Boylan Cane Cola

Boylan Bottling Company was founded by William Boylan in 1891 and oddly enough their first offering was a birch beer soda. Boylan uses cane sugar in all their varieties. I have always appreciated their vintage styling but am not a fan of all their flavors.

This posting relates to one of my favorites from Boylan, their Cane Cola. It has a sugary cola scent and is one of the sweetest tasting colas I can remember drinking in a long time. The cola flavor isn't as deep as Coca-Cola, and yet it still seems like just the right balance. There is a very tiny metallic after-taste but most would probably not notice that unless they really took their time savoring it. The sweetness of the cane sugar and level of acidity are very close to the taste of Royal Crown Cola. I can tell you that there is something about the finish of this drink that isn't easy to pinpoint and yet strangely makes me think of smoke-filled flea markets and I have no idea why. I should note that most cola's obtain their caffeine from the kola nut, which is a natural source of caffeine, but strangely the label on this cola makes mention that the caffeine is from coffee. It makes me wonder if this affects the flavor in any way. Either way, if it was possible to make this soda zero calorie without sacrificing an iota of it's flavor I'd probably be drinking more of it. If I'm ever able to locate their Diet Cane Cola I'll just have to put that to the test.