Tropical Banana

Today's drink is Tropical. This drink is from Honduras, where's it's a popular drink, and comes in two flavors: banana and grape. I haven't been able to uncover much on it's history, though it is produced by Cervecería Hondureña, which is primarily a beer brewery.

The bottles look nice with the soft curves of the twisted glass, even the lip of the bottle is softly curved. The banana scent is very strong. I could smell it immediately when the cap came off and smells very sweet like banana flavored candy. Banana flavored sodas may be popular with some, but it's no reason they aren't big time like grape and orange. To me banana soda just tastes weird, maybe because you're mind doesn't expect such a flavor from a liquid. Not much to say here really because it's not something I would drink regularly. A few swigs is interesting though. It's just to strange and strong for my particular taste.

Jones Soda Green Apple

Another flavor in a line from Jones Soda. My initial post on their Strawberry-Lime details their history if you're interested. 

I'll continue to keep tasting the Jones lineup both because I'm curious about some of their flavors and because they are little hit or miss. I have found both good and bad from these guys, but their gimmicky packaging never really did much for me. This green beverage smells like a Granny Smith apple. It does have a crisp apple taste, albeit with a strong acidic bite. Despite the off-putting color it sort of grows on you. It's an interesting try in the small world of apple flavored sodas.You might want to give this one a comparison for yourself. 

Henry Weinhard's Orange Cream

Here's a brand with an interesting and extensive history. While I don't generally discuss alcoholic beverages there is a complicated intertwining of beer and soda brewing because so much of the equipment and processes cross-over as well as the period in US history, called prohibition, which forced much of this cross-over. 

Henry Weinhard was a German man who immigrated to the US in 1856 and opened a hotel/bar in Portland, Oregon. By 1862, he had built his own brewery to produce his own suds. He eventually also purchased additional hotel/bars and business was well enough that Henry offered to pipe beer through a public fountain in the city of Portland. The city politely declined worried about rowdy horses drinking from it, though I think they should have been more worried about the city's residents. Without a fountain to plumb beer through, Henry gave his employees free beer. There are stories of Henry declining large buy outs of his brewery and saving banks from collapse as well, but you can read those stories of hero worship somewhere else. 

Henry died in 1904 and his family took over the company. It was during prohibition, 1920-1933, that the brewery started making sodas. This was common among many beer breweries during the era because they already had the equipment, bottles and distribution needed to do so. Although it was a strong family run company, and later after a merger with a local competitor, a regional one... the brewery was sold to Pabst in 1979. Pabst, in turn, sold to Stroh's in 1996. In 1999, Stroh's handed the brewery over to Miller, and so the building was shuttered and moved the operation to their plant in Tumwater, Washington. The production of the sodas continues out of Ft. Worth, Texas.

The orange cream soda itself smells wonderful, like an orange cream ice pop. My first taste of this was good, as good as the smell made it seem. It really does taste good when it first hits your tongue. My issue with it would be the finish, that is as it passes the tongue when you swallow, it looses the creaminess and ends up with more of an artificial taste you'd expect from a lab. So it's an alright soda, but I think it's label over reaches what you want from something called gourmet.

Route 66 Lime Soda

Today's selection comes from Route 66 Sodas. I've previously mentioned them when tasting their root beer on this entry. This time I'll be drinking their lime soda.

I can smell the tartness from this nuclear green bottle. The color no doubt owes itself to the yellow #5 coloring, the same used in Mountain Dew. It's got a lime flavor that is light. Based on the unnatural color I was expecting a heavy handed dose of lime. However, at the finish there is a slight taste more like disinfectant. It's still not all that bad and tastes a bit like a lime ice cream. It's an okay soda, but not something I would tell someone to jump at if they saw it.

Canada Dry Cranberry Ginger Ale

Oddly I just realized I hadn't yet made a post about Canada Dry's ginger ale. Canada Dry is one of the better ginger ale makers in my opinion. I was really excited when I found this in the grocery store again this season. I discovered it last year when they must have been trying to get rid of some stock left over from the holidays and I only found a single bottle. The label wasn't clear if it was seasonal or not but sadly that turned out to be the case. When I saw mass quantities in stock just before Thanksgiving I bought up a bunch of the stuff. 

Canada Dry, like many other soda brands, began with a pharmacist who made soda water. This time the pharmacist was John McLaughlin, in Toronto, Canada in 1890. It took him some time, but in 1904 he began selling Canada Dry Pale Dry Ginger Ale. The drink became a hit in the states after he shipped to New York City in 1919, leading to a production plant there as well. The drink's popularity spread rapidly, sparked in part by prohibition laws in the U.S., which led to its use as a mixer to help cover the taste of poorly made hooch. Like many other soda makers, the company went through a series of sales and consolidations. Today it is part of the Dr Pepper Snapple Group based in Texas. 

The aroma of this particular flavor is just heavenly. The cranberry flavoring is just right, not overpowering like some mixed berry drinks. You can still taste the ginger out of it and the carbonation plays in the mouth perfectly. I cannot say enough about how much I love this seasonal soda and wish I could find it year round, though that may take something out of the anticipation of getting it. I highly recommend buying some if you have the chance. It's also ideal for holiday parties and currently only seen in 2-liter bottles.