The Homer Soda Festival

This year I once again had the immense pleasure of attending the Homer Soda Festival. It's held at the beginning of June every year in Homer, Illinois. And it. is. amazing. The festival has music and food trucks, but most importantly they have hundreds of different sodas. And if you have a VIP pass, you can sample any of them you like! There are so many varieties, so many new things to try!

So, a few notable things I tried:

There was a brand called Yacht Club Soda that had an amazing spread of different sodas. Some of their unique sodas include Grapefruit, Lemon, Pineapple, Dry Ginger and Peach Seltzer. The Pineapple was actually amazing, if you can find it I highly recommend it.

Boylan sodas were, as usual, spectacular. Boylan Orange soda might be my favorite orange soda around, if one is not counting Orangina.

Blenheim is a ginger ale brand that is spectacular. I'm going to write a full review of their Hot Ginger Ale, but until I do, seek it out. Its spicy, and delicious and incredibly unique.

There was a very interesting company called Hopwater which had a bunch of very bitter, tonic type sodas in Lime, Ginger, and Grapefruit. It wasn't very good for drinking on its own but it might make a good mixer.

Jones sodas was there displaying a few new sodas and all they're classics. They were sampling a melon soda which was amaaazing and so unique and refreshing. They also had a birthday cake soda which was... real gross. Very sticky sweet.

There is also brand called Kickapoo with makes a pretty good pina colada and fuzzy navel soda, if quite excessively sweet.

And the best sodas of the show! There a new local brand called 164 Brewery. So far they only sell locally on tap, so no bottles yet. But it was amazing! They had 3 sodas for tasting, Ominous, Pitcher in the Wheat, and Tree Climber. Tree climber is an apple cider soda with flavors of elderflower and ginger. Pitcher in the Wheat is a lemon wheat soda sweetened with honey. And my personal favorite and my favorite soda of the entire show is Ominous! Its a ginger beer soda, its got hibiscus and citrus and a little spiciness. Its beautiful. All of them are beautiful. I greatly look forward to when they start bottling so I can do a full review.


Overall take away from the day. Festival is amazing, soda is amazing, life is beautiful.

La Nostra Aranciata

My friend brought me this soda back from italy, because she was traveling there with her family and also is a lovely person. I'm not sure how to differentiat between the brand, or the flavor as it is all in Italian so the title of this post is my best guess. This is the orange flavor of the soda, I also had a lemon flavor that was equally tasty.

Appearance

The soda has a lovely orange color. The label is plain and packed with text in italian. Its a humble label and one can catch the drift of what to expect even if you don't speak the language. 

Taste

This soda, plain and simple is lovely. The carbonation is subtle and fills your mouth pleasantly. The soda is sweet, but not syrupy. The orange is gentle and not too tart. It tastes like oranges perfectly rippened and picked off the tree and then distilled down to they're essence. Its like refined nostalgia for the orange drinks I was served as a child at school or off a childs menu. I could easily imagine being served this while on a sunny dining patio in the italian country side.

Taste Score

8/10. Pitch perfect. If you can find it, purchase it.

Wisco Pop! Ginger

This is another soda from the Wisco Pop line, a ginger that boasts local honey as its sweetner, and fresh lemon, ginger and lime juice.

Appearance

The ascetic of the label is quite charming. However, I like the contrast the red and white label that the cherry soda provided more than the green and white of the ginger. I feel it doesn't "pop" as much

Taste

This is a good ginger soda. Note: it is not a ginger ale like one might get in a Canada Dry or something. It is much sharper, similar to the ginger sodas I've experienced in Latin American countries. It has a great bite to it. It tastes much more like a fresh knob of ginger muddled into seltzer with honey and lime juice. I love it. Underneath the lemon and lime and ginger taste there are some delicate floral notes too, which are lovely and subtle. I was pleased to find on the ingredients label that it has lavender in here too. My main complaint is that there is a lot of sediment in the bottom of the bottle that I have trouble getting to the top. With that settling I feel I'm not getting the full experience throughout since its hard to make each sip uniform. But thats pretty minor. The other is that really strong ginger gives me heart burn :P. I'll be feeling this later, but its so worth it

Taste Score

9/10 Excellent. If you can find it, buy it

Wisco Pop! Cherry

Appearance

This is a cute label. Its very reminiscent of the traditional soda jerk. The stripes are cute and cheery. The logo is a little monochromatic, but serves its purpose

Taste

Much like the label, this is a sweet little number. The cherry flavor is very subtle and the vanilla bean stands out. It definitely taste more like vanilla bean than vanilla, as in a cream soda vanilla. Its more complex and earthy. I like it, though it took me a minute to adjust to taste since I was expecting more of a jolly rancher style cherry. This soda is sweetened with honey. Its very apparent. Its has that interesting metallic and planty sweetness. This is an a+ interesting and uniquely delicious soda and if you can find it I highly recommend it. 

Taste score

8/10

Sparkling Maple Seltzer

This week I found myself in Vermont, the land of maple syrup. I found a maple soda from Vermont sweet water bottling company and had to try it

Appearance
The label is simple with a graphic of a taped maple trees. The white label on the green bottle is simple and sweet

Taste
This is a really nice seltzer. The flavor is simple and subtle. There is a light maple taste but it's not sweet. I like it a lot. I would expect a maple soda to be sticky syrupy sweet. But it's really subtle and pleasant
Taste score
7/10

Hemani Honey Drink With Basil Seeds

Appearance

This label isn't pretty bleh. But the drink itself is so cool to look at. The drink is a light amber color and the basil seeds are suspended in the liquid and covered with some mucusy substance. So the seeds look a lot like bacterial in a slide. Veeery cool

Appearance Score

6/10

Taste

This is pretty gross, honestly. The smell is sickly sweet and it tastes like stale bubblegum. The seeds provide an interesting texture but the drink is sticky and syrupy and not pleasant. Over all, I would not drink it again. Or finish the bottle

Taste Score

3/10

Cicero Beverage Co Salted Caramel Root Beer

Cicero is an interesting brand of soda from Chicago that has flavors like caramel apple and chocolate covered bacon. Unlike Larry's fixins sodas they're actually pretty good. 

Appearance

I like the soda but I'm not a big fan of the label. It feels like a chili can label.

Appearance Score
3/10

Taste

This is a lovely root beer. Its sweet and creamy. The carbonation is not to intense. The Salted Caramel flavor is delicious, if it tastes like an syrupy flavor shot. Have this in vanilla soft serve and its amazing. 

Taste

8/10 Delicious. Highly Recommend.