Review - Swamp Pop Praline Cream Soda

Bottler: Swamp Pop, LLC

Calories per Ounce: 13.3

Caffeine: No

Aaron's Comments: Swamp Pop Praline Cream Soda has a strong cream taste overlaid with the nutty, almost butterscotch flavor of the pralines. The soda is incredibly sweet, and very nearly cloying, a sensation that becomes more and more powerful the more one drinks. The first few sips are fairly pleasant, but eventually the sweetness dominates so much that it becomes difficult to drink. It remains just barely tolerable as a result of the slight nutty taste, but one can still almost feel the sugar crystals hitting one's teeth as you drink it. Perhaps because of the sugar content, the soda is extremely foamy, producing a pronounced "head" when poured into a glass. Ice softens the sweetness slightly, letting the nutty flavor come through more. Adding ice cream to the soda works well, resulting in a mixture that tastes a little bit like consuming a liquefied pecan pie with an ice cream topping, albeit an even sweeter pecan pie than one normally encounters.

Review - Blue Plate Special Blackberry Cobbler Soda

Bottler: Orca Beverage Company

Calories per Ounce: 13.8

Caffeine: No

Aaron's Comments: The Blue Plate Special sodas all attempt to emulate a classic dessert in soda form, and the Blackberry Cobbler soda fits right into this effort. With a taste that starts with a strong blackberry flavor and ends with a hint of doughy crust. One wouldn't think that one could make a soda that tastes like biting into a forkful of blackberry pastry dessert, but somehow this soda manages to accomplish exactly that effect. Ice seems to dampen the doughy aftertaste, leaving just a strong, but quite tasty blackberry soda flavor. As one might expect, adding ice cream works about as well as adding ice cream to an actual blackberry cobbler - that is, really, really well. Actually, really, really, really well. If you like blackberry cobbler, try this soda. You won't be disappointed.

Review - Cranberry Sierra Mist

Bottler: PepsiCo

Calories per Ounce: 10.5

Caffeine: No

Aaron's Comments: Cranberry flavored sodas are a staple of the Christmas season, but I happened to find a bottle of Cranberry Sierra Mist still sitting on the shelf at my local supermarket and I figured that it would be a decent idea to see if it was worth drinking even without the accompanying holiday cheer. The soda tastes pretty much like it is advertised, with a lemon lime base and an overlay of cranberry flavor. This mixture works fairly well in Cranberry Sierra Mist, as the cranberry flavor is prominent enough to give the soda a fairly satisfying tartness. Ice mutes the cranberry flavor, leaving behind something that tastes a lot like ordinary Sierra Mist, which seems to me to be a step backwards. Unfortunately, ice cream almost completely washes away any of the cranberry flavor, leaving behind a fairly ordinary tasting lemon-line soda float. By itself, this is a mildly interesting variant, but when one adds almost anything to it, the variant nature is hidden, leaving just a fairly ordinary Sierra Mist behind.

Review - Dominion Ginger Ale

Bottler: Old Dominion Brewing Company

Calories per Ounce: 11.3

Caffeine: No

Aaron's Comments: The difference between an ordinary ginger ale and a really good ginger ale is one of the most noticeable in the soda world. Dominion Ginger Ale is a really good ginger ale balancing just the right combination of spicy ginger with the sweetness provided by the cane sugar, which is quite a feat when one considers the relatively low calorie count of this soda. With ice, the ginger flavor is still there, but the sweetness is highlighted a bit more, throwing the balance off just a bit. Combining Dominion Ginger Ale with ice cream gives a relatively subtle, but still quite enjoyable ginger flavored float. And I think that more or less sums up this ginger ale - subtle and at the same time quite tasty and enjoyable.

Review - Mountain Dew Voltage

Bottler: PepsiCo

Calories per Ounce: 14.5

Caffeine: Yes

Aaron's Comments: Have you ever wondered what it would taste like if you mixed regular Mountain Dew and cherry cough syrup? Or maybe raspberry cough syrup. Well now you don't have to wonder. You can just go down to your local supermarket and buy Mountain Dew Voltage because that pretty much what this soda tastes like. It isn't exactly bad, but it does have a fairly strong medicinal quality to it. Ice mellows out the entire soda, leaving behind nothing but the sugary syrupy taste. Adding ice cream doesn't really help matters much. There are very few sodas that have absolutely no redeeming qualities when made into an ice cream float. Mountain Dew Voltage is one of the exceptions, as making it into an ice cream float results in a mixture that tastes almost exactly like I would imagine using cough syrup to make an ice cream sundae would taste. To be perfectly honest, I have no idea why anyone would buy this soda a second time. It has boatloads of caffeine, but so do lots of other sodas that don't taste like bad cough syrup.

Review - Sioux City Prickly Pear Soda

Bottler: Sioux City Beverages

Calories per Ounce: 13.8

Caffeine: No

Aaron's Comments: I have no idea what a prickly pear tastes like. This means that I have no idea if this soda actually tastes like a prickly pear. It is, however, quite sweet, which really shouldn't be a surprise given that the bottle states quite prominently that it is flavored with pure cane sugar. Underneath the sweetness is an almost bitter flavor that I suppose is what the soda makers intended to be the taste of prickly pear. Overall, the soda is an almost indescribable sweet and tart experience. Ice cuts the sweetness, but leaves the bitterness intact. Ice cream, on the other hand, almost entirely overwhelms the slight bitter taste, leaving behind something that oddly tastes akin to a blue raspberry Mister Misty.

Review - O-So Butterscotch Root Beer

Bottler: Orca Beverage Company

Calories per Ounce: 14.2

Caffeine: No

Aaron's Comments: Normally I consider most root beers to have enough flavor on their own as root beer without adding something like butterscotch.  In fact, before I tried O-So Butterscotch Root Beer, I thought the idea of adding butterscotch to root beer sounded like it would be quite a bit of overkill. This soda, however, manages to add a just enough of a hint of butterscotch to the cinnamon spice of the root beer to make this unusual combination work. Adding ice subdues the root beer flavor and makes the butterscotch blossom, yielding a taste that is almost just a butterscotch soda. As one might expect, adding ice cream to butterscotch tinged root beer works quite well, resulting in a root beer float that tastes like root beer poured over a butterscotch sundae. The overall result is that if you like butterscotch, you will probably like this soda.

Review - Sugar Plum Soda

Bottler: Orca Beverage Soda Works

Calories per Ounce: 13.8

Caffeine: No

Aaron's Comments: Sugar Plum is, as the label suggests, a plum flavored sweet soda. As with most fruit flavored sodas, it doesn't taste much like the fruit that it is supposed to taste like. In the case of Sugar Plum, the soda tastes a little bit like very sweet grape soda. It does have something of a plum flavor, but that is overwhelmed by the sugary taste. Ice makes the soda taste just a little bit more like plum, mellowing the sugar taste to the background. Adding ice cream gives just about as good results as adding ice cream to grape flavored sodas does, yielding a pretty decent but mostly unmemorable float.

Review - Cicero Beverage Company Candied Bacon Cream Soda

Bottler: Cicero Beverage Company

Calories per Ounce: 19.3

Caffeine: No

Aaron's Comments: I have never had a bacon flavored soda, but I approached Cicero Beverage Company Candied Bacon Cream Soda with the theory that bacon makes everything better. The soda itself is interesting, with a definite bacon flavor, but one that is very faint and only becomes apparent as something of an aftertaste that follows on behind the strong vanilla cream flavor of the soda. Although the label says it is supposed to be candied bacon, the bacon flavor seems a little bit more like smoked bacon. Ice doesn't really change the flavor much other than to mute the cream flavor a bit, making the bacon aftertaste more pronounced, which I suppose is something of an improvement assuming you picked up the soda for bacon flavored carbonation. Adding ice cream almost entirely overwhelms the bacon flavor, resulting in what tastes mostly like a standard cream soda float. As usual with Cicero Beverage Company sodas, the light touch of the flavoring simply doesn't stand up well to the addition of any other flavors, and fades entirely into the background.

Review - Fanta Pineapple Soda

Bottler: Coca-Cola Company

Calories per Ounce: 15

Caffeine: No

Aaron's Comments: A lot of fruit flavored sodas don't really taste much like the fruit they hold themselves out to be. This is especially true of "big brand" fruit sodas like Fanta, which often taste like an extremely processed version of the fruit that is advertised on the label. And then there is Fanta Pineapple, which tastes exactly like a pineapple with carbonation added. The soda is not overly sweet, with a nice acidic flavor that gives it a strong pineapple flavored punch. Ice doesn't fundamentally change the flavor, merely slightly downplaying the sweetness and letting the acidic taste of pineapple come through just a little bit more. Some fruit sodas work very well with ice cream. Fanta Pineapple works about as well as one might expect when mixed with vanilla, with the tangy pineapple flavor offsetting the sweetness of the ice cream.

Review - Monticello Root Beer

Bottler: Old Dominion Brewing Company

Calories per Ounce: 14.2

Caffeine: No

Aaron's Comments: One of the side effects one will get as a result of reading this blog is a healthy dose of the range of sodas that are mostly only available in or near Charlottesville, Virginia. I don't live in Charlottesville, but I am a graduate of the University of Virginia, and I live close enough that I can visit a couple of times a year. The last time I was there I found this local soda and picked up a bottle. Like Dominion Root Beer, Monticello Root Beer is flavored with honey, which gives the soda something of a smooth texture while still retaining the spicy bite of good root beer. With ice, the honey flavor comes to the fore and the spicy bite is muted, making the entire experience a much smoother one. With the smooth honey and spicy bite, it should come as no surprise that it mixes well with ice cream, merging with the sweetness of the vanilla to deliver an excellent spicy-sweet combination. Overall, this is a very good root beer, and one that I recommend trying if one gets the opportunity.

Review - Dang! That's Good Red Cream Soda

Bottler: Imperial Flavors Beverage Company

Calories per Ounce: 15

Caffeine: No

Aaron's Comments: The taste of Dang! That's Good Red Cream Soda is hard to describe. It has a very strong vanilla flavor, but it also has a kind of bubble gum flavored overtone to it. Adding ice mellows out the vanilla flavor and emphasizes the odd bubble gum like taste. I haven't had any kind of red cream soda before, so maybe this is what red cream soda is supposed to taste like, but to my palate it is odd. With ice cream, it creates a creamy vanilla-bubble gum flavored float that is decent enough, but not something I'd choose over most other options.

Review - Tahitian Treat Fruit Punch Soda

Bottler: Dr. Pepper Snapple Group

Calories per Ounce: 15.5

Caffeine: No

Aaron's Comments: Tahitian Treat is a fruit punch soda that mostly tastes red. It is a very sweet tasting red, with a little bit of a slight guava-like aftertaste. It is also a pretty good tasting fruit punch soda, despite not really having a flavor in which there are any identifiable fruit flavors. The flavor is strong enough that adding ice doesn't really have any effect on the flavor. Combining Tahitian Treat with ice cream results in a fairly interesting ice cream float, with the red, fruity flavor mixing well with the vanilla of the ice cream. If a nondescript and somewhat vague fruit flavor combined with ice cream sounds good, this will probably appeal to you. Overall, Tahitian Treat is a quite tasty fruit punch.

Angela's Comments: Could you get more sugar in this bottle?

Review - World Market Coffee Soda

Bottler: Cost Plus, Inc.

Calories per Ounce: 12.5

Caffeine: Yes

Aaron's Comments: I don't much like coffee. My dislike of coffee is one of the reasons I favor sodas as a beverage of choice. Needless to say, I approached the World Market Coffee Soda with some trepidation. The soda certainly smells strongly of coffee, although it only kind of tastes like coffee. Rather, it tastes more like what coffee ice cream tastes like - that is, it has a coffee flavor, but it is much sweeter than coffee is usually served and has something of an artificial flavor to it. Over ice it tastes very much like iced coffee, albeit iced coffee with carbonation and a hint of artificial flavor. Using this soda in an ice cream float makes the coffee ice cream comparison even more apt, as the resulting combination is very reminiscent of coffee ice cream. The soda is actually quite good as an ice cream float, and I think it is actually much better this way than as a straight soda.

I cannot, however, figure out why one would buy this soda and not simply make coffee. The soda tastes so much like coffee that essentially you're buying it to get carbonated coffee, which seems to me like a pretty weak rationale for buying it. It is fairly decent, and if one likes the taste of coffee, it will probably be something one would find enjoyable. Whether it is worth it to get it rather that just brewing your own coffee I leave as an issue for others to evaluate.

Review - Goya Jamaican Style Ginger Beer

Bottler: Goya

Calories per Ounce: 15.8

Caffeine: No

Aaron's Comments: Goya Jamaican Style Ginger Beer has a pleasant, almost innocuous initial flavor very much like a standard ginger ale. Then the bite inherent to ginger beer sets in, and one realizes that this is one of the spicier ginger beers on the market. Ice makes the up-front ginger flavor smoother, but does almost nothing to cut down the spicy aftertaste, and in fact may even enhance it. Adding ice cream causes the soda to foam up, as usual for carbonated drinks, but the foam is exceptionally spicy, and will definitely burn if you inhale it. The combination of ice cream and biting ginger creates a fairly interesting combination of contrasts, resulting in a creamy mixture that is definitely sharp and spicy at the same time. I don't think it is a combination I would want on a regular basis, but it is good enough that it is definitely worth having once in a while.

Review - YooHoo Chocolate Drink

Bottler: Dr. Pepper Snapple Group

Calories per Ounce: 15

Caffeine: No

Aaron's Comments: YooHoo Chocolate Drink isn't a soda, as it has no carbonation. It also is not chocolate milk, as there is no actual milk in it either. It also bills itself as ninety-nine percent fat and caffeine free. It is, however, loaded with sugar, with a relatively robust 15 calories per ounce. It definitely has a chocolate taste, but it is a heavily processed chocolate taste. If one is expecting something akin to chocolate milk, YooHoo will be somewhat disappointing, as it has a much thinner consistency than chocolate milk. With ice, the flavor of the drink is entirely unchanged. The fact that it is not a soda means that it doesn't really make an ice cream float when you add ice cream to it, but it does create a quite delicious chocolate-vanilla combination. The concoction is something like a chocolate sundae, but instead of having syrup on top of ice cream, you immerse the ice cream in a vat of chocolate. The combination is good enough, in fact, that I am not surprised that it is not a commonly done thing.

Review - Cock 'n Bull Ginger Beer

Bottler: Pipeline Brands

Calories per Ounce: 11.7

Caffeine: No

Aaron's Comments: Bottled in North Carolina and billing itself as "the extra ginger soft drink", Cock n' Bull Ginger Beer offers a powerful ginger punch and a burning spicy aftertaste. As with most ginger beers, this soda is very strong, although it manages to do so while remaining relatively light on calories. Drinking it over ice does little to change the flavor, but it is slightly hazardous as inhaling the spicy aroma that rises off of the soda in a glass can irritate your throat. Adding ice cream makes the soda foam up, like most other sodas, but because of the heavy ginger of the soda, drinking that foam becomes a rather spicy experience. I may have odd tastes, but I find that ginger beer in general combines well with ice cream, and Cock n' Bull is no exception. The ice cream mellows out the ginger sting just a little bit, resulting in a vanilla-ginger combination that is really quite tasty.

Review - Ale 8 One

Bottler: Ale 8 One Bottling Company

Calories per Ounce: 10

Caffeine: Yes

Aaron's Comments: Ale 8 One is a regional soft drink that only appears to be generally available in Kentucky. It has a mild ginger taste with a hint of fruit flavor, perhaps apple, although it is so elusive that it is difficult to identify. The soda is only moderately sweet, which seems fitting given its relatively low calorie content. With ice, the ginger flavor remains, as does the fruit flavor, but it is not easier to identify. The flavor of the soda is so mild that it does not make for a particularly interesting ice cream float. The flavor of the soda retreats behind the flavor of the ice cream, providing little to complement the vanilla. Although Ale 8 One is a fairly decent soda on its own, it simply isn't very good when coupled with ice cream.

Review - Cool Mountain Black Cherry Soda

Bottler: Cool Mountain Beverages

Calories per Ounce: 11.7

Caffeine: No

Aaron's Comments: Cool Mountain Black Cherry, unlike many of the other flavors in the Cool Mountain line, has a strong flavor, with the black cherry almost hitting you int he face right off the bat. Unfortunately, like many cherry-based sodas, this means that there is something of a medicinal taste to the drink. adding ice mutes this aspect to the soda, making it taste a little less like sweetened cough syrup, but also dulls the cherry flavor itself. The soda mixes extremely well with ice cream, as the strong cherry flavor is still quite prominent even when mixed into an ice cream float, although tempered by the ice cream enough to eliminate the medicinal taste and producing a very nice cherry-vanilla combination.

Review - Barq's Red Creme Soda

Bottler: Barq's, Inc., a Coca-Cola Company.

Calories per Ounce: 14

Caffeinated? No.

Aaron's Comments: Unlike most other red cream sodas, Barq's Red Creme emphasizes the vanilla flavor of the soda to such an extent that the bubble-gum-like flavor found in most other sodas of this type fades to the background. As I am not really that enthusiastic about drinking a soda that tastes like bubble-gum, this makes Barq's rendition of the soda a superior one in my estimation. This is not to say that there isn't a bubble-gum flavor lurking in the soda, just that this element is less prominent than it is in, for example, Big Red. Ice seems to bring out the bubble-gum flavor in the soda, which I consider to be a step backwards. Like most red cream sodas, Barq's Red Creme makes for an adequate, although not particularly notable ice cream float, with the vanilla of the ice cream reinforcing the vanilla of the soda resulting in a decent experience with only a modest bubble-gum after taste.

Review - Sunkist Orange Soda

Bottler: Dr. Pepper Snapple Group

Calories per Ounce: 13.5

Caffeine: Yes

Aaron's Comments: The first thing to note about Sunkist Orange soda is that it contains caffeine. This makes it different than most other orange sodas, and is notable because many parents seem to think that orange sodas are, as a rule , a "safe" soda to serve to their children without the risk of hopping them up on caffeine. Sunkist Orange soda is the exception, and should be regarded as an unsuitable option if one wants to avoid caffeine. I like caffeine, and so Sunkist Orange soda is a perfectly acceptable alternative for me. The soda's flavor is definitely orange, but more in the vein of mandarin orange slices in light syrup orange. As with other Sunkist flavors, Sunkist Orange is also very highly carbonated, giving the soda something of a fizzy bite. Ice doesn't appreciably change the flavor, but it does tone down the carbonation, making the entire experience slightly mellower. As with most orange sodas, using it in an ice cream float creates a Dreamsicle-like experience, so if you like Dreamsicles, then you will probably like a Sunkist soda float.

Review - Sunkist Strawberry Soda

Bottler: Dr. Pepper Snapple Group

Calories per Ounce: 14.5

Caffeine: No

Aaron's Comments: I am generally a fan of strawberry sodas, and Sunkist Strawberry Soda is an excellent example of this kind of drink. The soda has a nice fresh strawberry flavor that is tasty without being overpowering, although it is a little bit too heavily carbonated for my taste. Adding ice doesn't diminish the flavor, but does ratchet down the power of the carbonation by just a little bit. Using Sunkist Strawberry Soda in an ice cream float creates a delicious strawberry-vanilla flavored concoction that is a nice balance of creaminess and carbonation. Overall, this is a very good soda that will be sure to please anyone who is a fan of strawberry flavor.

Angela's Comments: The first taste is sweet, and then you get the strawberry. The strawberry flavor isn't as strong as some other strawberry sodas.

Review - Big Blue

Bottler: Big Red, Inc.

Calories per Ounce: 16.25

Caffeine: Yes

Aaron's Comments: Big Blue is bottled by the same manufacturer that makes Big Red, and this fact is apparent when one drinks one and realizes that it has almost the same flavor as its red colored counterpart. The vanilla flavor is a little more prominent, but the bubble gum flavor is still present. In fact, the two sodas taste so similar that other than the color I'm not really sure what is supposed to be different. I suppose Big Blue is for people who want to get the mixture of vanilla and bubble gum flavor in their soda, but don't want to drink something red. It seems to have a slightly fuller taste than Big Red, with none of the tinny feel of the other soda. When put over ice, the bubble gum flavor fades into the background, and Big Blue tastes very much like a poor quality cream soda. Adding ice cream has the odd effect of highlighting the bubble gum flavor, although not unpleasantly so. If the idea of having a bubble gum-like ice cream float sounds enticing to you, then this would be a good option. I was only mildly impressed with Big Blue - it is marginally better than Big Red, but not so much so that I would ever bother to try it again.