Soft Drink Review Thread

[BigBeautifulMe]

Okay, so my venture was way more fulfilling than yours, I'm sure!

Today's venture was a canned soda, actually revisiting an old fave of mine that I haven't had in quite some time. Canfield's diet (gasp!) chocolate fudge soda. Rarely do you find the words diet, fudge, and soda in the same title.

Initial impression of the smell: Chocolate cake or something like a hard chocolate candy. It doesn't have that milky smell that accompanies a chocolate bar, definitely much sweeter and syrupy with a slight note of coffee about it. You would imagine it would taste a lot like Hershey's syrup.

The color is gorgeous, first off. It's not a typical brown like cola or root beer. It's thick like a good root beer, but has almost a reddish tint to it, like cocoa powder (imagine that!). It also isn't heavily carbonated, which I find to be a problem with most diet sodas. They can be caustic on the tongue where as this seems to have a very gentle bubble about it and even has a creamy head like root beer.

As far as taste is concerned, this is the best diet soda I've ever had. Hands down. I would actually pick this over a lot of regular sodas, and I HATE artificial sweetener. I think the trick is that they don't try to fight to hide the aspartame, rather they work around it and balance it with other flavors. Cocoa seems to be a great deep balance to aspartame's insanely sweet punch. The aspartame bitterness even seems to taste GOOD in this soda.
It TASTES like old fashioned chocolate soda, but more specifically, like a tootsie roll. It has a rounded out flavor that lingers, but leaves a rather pleasant aftertaste. I imagine this would make an incredible soda float, completely destroying its diet potential. It's still as good as I remember.

All in all, I give it a 4.5/5, if only because I would really like to try a non-diet version.

I saw this in our local Kroger yesterday, and remembered you reviewing it. I decided to pick it up. I just tried it - it's delicious! I'm not usually a fan of cherry - but there's enough chocolate fudge in here to balance it out. :eat2: I don't know if this will be a regular staple in my fridge, but as an every once in a while kind of deal, it's very tasty. I actually think it's a little undercarbonated for my tastes, and there is a bit of a chemically aspartame taste - but overall, I like it.

 

[Yakatori]

I'm surprised no-one mentioned Snapple. Maybe because they don't make root-beer or other sodas anymore, least not far as I can tell; probably something about competing against their new parent company's brands. But I can tell you that it was a fantastic soft-drink, as was a few of their other sodas. It certainly didn't look the part of most root-beers, being clear like a plain seltzer. But the taste was, I dunno; to my young palate, it seemed quite refined. It would not surprise me to see it come back at some point, either in the form of some sort of limited supply, through internet-sales or whatnot.

It was truly a great soda.

 

[Dromond]

It's time (long past) for a soft drink review!

Today, I have an assortment of Kutztown sodas to examine. The first one is the root beer, so let's get busy!

The ingredient list is as follows: Triple filtered carbonated water, pure cane sugar, caramel color, natural and artificial flavors, citric acid, yucca extratives and acacia. Yucca and acacia are foaming agents. Just beware the amount of sugar. If you drink the whole 24 oz bottle, and why wouldn't you, you'll get 78 grams of sugar. It's not for people with diabetes!

On to the opening. There is a light hiss popping the cap, which suggests weak carbonation. The nose is plain jane root beer. Good, to be sure, but nothing imaginative.

There is no head at all when pouring, which belies the presence of foaming agents in the ingredient list. The nose doesn't change after pouring. It smells like standard root beer. Now on to the drinking!

It's a classic standard root beer flavor, with a hint of floral in the back note. It's also almost flat. A faint carbonation is present. The lack of carbonation gives it a smooth mouthfeel, though rather dull.

In conclusion, it's really a good root beer, though there is nothing special about it. A respectable B+ for Kutztown Root Beer.

I think if it had a carbonation kick, I would grade it a bit higher. Regardless, I'd be happy to drink it again.