Empire Bottling Works Banana

Just a little southeast of Providence in Rhode Island, lies Bristol, not to be confused with the larger more well-known Bristol, Connecticut. From the smaller Bristol, RI comes Empire Bottling Works. Empire is a small company providing sodas for the region since 1930 and is still run by the same family that founded it. And small it must be because they don't appear to even have a website. 

I've been curious about what to expect since I first got this bottle. Although I have bottle caps in my collection for banana flavored soda I've never before had one to taste. I go in with low expectations not because of the brand but because the more exotic flavors that you don't encounter everyday can be hit or miss. 

Whenever I open a bottle for taste testing I always smell it first and this one reminds me of banana pudding. It smells quite yummy and has a deep yellow coloring. The taste is interesting. To really get the flavor you've got to hold it on your tongue a bit. It does indeed taste like banana, ripe not green. At the same time it has a small hint of that imitation lab-made flavor that takes you out of the moment, the moment of true banana taste. That could be due to citric acid in the soda since the ingredients list extract and not a bunch of chemicals or flavoring. I'm sure there are fans of this, but it seems a bit strange to me and not something I'd find myself sipping on as a refreshment.

R-Pep

The history of R-Pep seems a little interesting. While I was unable to determine the definitive inventor of the drink, it appears it may have been a creation of Clem Bottling Works in Malvern, Arkansas. Clem Bottling Works began back in 1907, founded by J.M. Clem. The year the R-Pep formula came into existence is unknown at this time. This was a family run business until 1972 when it was sold to Dr Pepper. Harold Clem, J.M.'s grandson, then went to work for Dr Pepper. In 2011, Excel Bottling from Breese, Illinois obtained the trademark to R-Pep and resumed bottling it with the original formula. Regular visitors to this site may recall reading about Excel in this previous post.

A bottle with adequate carbonation, it doesn't have much of a scent. The soda itself is not an analog of Dr Pepper as some web hits mention. To me this tastes less of spices you feel in Dr Pepper. Instead what I taste is cherry with traces of chocolate. It's also has a soft sweetness from the cane sugar used. It's a good drink, but I'd like it to have more carbonation.

Fentiman's Ginger Beer

Fentiman's is an old UK brand that I've featured before. There's a little more about their history on an earlier post. And from what little direct contact I've had with them, they've been very cordial. I really enjoyed the funny Victorian themed cards and the novel Quaffer they sent me.

In the interest of full-disclosure, I'm not a fan of ginger beers. I find them to be too strong and usually have a spicy heat to them. This particular ginger beer smells very much like a fragrant evergreen tree. Fentiman's includes juniper, speedwell and yarrow with their ginger beer. Speedwell is a family of perennial flowering plants. You can certainly feel the presence juniper adds to this flavor as well. Yarrow has a long history of herbal/medicinal use as an astringent, diaphoretic and used to treat topical wounds. These ingredients fall very much in line with Fentiman's traditional brewing of old-world sodas. All that said, it's still a strong flavor that brings a slight burning sensation to the back of my throat and isn't for me.

Wild Harvest Natural Mandarin Lime

Here's a soda I've had lingering around for some time that I'm finally getting on here. You can find the first Wild Harvest, a cola, here.

With a nice crisp citric scent it also has a good level of carbonation. The flavor however, is practically non-existent. The taste is more like soda water. It's still sweet but there's no flavor. If you hold the soda in your mouth long enough a trace of orange can be felt. It's really a soda that can be ignored and left on the shelf if you ever think about buying a pack.

Boom Chugga Lugga Cherry Ginger Ale

Another Boom Chugga Lugga soda hailing from Michigan. This is one in a cherry-themed lineup, the first of which can be found here.

Oddly, this doesn't smell like cherry or ginger ale. It actually smells like a cream soda. This particular flavor doesn't taste of ginger at all to me. What I'm actually tasting it more like cherries and cream. The cream taste is very strong and reminds me of the sort of melted cream icing you'd pour over pastry desserts. The cherry flavoring is nice, but overwhelmed by that sweetness. Not too bad to nurse for an hour or so, but not something you'd want to "chugga lugga."

Grapefruit Kiss

Another bottle from the folks at Orca Beverages in Mukilteo, Washington. Orca has specialized in recreating brands of vintage and out of production sodas for several years. However, I haven't found any hint of history surrounding Kiss so it may just be their own creation. 

I like when opening a bottle releases a hiss of gasses escaping from the bottle like this one did. Always a bit of a let down when you crack open a bottle and don't hear that. I've had plenty of grapefruit sodas but this one nailed the scent because it has the tartness in it you'd get from slicing into a real grapefruit. Some grapefruit sodas are more sugary in their smell. It has more flavor than a Fresca but a bitterness in the finish that is also very reminiscent of real grapefruit. Interestingly, the label says it contains no juice, yet the ingredients list grapefruit and lemon extracts. Seems like a fine line between juice and extract to me but they've got the flavor a true slice of grapefruit down pat. Even with the tiny bit of puckering acidity it's still a nice drink that rinses clean.

Blenheim Ginger Ale

Blenheim comes to us from Hamer, South Carolina. The current owners claim this to be the oldest independent bottler in America. I find this claim to be dubious since their bottling only began in 1903 and there are some independent sodas still with us from the late 1800's, such as this one. However, this is yet another of the old bottlers that began with the healing waters bubbling up from a local spring. These sodas are direct descendants of the mineral spring phenomenon, and some of that history is explained in one my earliest posts about Moxie. As with many mineral waters, early consumers did not always care for the taste so various flavorings were added. In the case of Blenheim C.R. May added Jamaican ginger root to create a natural ginger ale soda.

The scent is like am ambrosia of ginger, very nice, and with an attractive champagne color. Wow does this pack a wallop. The very first sense was smooth and cool. That gave way very quickly to a sharp kick of heat to the back of the mouth. It's very strong and should really be called a ginger beer, rather than a ginger ale as the ales are typically less intense. Although a modern rarity among bars, ginger ale is a classic mixer. This would pack one hell of a punch if used as a mixer with vodka or rum. As someone who doesn't like spicy foods, I won't even be able to drink a quarter of this bottle. But if you fall into the niche of people that like spiciness this may be up your alley.

Zuberfizz Cola

This is the third soda from Durango Soda Company, out of Colorado to appear here. The last one, being their Key Lime soda. As this one is plain cola, I'm hoping for a marked improvement over the past flavors I've tried from them.

The scent is reminiscent of Pepsi, with a tinge of cinnamon. For a company that prides itself on small handcrafted batches I would really expect more. This cola falls short of the mark for me. It tastes very much like the cheap off-brand sodas you'd get from a wholesale warehouse, or cheap knock off of RC Cola. The flavor is not crisp and overly sugary. I'm not fond of panning any sodas but there's just no reason to seek out this cola or pay more than you would for something mass produced. Moving, right along...

Simpson Spring White Birch Soda

Something my Aunt discovered for me, it's nice to find some of these "historical" sodas. And Simpson Spring seems to have quite the history. Hailing from South Easton, Massachusetts, which  lies South of Boston these sodas come from spring water that has been in use since precolonial times. In the late 1800's Frederick Howard began bottling and selling water from the springs. Like many spring water bottlers, they eventually began marketing several sodas as well. It isn't a huge leap to sodas when you already have a naturally bubbling water source and all the bottling equipment needed.

There is a very wintergreen aroma arising from this bottle. It has a very nice effervescence. I was expecting a much lower carbonation from a natural spring. Perhaps additional gases are added before bottling. Unlike previous birch sodas I've tasted, that tend to taste much closer to a root beer, this is very much like drinking a certs breath mint. It's crisp and refreshing and I'd highly recommend this as a summertime cooler or after dinner drink.

Boom Chugga Lugga True Cherry Cola

Out of Traverse City, Michigan comes a line of sodas called Boom Chugga Lugga, all of which include some cherry flavor combination. This wouldn't be that surprising to locals, but that area of Michigan grows more tart cherries than anywhere else in the U.S. Aside from cherry crops there are a large number of vineyards in that area. No word on when they began producing this roster of cherry beverages.

I had expected a pungent cherry scent from opening this bottle, however there is almost no scent cherry or cola and the carbonation is quite light. Even with a low level of bubblage, it tastes quite good. I can't be certain whether the cherry offsets the kola nut flavoring or there just isn't much kola in it. But the flavor is very smooth and like a mild cherry with a hint of cinnamon. I haven't tasted a plain tart cherry, but I would have thought it more bitter in taste than a bing cherry, but as I said this is mild and smooth. I give this a high recommendation.

Malta India

This is the second "malta" drink I've tried out. The first being Vitamalt, here. The genre of malta drinks sits on the fine line between beers and sodas. They often called "children's beer" or "young beer" and yet they generally considered sodas. Though they are brewed like a old-fashioned soda or beer, the primary difference is that maltas are not fermented so they are naturally free of alcohol.

Malta India comes from the Compania Cervecera de Puerto Rico brewery. Founded in 1937 by the Valdez brothers, they began selling Malta India in 1939. These malta beverages are popular in the Caribbean where they are often served over ice or with evaporated milk mixed in. 

Personally, I find the aroma very unappealing. It's something like a molasses and alfalfa soup smell with the lingering hint of a box of dry Grape Nuts cereal. For those with any belief that this would taste like beer, you'd be sorely mistaken. It's dark colored and tastes repulsively like cold gerbil food pellets. I cannot fathom how people might enjoy drinking this other than knowing that it contains vitamins beneficial to health. I have to recommend steering clear of this.

Shirakiku Ramune Grape

I thought I had seen all the flavors of ramune from Shirakiku but then happened upon this little bottle of grape. If this is the first time you've seen such a bottle, check out this earlier post which explains a little about the history of the bottle.

This soda has a sweet sugary smell like a grape twin-stick Popsicle. The flavor is nice and light. But unlike the very natural taste of other ramune from this brand the grape falls short of that "real fruit" flavor and is more like an American grape flavored soda. The light, fresh feeling you get from these make them a no brainer in the summer, which is when they are most popular back in Japan. No matter what the taste, these bottles always make a drink a little more whimsical.

Faygo Root Beer

Here's yet another Faygo product. My history on Faygo can be found on an earlier post, here.

Root beer sodas are the comfort food of the soda world. They can be a little on the filling side as sodas. So many soda makers make a root beer yet a good one seems to be difficult to master since I've had so many bad root beers with bitter flavors or bad aftertaste. Luckily, Faygo makes a good root beer at an economical price. Their root beer is smooth an creamy to the point of tasting quite a bit like the run off of a float. And while I haven't had a root beer float since I was a kid, thank you dairy products, I can still appreciate that wholesome flavor. Seriously, if you want to save money and enjoy good root beer you can't go wrong with this one.

Faygo Creme Soda

Well, after another long hiatus, I bring you another variation of Faygo, this time Creme Soda. Find out more about Faygo on my earlier post here. 

Whether it's called Cream Soda or Creme Soda, there's a fine line to walk between a nice smooth flavor and a repulsive chemical concoction. A word of note, I do try to find glass bottled sodas whenever possible but some drinks are either very hard to find bottled or just aren't packaged in glass. I plan to eventually discuss the breadth of packaging in another post someday.

I'll start by pointing out that this is a clear liquid. While food dyes and colorants may not affect taste, I personally find there's a psychological effect at play. Clear cream sodas start off with a one run deficit with me before I've even opened the bottle. It's that psychosomatic action I always felt had a part in the demise of Crystal Pepsi back in the 1990's. The creamy scent is very similar to Big Red. 

As far as the taste goes, I'd rate Faygo's Creme Soda right in the middle of the spectrum of cream sodas. It's not bad enough to be sharp to the tongue or have a chemical aftertaste. But I wouldn't say it's smooth and creamy enough to compete with the higher end. Mind you, in the past I've found that even "hand-crafted" batches of cream soda at expensive price points don't always mean a better tasting soda. At the end of the day, this is a good "everyday" option if you like cream soda and Faygo has a low price point to boot.