So this summer, I've been living in St. Louis, MO. It's a really cool city. The city is a little hive of culture and neat spots to explore. In St. Louis, there is a street called the Delmar Loop. And in the Delmar Loop is a soda store called
Rocket Fizz. The store is a chain that produces its own line of soda. It is also, frankly, amazi-balls. They have hundreds of sodas, the vast majority I've never tried before. They also have a wide range of candies and novelties. You know, like rubber chickens, or underpants for your hands, that kind of thing. It's also one of the few places in the state that I've found that sells Irn Bru. Which made me scream a little with excitement when I saw it.
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| The main display wall of soda |
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At Rocket Fizz, they have Taste Test Tuesdays where you give them $5 and they give you a little shot of 10 different sodas. Which is just perfect for me! I don't want to drink an entire bottle of a soda I'm not crazy about. And I want to be able to discover new sodas with minimal effort. So yay! This week, their taste test line up was all root beers. Which is not as perfect for me. I mean, I like a root beer now and again. but I'm not crazy about them.
And it turned out, all 10 root beers were pretty comparable. So, this week is gonna work a little differently than normal. Instead of doing 10 different reviews for each of the sodas, I'm gonna give a general overview and point out the notable things among the list.
The sodas that were tried were as follows:
Red Arrow Root Beer
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| With its strong, simple label |
Gene Autry Root Beer
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| Who is apparently the "Singing Cowboy"? |
Snake River Sarsaparilla
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| I don't think I like Sarsaparilla. At least not this one. |
Hippo Size Jumbo Root Beer
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| The Label promised a Big taste. It... certainly had that. |
Anchor Ginger Root Beer
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| Not gonna lie. Love this label |
The... Judge Wapner Root Beer?
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| The Taste Test Lady told me Judge Wapner is an old TV judge |
Death Valley Sarsaparilla
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| I'm also fond of this label |
Dad's Root Beer
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| One of the more well known brands |
Johnnie Ryan Birch Beer
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| First of the Birch Beers |
Reading Draft White Birch
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| The second of the two Birch Beers |
All of these sodas tasted fairly equivalent. There was nothing that was undrinkable, but also nothing that knocked my socks off. And this may be because it was a lot of root beer all at once and the tastes blended together from one sip to the next. I was planning on doing the taste test with a traditional amount of rigor, with a cracker and water between each one. But I decide against it, because then I'm the pretentious jerk holding up the line with all my "rigor" .
But, overall. I really liked the label designs for Dad's Root Beer, Anchor Root Beer, Hippo Size Root Beer, Johnnie Ryan Birch Beer, and the Red Arrow Root Beer. They all get ratings in the 7-9 /10 range.
I didn't particularly care for the label design for the Snake River Sarsaparilla, the Judge Wapner Root Beer, or the Gene Autry Root Beer. They all get generally low ratings in the 2-3/10 range. Do you see that pattern? Personal bias against sodas with people on them, I guess.
All the sodas generally tasted similar. Things that stood out:
-The Anchor Root Beer could have had a way stronger ginger bite and I would have loved it
-The Gene Autry Root Beer left was weird sticky, penny-ish taste on the back sides of my tongue.
-The Death Valley Sarsaparilla was not overly sweet like these kind of sodas usually are, but it was very rooty and medicinal tasting. I didn't like it, but it might be right up another person's alley.
-The other people tasting with me didn't like the Dad's Root Beer's after taste, but I felt that the Dad's would be the best in a root beer float
-The Hippo Size was had most intense and robust flavor of all the other sodas. It was very sweet. It also had a very prominent taste of old wintergreen gum. But it was the favorite of some of the other tasters.
- The White Birch Beer had an amazing color! It had a lovely champagne ascetic.
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| Isn't that gorgeous! |
So. Final verdict. Nothing really amazing. Virgil's is still one of my favorite root beers. But it was really cool to try so many different types. And the store had so many other root beers and birch beers that weren't included. There's a lot more to explore.
