda

We were at Whole Foods this weekend, and I spotted a line of soda that had some sun sounding flavors. I grabbed this Cream Soda to drink in my office:

 

Brand: SunSip Cream Soda.

Origin: Terrance, CA.

Purchase Place: Whole Foods, St. Paul, MN.

Sweetener: Agave Inulin, Monk Fruit Juice Extract, and Cane Sugar.

Review: So this is a "prebiotics" soda. I knew that going in. I tend to shy away from these as I don't like the "bite" of kombucha, and many lean in that direction. But we saw so many flavors of this brand that LOOKED good when we were at Whole Foods, so I wanted to give it a try. It only has 4 grams of sugar and 30 calories, as it has 2 other sweeteners before sugar. Would it be drinkable?...

... Barely.

The second ingredient is "apple juice," and that's NOT a flavor that you commonly expect to go with the smoothness of a cream soda. And guess what? It doesn't really work. It had a pungent KICK when I took my first sip. I got a little better as kept drinking, but it was still very SHARP for a cream soda (which is something I expect to be SMOOTH). The cream soda flavor was decent, but it was just really odd paired with the apple juice.

Bottom line: I didn't care for it. If you like cream soda AND kombucha, you could like this! It's not nearly as sharp as a normal kombucha, but it LEANS that way. Just not for me - too odd of a flavor combo. Apple juice and cream soda are not flavors that ever needed to be mixed. I need to stay away from these kinds of "sodas."

Score: 2.5 out of 10.

Mexicana Cola

I opened a soda from my recent trip to the Bloomington Blue Sun Soda Shop:

Brand: Mexicana Cola

Origin: Mukilteo, WA.

Purchase Place: Blue Sun Soda, Bloomington, MN.

Sweetener: Sugar and Mexican Agave Syrup.

Review: This initially had a DEEP cola flavor, but it also had a bit of an unusual bitterness. I don't know for sure, but I'm assuming it might be from the agave as a sweetener. It's flavor was OK, but I was turned off a bit my the slight bitterness. In the end, it was worth trying, but not high on my list of colas.

Score: 6 out of 10.

Q Kola Spectacular Kola

I tried this when I needed a caffeine boost recently:

I noticed it had some interesting ingredients for a cola: it was sweetened with organic agave, and it had extracts of cinnamon, cloves, coriander, kola nut, lemon, lime, orange, and nutmeg. And it noted that it has the original spices of John Pemberton's original Coca Cola recipe "without the syrupy sweetness of today's factory colas." Worth a try.

Brand: Q Kola Spectacular Kola.

Origin: Brooklyn, NY.

Purchase Place: Lunds Grocery Store, St. Paul, MN.

Sweetener: Organic Agave.

Review: This had a relatively traditional cola flavor, but was much sharper than that. Of all of the unique ingredients, I could really taste the cinnamon and a bit of the lemon and lime. It was just a little too sharp for me, verging almost on bitter. But it was a decent, unique cola that had an unexpected tang to it.

Score: 5.5 out of 10.