Fentimans Pink Ginger

It's been too long since I've partaken of Fentimans. If you haven't read my previous posts, they can be found here. I like their products and the old fashioned style they adhere to.

The aroma of this bottle is ginger heavy when opening. I thought this might be a little more like pink lemonade, but the scent is giving me ginger beer vibes. It has nice carbonation, but it has no real pink lemonade flavor and only a tiny hint of citrus. The ginger wins over everything else in this drink and if you've not had ginger beer before, the ginger is heavier than in ginger ales. I enjoy a lot of ginger ale, but don't like ginger beers. At best I have found one or two that were tolerable. This one isn't so harsh that the ginger burns the palate but I think makes a better mixer than a drinkable soda. 

Fentimans Rose Lemonade

Rounding out this spate of lemonades, I'll be tasting this rose lemonade. Fentimans began back in 1905. I enjoy finding their sodas because they do a great service to the classic era of sodas when the Victorian Age pushed their creation through quack health marketing in pharmacies. In addition, Fentimans actually brew's their sodas rather than just mixing chemicals with sugar. 

This lemonade is made with lemon juice, fermented ginger and rose oil. As I usually do when I open a bottle, I place my nose over it and inhale deeply. Smell is deeply associated with taste. When I smell this bottle I immediately feel like I've opened a 150 year old armoire in an antique shop. It has hints of cedar, ginger. The color is a very light pink as well. It has an usual taste as well, tart and pine-like. Like some of their other flavors, the fermentation process lends it a tiny kick as though it was alcoholic, but it is not. I've not tasted anything with rose oil before so am not sure what to make of it but it does not taste like any standard lemonade you'd expect. I welcome you to try it out.

Fentimans Victorian Lemonade

Continuing in a recent series of lemonades, we move on to another of Fentimans sodas. Regular visitors will have seen several flavors from Fentimans over the years I've been writing this blog. 

While not heavily carbonated, this doesn't smell like lemon. It has a sweet citrus scent but more reminiscent of pineapple. This lemonade is made from fermented lemon with some ginger and herbal extracts. It certainly taste fermented. It is very sour and tastes as if it were spiked with vodka. My mouth is watering from the tartness it delivers. It isn't unpleasing, though I doubt kids would like it unless you notice they have a real penchant for sour candies. I'm not going to pass judgement on this one and just say that it's worth a try to see if it's for you.

Fentimans Cherry Tree Cola

Fentimans has been featured on my blog many times as I work my way through their catalog. Read more about their history in one of my earliest posts here.

This bottle has a delicious ginger aroma when I pop the cap off. If I closed my eyes I would think I was in a Christmas shop. The flavor is less cherry than potpourri in a bottle. The flavor isn't amazing, but the scents sure are. The drink looks positively flat until it's tipped, but has just enough carbonation to make it alluring. Thankfully, they've balanced the ginger to keep it from overpowering the rest of the herbs and not to burn like a ginger beer. Again, I think the best think about it may be the smell. I'd like to get some more of this around the holidays. Definitely try a bottle of this for yourself if you can. 

Fentimans Ginger Beer

Fentimans 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. Fentimans 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 Fentimans 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.

Fentimans Curiosity Cola

This is the second variety of Fentimans to grace the blog. Fentimans fills a niche of old world sodas, owing to its historical beginnings and old world brewing recipes.

Due to their trend towards more ancestral flavors I'm half expecting this to taste more like the early cola beverages of the late 1800's. But with a qualifier like 'Curious' anything is up for grabs.

The aroma from this bottle is very rich. This is the type of smell I'd expect from a turn of the century soda counter in an old pharmacy to smell like. Likewise the taste owes much more to a kola nut than modern colas. It's commonly known that the sense of smell and taste are closely linked, which is why people commonly make analogies of tastes to things they would never touch their tongue to, but I can say that the taste transports me to any number of antique stores I've walked through with their stale air and aging wood, paper and metal items. Because most brewed beverages obtain their carbonation from natural processes I'd venture to guess that's why it has a light carbonation with small bubbles. I think this would be a great cola to drink while also enjoying an old world meal like a dinner of haggis in Scotland. Perhaps the next time I'm in Glasgow I'll make my way back to the Drum & Monkey with a bottle of this to give it a go.

Fentimans Dandelion & Burdock

Fentimans is a UK based beverage company that began in 1905. Interestingly it was not started by Thomas Fentiman, rather he provided a loan to a fellow who began making brewed ginger beer and Thomas took ownership when the loan was not repaid. An interesting way to enter the beverage industry. The company was shuttered in the 1960's due to market competition but was renewed by Thomas Fentiman's great-grandson in the 1980's.

Dandelion and Burdock is a brewed botanical drink dating as far back as the 13th century. See the entry on Moxie for more historical information on sodas. These early "soft drinks" were naturally carbonated due to the brewing process of their ingredients and similar to other "antique" sodas was created from various root extracts.

No one that grew up with a yard in America needs to be told what a dandelion is or that we consider it a weed... an unwanted pest in on the lawn our parents would sometimes pay a bounty for us to remove. But did you know that for all our efforts to remove them, it never had to be that way because the dandelion is not a native American plant. It was imported from Europe to be used as a food ingredient and to provide food for honeybees. The leaves of the dandelion are rich in vitamins and minerals and have been used for centuries as a diuretic.

Burdock is a species of thistle, and rather odd looking if I may say so. The flowering heads turn into a sort of cross between the fluffy, seeded dandelion and what looks like the burs produced by sweet gum trees. It was the burs of the burdock plant that inspired the inventor of velcro. Burdock too has been used for centuries as a natural diuretic and blood purifier.

So what flavor am I to expect from my first tasting of this classic beverage? Let's see...  For starters, it has only a light carbonation and a strong smell of licorice from the aniseed included in the ingredients. The best way to describe this drink would be taste of black licorice with the leafy flavor of tea and carbonation of a soda. It's quite unique and a tad strong on flavor. I'm not sure how soda ever became popular with flavors like this, but that's why they have their origins in the pharmacies. I can see how someone would put up with certain flavors if they were told it was good for their health... just look at some of the medicines we consume today. The licorice isn't too bad, but I suppose you'd have to be a tea drinker to enjoy it or perhaps be raised on the stuff. I find it tolerable to sip at, but this is not a drink that will be a regular with me. If you feel brave, try a bottle for the experience.