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.