1776 Beverage Co. Raspberry Birch Beer

1776 Beverage Co. is a product from the spice and sauce company Heartbreaking Dawns. The company hasn't been around very long and is run by married couple, the McLaughlin's. The couple shared sauces created with their locally grown ingredients with friends and family and later local events. Heartbreaking Dawns was founded in 2009 and is located in Midland Park, New Jersey. The 1776 Beverage Co. was an offshoot that came out of that company producing it's first sodas in 2011. 

The soda has a rich amber color with a mild birch beer scent. The smell of raspberry is lingering in the background, but you really have to search for it. However, the flavor is all about the raspberry. It is a mild raspberry though, not tart or as strong as biting into a fresh berry. Raspberry flavoring in sodas is pretty rare so it makes for a very interesting taste. Amazingly, this sugar cane sweetened soda is surprisingly low cal. The entire bottle is marked at just 130 calories. The taste isn't mind blowing, but simply because of the uniqueness of it, I recommend giving it a try if you find a bottle.

India Uva

India is a generic brand equivalent from Puerto Rico. While there is little on the company website regarding soda brewing and bottling, this particular bottle was manufactured by Compañía Cervecera de Puerto Rico, best known for it's beer and Malta India.

It smells of Dimetap cough syrup. It's also rather flat, but that may owe more to its age since plastic bottles are permeable to gasses. Other than that it's an typical grape drink, with nothing remarkable about it. You could probably mix soda water with one of those cheap grape drinks in the little grenade like packaging kids have in the summer and get something similar.

Idris Fiery Ginger Beer

While the name Idris still appears on the label, Idris is only a subsidiary these days. In 1873, in a part of London called Camden Town, Thomas Howell Williams began bottling mineral and carbonated water. The tale goes that Thomas was so enamored with the Idris mountains of Wales that he changed his name. They added flavored drinks to their line in 1880. Idris was producing a ginger beer as early as 1922 as well as ginger ale and a drink by the name of Koolime. Today, Idris falls under the Britvic company, one of England's largest beverage producers. Britvic acquired Idris in 1987. Like many other beverage company's Britvic grew substantially during the 1980's through the 2000's by simply buying out several other company's. 

My regular readers know that I'm no fan of ginger beer, which is why I usually put off trying new ones. I haven't ever seen this in a bottle, but a can will do for this experiment. The aroma is more like a liniment lotion or topical antibiotic than a food or beverage. The flavor isn't hot, spicy or "fiery" at all in my own opinion. If you wait long enough between sips, it does bring a warming sensation to the tongue. But it tastes more like a medicine. I don't find this pleasing at all. It is neither tasteful or quenching. You might as well drink a glass of chilled Bactine. 

Spring Grove Soda Pop Lemon Sour

Spring Grove is a small town of a little more than 1300 people in the far Southeast corner of Minnesota near the Iowa and Wisconsin borders. As with many sodas this story begins with a pharmacist who came up with their own concoction to start bottling. You can read more of my early blogs about how the soda industry evolved heavily out of the pharmacy industry intended as health elixirs. The pharmacist in this case was G.G. Ristey.

While the recipes are said to have remained largely untouched over time a quick scan of the label shows both can sugar as well as high fructose corn syrup. High fructose corn syrup was not introduced until the late 1950's and wasn't widely used in foods and drinks in the U.S. until the mid 1970's. There is also artificial flavor and coloring added. So the recipe you're getting isn't an old fashioned, traditional brew. However I still appreciate small production, local products. Traditionally the distribution of Spring Grove Soda has been an area about 100 miles from the town of Spring Grove. In recent years though, they've gained distributors able to sell their sodas in many states. The next time I'm in the area I will try to find some of their other flavors.

Opening the bottle releases a fresh scent of icy lemon. It is immediately reminds me of Ski, a soda I've featured here before. The carbonation isn't heavy, though visible through the glass. The liquid itself has a pucker inducing tartness to it. The tartness isn't a thirst quencher... but 30 seconds after washing through your mouth it begins to water. It's a nice change of pace and is like drinking an Italian lemon ice dessert. While I generally refrain from mentioning alcohol on this site I feel this would be a good mixer. I've mixed some vodka for a taste and it does work well as a mixer. The tartness rounds off with the vodka added. Either way you wish to try it, it's a nice little soda I could find myself drinking during the summer months.