Boylan's Diet Root Beer Boston/Nashua/Provid?

[MHarney]

Has anyone seen Boylan's Diet Root Beer in any retail outlets in the Nashua/Boston/Providence corridor? I can find a good number of their non-diet drinks, but the root beer is a tough nut. My boss just spotted a place in Boston that had nearly everything they make except the diet root beer. I'm tired of paying through the nose to mail-order -- it's about $2.50 a bottle with the understandably exorbitant shipping cost.

[Chris Amirault]

I'll keep an eye out but: what moves you to purchase this elixir?

[Pam R]

If you're willing to take a case, I'd ask the stores that carry other Boylan's drinks to order it in for you. If they're already bringing the other flavours in, they may be willing to do it (I would).

[MHarney]

I'll keep an eye out but: what moves you to purchase this elixir?

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It's about the only diet root beer whose taste I find quite decent, and, in this case, it's nearly indistinguishable from Boylan's regular cane sugar root beer -- as opposed to their cola, where their diet version tastes twice as sweet as the cane version and leaves one making an unpleasant face. I find many things sweetened with Splenda cloyingly sweet like that, but the Boylan's diet root beer seems to be done just right -- those items that have a fairly high acidity to start often seem to work best in this regard. (Reminds me of what the miracle berry is said to do to lemons -- a fascinating story recently broadcast on BBC Radio 4 that I listened to last week, made more fascinating by the fact that the Miralin company driven to bankruptcy in the early '70s was based just down the road from my office. Another article, from the WSJ, here.)

If you're willing to take a case, I'd ask the stores that carry other Boylan's drinks to order it in for you.

Yes, my plan would be to buy it by the case. I've hesitated to ask at Whole Foods, the only place I've seen any Boylan's recently, since previous requests for my local outlet to do anything out of the ordinary have been met with looks that said, "Poor misguided soul. He doesn't know the rules, does he?" (The last similar request involved Lyle's Black Treacle, since they carry Lyle's Golden Syrup. I have since found the treacle at the splendid little British Delights store in Westford, MA.) I'll have my boss ask at the place he found, whose name I'm not sure he even mentioned. I know it wasn't a Whole Foods, though. Edited May 9, 2008 by MHarney (log)