Review: Canfield Diet Cherry Chocolate Fudge Soda

Okay, here we go again with another wicked short review:

Canfield's Diet Cherry Chocolate Fudge soda tastes exactly like a chocolate-covered cherry in soda-pop form. It's delicious. Seriously. And I don't think I can add anything else to that, so...The End.

Barq's - "It's Good."

I picked up a 24-pack of Diet Barq's root beer the other day, and the first thing I noticed was the slogan above the logo: "It's Good."

Now, it may have been a while ago, but the last time I had bought Barq's, the tagline was "Barq's Has Bite!" which was a reference both to it's snappier flavor compared with other commercial root beers and it's caffeine content (not many root beers are caffeinated.) Long-time drinkers of Barq's have noticed that the flavor hasn't been quite the same since Coca-Cola acquired the brand and started tweaking the recipe (some people have complained that the "bite" seems to be a thing of the past) so I got all set to write a sarcastic blog post about Barq's lazy marketing department not being able to think of anything more clever to put on the label but "It's Good."

I always try to do at least a little research about things I'm going to write about so I don't come across as being completely stupid, and when I started to dig into Barq's long history I found out that the company was founded as Barq Brothers Bottling Company in 1890, started selling Barq's in 1898, and their original slogan was simply, "Drink Barq's. It's Good." Well shut my mouth wide open. The best I could do with that info was make a lame joke about how they dropped half their original slogan because people nowadays have half the attention span they used to. 

Guarana Soda

I was at The Barn, a sort of job-lot grocery store in Greenfield, MA, when I found this: Guarana soda. It was at a truly bargain price: $1.00 per 12-pack (that's not a typo. It really was twelve cans for one dollar.) Imported from Brazil, the soda is flavored with guarana berries and sweetened with cane sugar. Lynnafred put a couple of 12-packs into our shopping cart. "First of all," she said, "Guarana is delicious. And second of all, they're loaded with caffeine. This soda is guaranteed to be excellent."

It is excellent, actually. I'm not sure how much caffeine is in the soda (the label doesn't say) but the flavor is very good. Sort of fruity with a hint of citrusy sharpness. Lynnafred says it tastes a lot like Monster energy drink, which makes sense because guarana is a big ingredient in Monster.

For me, though, the flavor is startlingly similar to one of my favorite defunct soft drinks, OK Soda, a one-time product of the Coca-Cola Company which was briefly test-marketed in 1993.

Guarana is good stuff, refreshing and a little fruity. We liked it well enough to run back up to The Barn again at the end of the week to buy five more 12-packs. Chances are, it's going to be hard for us to find in the future.

Vernors Ginger Soda

So, Vernors. Yet another beverage with a cult following. Is it a ginger ale or a "ginger soda?" It's been marketed as both, but currently the can says "The Original Ginger Soda," so I guess we'll go with that.

And I think that's fair, because Vernors is sweeter and more gingery-spicy than the typical ginger ales that are commonly on the market, with a flavor profile that has a lot more going on than the usual sody pop.

Vernors has a stronger ginger flavor right out of the gate, and it's accompanied by a subtle spicy kick, reminiscent of but milder than ginger beer.  There's a touch of vanilla in there as well, and the overall effect is really quite nice.

I'm told that the Vernors of today is different than the classic Vernors of yesteryear - that the formula has changed and the soda is less itself than it once was. I'm not in any position to notice because Vernors is hard to find here in New England, and before scoring the few cans I recently tried, the last time I had it was back in the late 1970s and I don't remember that old experience all that well.

But anyway, Vernors is a unique taste and enjoyable. If you live outside of their home turf of Michigan, Ohio, and Illinois and find a can or two, nab it. You'll like it.

Mexican Coca-Cola

Look what I found in my local ShopRite store today:  Mexican Coca-Cola! This is very cool - previously, the only place around here where Mexican Coke is sold was Costco (cheaper than ShopRite, I will admit, but at Costco one can only buy the stuff by the case whereas at a grocery store you can buy singles.)

Anyway, there are a ton of people like me who remember what Coca-Cola is supposed to taste like, and the corn-syrup-sweetened swill they peddle to Americans these days ain't it.  Prior to the mid-1980's, The Real Thing was made with sugar.  Nowadays, the only way to get Coke with sugar is to wait until Passover and stock up on the specially made Kosher for Passover variety, or to buy Coca-Cola imported from Mexico.

But it isn't just the taste that's nostalgic about MexiCoke. The real glass bottles retain the classic Coke shape and pale-green tint, and they have to be cracked with an opener - there are no twist-tops on these babies.

If there's a store near you selling Mexican Coke, pick up a bottle and do your own taste test.  See if you can tell the difference between the two, and see which one you prefer.

Final Fantasy Elixirs

Characters pictured, L to R: Serrah Farron,
Obera Yun Fang, Lightning.

Pictured at right: Three cans of what might be the most sought-after beverage among RPG* video gamers - Final Fantasy XIII Elixir. Randomly-selected cans sell online and at cons for as much as ten bucks each (though they can also be found on Amazon for as "little" as five dollars a can.)  They were a birthday gift to Lynnafred from her awesome friend Andy, who made her promise that they'd get reviewed here.

Lynnafred and her friend Ashley were delighted with the cans and the exceptional quality of the litho artwork, which are essentially cropped-to-fit versions of Square Enix's official hi-res character publicity images. An interesting touch was the irridescent pigment used for the apparently-white backgrounds on the cans - tipping the can against the light revealed a rainbow of colors (quite a cool effect for a beverage can.)  Just for the sake of the artwork alone, the cans have become prized by gamers and can collectors.

We weren't sure of what to expect when we opened the can. Amazon puts FF13 Elixir in their "energy drinks" category, which is kind of funny in a geeky "OMG IT'S ELIXIR SO IT'S MAGIC" kind of way. We wondered what color it would be ("I hope it's a cool glowing blue," Lynnafred said) and what it would taste like. It's bottled in Japan by Suntory, and Japanese soft drinks are often flavored in unusual and interesting ways.

So, after oohing and ahhing over the can design, and much speculation over what might be inside, we popped a can open and poured it out into cups for tasting.

It was colorless, and tasted like...Suntory lemon-lime soda. Quite anticlimactic.

* - That's Role Playing Game, not Rocket-Propelled Grenades.

Crystal Light Pure

Kraft Foods recently sent along three boxes of their new Crystal Light Pure drink mix flavors, in Lemonade, Mixed Berry, and Grape flavors. I was excited to give them a try, because I am a huge fan of using stevia as calorie-free natural sweetener and I'm always eager to try new beverages which take advantage of stevia.

Crystal Light Pure is not a calorie-free beverage.  Kraft has chosen to use a small amount of sugar in the mix to supplement and perhaps to help round off the non-sugar-aftertaste corners of the Truvia brand stevia extract it uses.  While I would have preferred to have a stevia-only mix, I understand their caution and daughter Lynnafred, wife Maryanne, and I were soon trying out the packets in a number of situations, including as an accompaniment to meals, as a takealong in the car and on walks with the dogs, at our desks at work, and for just general enjoyable hydration.  

Grape: My favorite of the three, the grape flavor was a like a combination of Concord grape juice and KoolAid. Yes, it sounds odd, but it works.  Lynnafred, accustomed to more assertive flavor profiles, thought it a little weak, but Maryanne and I enjoyed it.

Mixed Berry: We found this flavor confusing. It smelled like delicious mixed berries, and it was the right color, but the taste was..."incorrect," I guess, for lack of a better word.  It was watery and sharp and tasted more akin to lemonade (without any, you know, actual lemon flavor in there.) It's an acceptable thirst quencher, but all of us wanted to like it a lot better than we actually did.  Lynnafred hit the nail on the head: "The more I drank it, the less I liked it."

Lemonade: My very first sip of the Lemonade mix reminded me of Country Time Lemonade (which is another Kraft product, by the way, so I guess this should come as no surprise eh?) As powdered lemonades go, I like it (sharper than KoolAid and milder than hand-squeezed fruit-based lemonade,) and because it's made with stevia, I can totally get behind it.

Probability of our buying Crystal Light Pure:

• Mixed Berry:  25% - The sour sharpness and vague flavor work too efficiently against it.
• Grape: 70% - Maryanne and I both liked it and would get it again.  I've been getting used to the idea of tossing a couple packets into my tote bag before leaving for work. 
• Lemonade: 90% - I like lemonade mix in warm weather. While there are many competitors for my money in this category, Kraft's decision to use stevia in the mix absolutely tips my wallet over to them.

Russian Soft Drinks 3: Kvas

Kvas (квас) is a soft drink made from fermented dark or light rye bread.  It is wildly popular not only in Russia, but all across Eastern Europe, where it has been a traditional drink for over a thousand years.  Real kvas is brewed like beer and has a very mild alcohol content (usually around 1% or so - hardly enough to mention) due to the fermentation process.  Most of the kvas available in the US, however, is made more like modern commercial soft drinks using carbonated water, sugar, and malt extracts for flavor.  This method more or less duplicates the flavor but serves to eliminate the alcohol content completely.

There is a huge variation in the flavors of kvas depending upon the brand and the method used to make it.  Some are sweeter and some dry, some extremely "beery," some that taste like carbonated rye bread.  Some are sweet, mild, and have a flavor that I can only describe as "chocolaty." The best way to find one that you like is to find a store that carries a variety of them and buy several different small bottles to taste, but be warned:  if you think that Moxie is an acquired taste, you may find kvas really difficult to enjoy.

Russian Soft Drinks 2: Baikal

Baikal (байкл) is a Russian carbonated soft drink that was first produced in 1969 as a sort of Soviet knock-off of Pepsi Cola. In the early 1970's, Pepsi officially entered the USSR market, and Baikal was reformulated into a more herbal soda which, while still retaining some cola-like properties, was less Westernized and more in line with traditional Russian tastes.  Forty years later, Baikal is a top-selling flavor in Russia and a popular drink in Russian markets here in the US.

The taste is hard to describe, and most brands of Baikal aren't any more helpful in terms of ingredients than American sodas, most of them listing only "natural herbal flavoring BAIKAL" on the label. I've heard people describe it as "kind of like Dr. Pepper," though to me it has a lot more in common with Moxie than it does Dr. Pepper.  The first time I tasted it, I noticed a whiff of eucalyptus - not overpowering, or heavy in an "air freshener" or "cough drop" way, but used rather as a flavor accent that helped bring out other pleasant, earthy tastes. As it turns out, "natural herbal flavoring BAIKAL" contains essential oils from bay laurel, lemon, eucalyptus, St. John's wort (hypericum), Russian licorice, and Siberian ginseng.

I find it very refreshing; Baikal isn't usually as sweet as American soda pop, and the herbal extracts offer a novel flavor profile. It kind of reminds me of old, traditional brewed root beer, back when root beer was made of roots and birch shoots rather than artificial flavors and corn syrup.  While it's not as easy to find as tarkhun, if you find it I recommend picking up a bottle to try. 

Russian Soft Drinks 1: Tarkhun

The very first post here at Dave's Cupboard when I started the blog in 2006 was about the Russian beverage tarkhun (тархун), a soft drink based on tarragon extract.  Tarkhun is very popular in Russia, and there are several companies that produce, bottle, and import it into the United States.  Each brand has it's own original formula and because of this, each brand has its own distinctive flavor profile.  For the most part, though, they all have about the same shade of green.

In the local Russian supermarkets here, there are three readily-available brands of tarkhun.  We've tried all of them, and here are our impressions of each of them.

Rosinka is Lynnafred's favorite tarkhun.  This is partially because it was the first one she'd ever tried and partially because it's the brand that is the most like an American soft drink.  Rosinka has plenty of carbonation, is somewhat sweeter than the other brands, and has a mild tarragon flavor with slight notes of citrus and licorice (fairly typical of tarkhun, actually.) It's sold in a variety of sizes, including 1- and 2-litre bottles.

Ostankino Drinks - This brand of tarkhun is more fragrant and herbal than Rosinka.but still sweet and fizzy.  There are notes of licorice and vanilla and just the smallest hint of a medicinal quality, kind of like the one you get with a Riccola herbal cough drop. Ostankino actually makes two varieties of tarkhun, one bottled in plastic and one bottled in glass which they call "Ostankino Drinks Extra."  I haven't been able to tell the difference between the two except that the plastic-bottled variety seems to go flat faster after it's been opened.

Napitki iz Chernogolovki - bottled by Russian beverage giant Ost Company, this brand is strongly herbal-tasting, almost to the point of spiciness.  It is by far the brand most like an old-style "tonic" beverage and least like a modern soft drink (not to say it isn't sweet and carbonated, just that this tarkhun might be more of an acquired taste for Westerners unfamiliar with the beverage.)

Finding tarkhun near you:  Although everyone I know who has ever tried it likes it, tarkhun has never really caught on in the US, and there are no domestic bottlers here that I know of. It's unlikely that you will find it in any mainstream supermarket or convenience store, either.  Look for ethnic Russian or Eastern European markets near you - that will be your best bet.

Fruit 2 O Essentials

Fruit ₂O Essentials is a bottled soft drink that just pisses me off on so many levels.

Just the name, for example.  "Fruit ₂ O."  It's annoying to have to use fancy HTML tags to make a subscript "2" all the time.  Every time I have to type "Fruit ₂ O" it's like another little droplet of H₂O plinking upon my forehead in some bizarre sort of water torture.

Then there's the flavors.  There's some weird stuff going on there.  The flavor is listed on the label in bright white letters - like "Cranberry Raspberry" for example - and then, under that in tiny little letters just a shade lighter than the background ribbon, it says, "Natural Flavor With Other Natural Flavor."  What the hell is that all about?  "Yo, dawg, we heard you like fruitiness so we put flavor in your flavor so you can taste while you taste."

Something else about the labels piss me off, too.  They have big luscious pictures of fruit on the labels, and under it - again in big white lettering "2 servings of fruit."  Only when you turn the bottle and look closer might you notice that the banner actually says, "5 nutrients equal to 2 servings of fruit."  Holy shit, the scientists at Fruit ₂ O have determined the ESSENTIAL NUTRIENTS in fruit so they can declare their sucralose-water equivalent to eating the real thing.   And then they narrowed the list down to 5. That's some badass hardcore science there.  It should be in capital letters: SCIENCE.  Well, maybe not real science.  Fruit ₂ O is, after all, made by the Sunny D guys - the same company that pays supermarkets to display Sunny D in the refrigerated orange juice section of the store so people will think it's good for you - so my guess is that the "science" involved mostly thinking about how to get people to part with a couple of bucks for a few ounces of sweetened, colorfully dressed water.

And last of all, there's something about the chemical stew they stir into the brew that just dries the back of my throat out whenever I drink it.  Never fails to make me want to cough and clear my throat, whether I'm drinking a couple of swallows or chugging  a whole bottle.

I'm kinda sorry I wasted money on this stuff.  Fail from top to bottom.

Pepsi & Mountain Dew Throwback to Return

PepsiCo announced today that Pepsi-Cola Throwback and Mountain Dew Throwback - "vintage" versions of Pepsi and Mtn Dew - will be returning for another limited engagement on December 28th, for an 8-week run. Mark your calendars! YEAH!!

NEW Mountain Dew Ultraviolet

PepsiCo does it again, with another great new Mountain Dew flavor. This one is Diet Dew only - the first time ever Pepsi has done a diet-only line extension for Mtn Dew - and it's called Ultraviolet.

It's a delicious addition to the line. The mixed-berry flavor is very refreshing and "purple-tasting:" there are notes of blackberry, grape, black cherry, and raspberry in the flavor; it's not just a sugar-free version of something Mtn Dew has trotted out before.

Like other limited-edition flavors, this one is only going to be around for three months, so if you're a Dew fan, you'll want to try it as soon as possible.

Attention Coca-Cola Fans!

If you're jonesing for the taste of the REAL Coca-Cola Classic, now is the time to get to any supermarket near you that carries kosher-for-Passover products.

Look for the yellow cap: that's the Real Thing. Remember, high fructose corn syrup wasn't in the original formula.

Jones Cane Soda - Gingerbread Man

Part of Jones' traditionally offbeat holiday soda flavors, Jones Cane Soda Gingerbread Man almost perfectly captures the flavor of gingerbread man cookies. It is similar to a very good ginger beer, but with the added notes of spices and molasses. Tasty but not really refreshing, it was a good accompaniment to roast pork, but not a quaffing soda to quench a thirst.

Relevant link: Jones Soda webpage.

Java Pop - Caramel Flavor

Java Pop Caramel Soda has a light coffee taste completely dominated by a rich and delicious butterscotch caramel flavor. Absolutely mouthwatering - although I found it to be a little too sweet for my taste, it is probably one of the most wonderful beverage flavors I have ever had.

The JavaPop Inc. website lists five flavors in their lineup; however, I've only been able to find the Caramel variety, and that has only been in local job lot stores (where it is a phenomenal bargain at just 25 cents for a 12-ounce bottle.)

Relevant link: JavaPop's site. Warning: it's all done in Flash, and you'll want to dive your mouse cursor to the bottom right hand corner of your screen, where you can turn off the obnoxious repeating music loop.