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.

Shasta Cola

In 1889, a group of men from Baltimore, Maryland founded a resort and health spa at Mt. Shasta in Northern California. It was in these times that many health spas sprung up around the country near natural springs for the "curative effects" of the mineral water or naturally carbonated water from these springs. Due to the popularity of their spring water they began bottling and selling it elsewhere too. In 1931 they grew their product line to include sodas by flavoring their naturally carbonated spring water.

Shasta was a pioneer in the concept of selling soda in cans as well as the use of wholesalers as a method of distribution. Consolidated Foods purchased the Shasta brand in the 60's and then sold off in 1985 to National Beverage Corp. who also produces the Faygo soda line. Today Shasta is predominately known as a value-focused brand in grocery stores and has a very wide variety of flavors. 

Shasta Cola has a similar cinnamon-like aroma of Pepsi. Upon taste it is close to that of Pepsi if you want to use that as a baseline. The finish has more of a cinnamon tinge to it, finally followed by a slightly chemical ending on the back of the tongue. But really, this is a very good Pepsi or RC Cola replacement.

Faygo Black Cherry

Here's the second Faygo flavor to be reviewed on this blog. You'll find more about the history of Faygo on the first appearance here.

Although most of the carbonation has seeped out of this bottle, indicating it's been around a while, it tastes like a black cherry soda should. It actually smells a bit like cough syrup. But the dark cherry flavor hits true. Dark fruit flavors just seem a bit more brooding and complex than some of the bright and cheerful flavors don't you think? I'd like to try this one again with it's appropriate carbonation, but I'd say give this one a go.

Faygo Pineapple Orange

When I hear "Faygo" I think of my childhood. When I was little, Saturday nights at my house were pizza and movie night. Of course with pizza we had to have some soda. In the 1980's I never saw Faygo sold any other way than individual glass bottles, but it seems there were cans available since the 1960's. You can find it in cans today too, but the glass bottles are gone, replaced with plastic. In those days Kroger carried a pretty good selection of flavors. I usually stuck with grape, strawberry or root beer and those bottles seemed enormous when you're a small kid.

Faygo began in Detroit in 1907 as Feigenson Brothers Bottling Works. Russian brothers and immigrants, Ben and Perry Feigenson started business with just three flavors (strawberry, grape and fruit punch), which were based on family recipes for cake frosting. The Feigenson Brothers shortened their product's name to Faygo in 1921. It's interesting to think about now, but in 1922 they delivered their soda to your door. The business was later handed down to the Feigenson's sons in the 1940's and was later sold to National Beverage Corp in 1987. Today, Faygo produces dozens of different flavors.

The smell of this Pineapple Orange is a little strange. While it's not a strong smell, it's a bit reminiscent of some sort of antiseptic to me. I wasn't expecting too much with this soda since I'm normally not a fan of soda's with mixed fruit flavors. This isn't a terrible flavor, but I think the orange flavoring throws off the pineapple too much. Maybe I'll be able to compare it to their pineapple sometime in the future. Unfortunately, I also think that plastic bottles can affect flavor over time, while glass does not interact with the soda on a chemical level like plastic will.