Dublin Fru Fru Berry

I'm going to guess this soda might be a strawberry blend of some sort based on the color because "Fru Fru" doesn't really give it away. Inhaling from the top of the bottle it gives blueberry and blackberry notes. The plentiful carbonation helps lift those scents up to the nose. It's not actually a strawberry but a real blend of berry flavors. I do pick up hints of blueberry, maybe a touch of grape, just the slightest hint of strawberry, and a sweetness like that of bubblegum flavored cotton candy. I guess we now know what flavor "fru fru" is. Its too sweet for me to be much more than a momentary distraction.

Dublin Vintage Cola

Another bottle from Dublin Bottling Works in Texas. This time I've got their classic Vintage Cola to taste. I can smell a rich kola nut aroma. This truly does taste like a classic cola. The cane sugar rounds the sweetness nicely, but I'd love it if the flavor hung longer on the tongue. I find it dissipates rapidly with next to no aftertaste. With a flavor like this I want it to last longer. All that said, it's a good tasting soda and you really can't go wrong picking a cola if you're not interested in some of Dublin's more unique flavors. 

Dublin Texas Root Beer

A new flavor to try from Dublin, this time a classic root beer. I've discussed Dublin sodas a few times now, so refer to prior posts for more about them. I happened to pick up this bottle at a Buc-ee's outside of Waco somewhere. 

The bottle has a nice old-fashioned creamy smell to it so I'm anticipating good things. After a couple of draws off the bottle I'm feeling underwhelmed. I know they use cane sugar, which typically gives a rounded sweetness in comparison to high fructose corn syrup, but this just seems rather weak. The level of carbonation is right, but I want something more of a root beer flavor "snap" and this is a bit soft. Don't get me wrong, it's a fine root beer, but when I consider the number of other root beers I've tasted I don't think this is one I'd reach for over the others if they were all stocked together in my fridge. So, my recommendation would be to skip over this and grab one of Dublin's other flavors. 

Dublin 1891 Grapefruit

Recently, I covered the history of Dublin Bottling Works and I've got a few other Dublin sodas to work my way through. There aren't tons of grapefruit sodas out there, but I take a liking to many grapefruit and grapefruit/citrus fruit mixes like Ski, Fresca, etc. so I'm hoping this will be in the same vein and I'll like it. 

It has a light citrus aroma and I like the carbonation. Taking a few draws on the bottle I find it has a sort of musty flavor to it. It's certainly grapefruit, which I mostly feel in the middle of a tasting. At the front its less flavorful... a moment later the grapefruit kicks in, but then there's a lingering finish like the stale air of an attic mixed with a just a touch of stale, cheap baseball card bubblegum. Despite this strange finish, I've found I'm already through half the bottle just because I enjoy the bite from the grapefruit. The combination of the two however would leave me rating this as a sort of average soda in the realm of citrus-based drinks. 

Dublin Tart -N- Sweet Lemonade

Another bottle from Dublin Bottling Works. This bottle has a nice sour scent to it, the kind of sour lemon that's expected, not bad. It's puckeringly lemon-like with each sip, yet sugary. It isn't heavily carbonated. This is basically a lemon-ice in a bottle. I do like this a lot, but I get the feeling this will leave me more thirsty by the end than I was before I opened it. It reminds me of a ginger-ale and lemonade drink that was addicting enough to want to keep drinking more, but just made you thirstier and thirstier. I do like it though. 

Dublin Texas Sweet Peach

I could have sworn I'd reviewed previous sodas from Dublin, but as it turns out the only one I seem to have mentioned in this blog before was Doctor Dublin, which at the time appeared to have no relation to the folks at Dublin Bottling Works. Dublin Bottling Works is said to have been founded in 1891 and reportedly the first bottling plant in Texas. It was around this time that Sam Houston Prim, probably named after another Sam Houston associated with Texas history but of no relation, had ventured to Waco and enjoyed a Dr Pepper. Sam would go on to become the first licensed bottler of Dr Pepper after cutting a deal with Robert Lazenby, mentioned in my post on Dr Pepper. In those days most bottling was done by local bottling companies that licensed the right to sell it and purchased the syrup to be mixed and bottled in their facilities. This often meant the local bottlers sold many different flavors and brands. As the 70's and 80's saw most sodas switching from the use of sugar to high fructose corn syrup, the Dublin Bottling Works became known as the home of "Dublin Dr Pepper" because they stuck to using the original cane sugar recipe rather than changing sweeteners. Sam's daughter, Grace, inherited the bottling company on his death in 1946 and continued to run things until her death in 1991, the 100th anniversary of the company. As she had no children to pass the company on to, she willed it to Bill Kloster. Bill had been plant manager since the passing of ownership to Grace. The Kloster family still owns the lion's share of the company but ceased bottling Dr Pepper in 2012 after a lawsuit with Dr Pepper Snapple Group and changed their name from Dublin Dr Pepper Bottling Company to just Dublin Bottling Works. Since the mid-2000's I've encountered the Dublin brand much more often as they've stuck out with a wide variety flavors under the Dublin brand name and have reached a pretty wide distribution area. 

As mentioned in a previous post, I find a lot of peach sodas to be hit or miss so I'm curious how this one will taste. I like that the bottle had a loud crack of air release when opening, but the smell of the drink is a bit on the comical side of peach and the color is closer to orange than anything. It has good carbonation and the smoothness of the cane sugar working for it, but the taste is still too candy-like to my senses as I prefer fruit flavored sodas that try to recreate the fresh fruit, which is much rarer than the ones that go all in on that candy-like flavoring. It's not terrible by any means, but just sort of a "meh" from me.