"Gourmet" Sodas

[Toliver]

MSNBC has rated the Top 5 gourmet sodas that go beyond the ordinary:

1. Blenheim Ginger Ale (includes a Hot version)

2. Dr. Brown's Black Cherry

3. Abita Root Beer

4. Stewart's Orange 'n Cream

5. Cricket Cola

Mayhaw Man has sung the praises of Abita Root Beer in these forums.

Abita is made with cane sugar and Cricket Cola is made with sugar as opposed to the usual evil High Frustose Corn Syrup.

Googling the others, Blenheim uses either sucrose or sugar (in their Ginger Beer).

Both Stewart's and Dr. Brown's use HFCS.

Has anyone tried all five sodas? Do you disagree with the rankings? Or have better suggestions?

[Jason Perlow]

I like Dr. Browns but as you say its also an HFCS soda. There are better black cherry sodas on the market, such as Boylans.

Stewarts Orange 'n Cream is also HFCS based but there really is no equivalent other soda to it on the market.

Dunno about Cricket Cola. Never tried it. But Boylan's Cane Cola is by far the best Cola on the market (when it isn't Passover or imported from Mexico)

I see no Coffee flavored soda is listed. Manhattan Special rules.

Edited June 3, 2006 by Jason Perlow (log)

[tsquare]

Dry Soda has some good flavors - kumquat, and not so good - lemongrass - good idea, bad flavor. I thought it had overtones of cleaning fluids.

if you are lucky

pure cane sugar - and not a lot of it.

[Ktepi]

I haven't had Cricket Cola or the hot version of Blenheim's ginger ale, but I've had the others ... mostly they're in that "I won't fault you for loving this, but there are things I like more" zone. I like Dr Brown's orange soda a lot more than the black cherry, for instance (and the Cel-Ray more than either, but again, I'm not surprised when others don't agree with that). And though most of my friends would pick Stewart's orange and cream, the grape soda is the pinnacle of that line for me -- it tastes exactly like a grape soda should and like so few do.

Abita, though, would definitely be on my list. It's a very different taste from Virgil's -- which would also be in my top 5 -- and doesn't have the deep, complicated, maybe Moxie-like taste that I like about other favorite root beers. It's crisp and clean in a way that makes even people who don't pay a lot of attention to soda comment on it, and ice cold it's one of the best non-alcoholic options at a crawfish boil. This would be in my top 5 of any kinds of soda, gourmet, import, domestic, whatever.

Other things I'd add? I don't know where to draw the line between "gourmet" and "hard to find" (Moxie, Sun Drop, Ale 8 One, Buffalo Rock) or "expensive because it's an import" (Thums Up, Vimto, Orangina Rouge). Whole Foods' house brand (365, iirc) cola is one of the few "gourmet colas" I really like -- too many of them try too hard with vanilla and root-beer-like flavorings, and wind up with something that tastes like fancy Pepsi, but this one works.

Sioux City Sarsaparilla has been a favorite since I was a kid, and I like their birch beer too.

The Izze drinks are pretty good, though I don't know if I have a favorite that I'd top5.

Oh oh, and my personal new favorite is the Mocha soda from Green Mountain Roasters -- though it's weird for a "gourmet" soda to be a cheaper alternative to a Coca-Cola product (I like Blak better, but it costs more for less soda).

[MomOfLittleFoodies]

If you can get the kosher-for-passover Dr. Browns Black Cherry soda, it's really good stuff. It uses sugar rather than the usual HFCS.