Hey Song Sarsaparilla

Sarsaparilla soda was a favorite treat when I was a kid. Back then, there were still lots of small regional bottling companies that sold their own varieties and flavors of soda, and it was easy to find.

As it turns out, though, the 1970's were actually the sunset years for most local bottlers. High sugar prices, increased transportation costs for their heavy returnable glass bottles, and the inability to afford the same massive amounts of advertising as the Big Guys forced many of them to close or shrink into obscurity while the huge super-supermarkets gave shelf space only to a handful of
national brands. Until I started poking around in the beverage section at Dong's Asian Supermarket, I hadn't seen real sarsaparilla for years.

Hey Song's Sarsaparilla is pretty decent; it's close enough to what I remember as a kid to satisfy my sarsaparilla jones, though I think there might be a little something missing from this formulation (birch oil, maybe? vanilla?) Still, the familiar herbal scent is there, and the big root-beery start fades to a touch of medicinal bitterness at the end. Very refreshing and not too sweet (though this soda is sugar-sweetened.) If you can find it, give it a try.

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