Red Rock Frambuesa

The second Dominican Red Rock soda for me to review is this bottle of Frambuesa, which is Spanish for Raspberry. It smells of strawberry candy and appears to have ample carbonation. The taste is not quite strawberry or raspberry. I find it's quite a mix of berry flavors. Luckily, it doesn't leave a lingering aftertaste but I do think it's too candy-like for my liking. I would have to nurse this for a long time to avoid feeling sick to my stomach after a bit. 

Country Club Raspberry

I've heard of Country Club soda for many years but the history seems to be a bit fuzzy and I can't seem to find details online. There was a Country Club Soda company in Springfield, Massachusetts from the 1920's. This bottling plant was razed in the 1970's. However, there is also a Country Club Soda brand being produced by Refresco in the Dominican Republic and imported and distributed through New York City. Refresco appears to have only existed since 1999, but was the Country Club brand acquired through one of their many business acquisitions? Maybe I'll find more information about this from someone in the future. 

This particular bottle doesn't give off much of a scent. The taste is overly sweet and very much like drinking pure syrup. The raspberry flavor comes through but I find that the syrupiness hides what otherwise might be a more enjoyable beverage. I do wonder why we don't see more raspberry flavored sodas on the market though. 

Coca-Cola Spiced

I bought this bottle a few weeks ago holding onto it for a bit because I wasn't sure if I'd like it. But being on a recent tear of reviews its the perfect time to crack it open. The scent is unique. I bit cinnamon-like, but there's also this sort of liniment or medicine quality to it. Sniffing it a little longer brings out more cinnamon and pine... reminiscent of the potpourri in a christmas shop. Tasting gives me more of a mixed berry flavor than raspberry as they indicate on the label. Of course there's a complete lack of any indication of what's in it based off reading the label... Coca-Cola gets a wide berth in this realm in the interest of protecting their sacred recipe so all we get is "natural flavors" as an ingredient. It's decidedly less berry flavored than I'd expected and based on the correlations the flavors spark with the holidays its interesting they launched it mid-year rather than towards the holiday season. It also makes me curious if serving it warm would kindle something like some of the European julmust beverages or mulled wine. I may have to try that later with an extra bottle. I think it's a better overall tasting drink than many of the other limited edition flavor released Coca-Cola has had the last couple of years. 

Coca-Cola California Raspberry

Following up on yesterday's post is another interesting choice from Coca-Cola, this time we have California Raspberry. Again, hard to find but seemingly still available online from Coca-Cola. 

A strong raspberry aroma comes from this bottle and it has ample carbonation, just like yesterday's peach variety. It's funny, I've come to expect to taste the crunch of little raspberry seeds when I taste anything raspberry. I find raspberry flavor to be quite true, but it overshadows any cola flavor by far. In short, it's worth trying, though raspberry isn't the sort of fruit flavor I want everyday. 

Mountain Dew Voo Dew Mystery Flavor 2022

Another "mystery flavor" offering from the folks at Mountain Dew. This is the 2022 edition. The frosted white color of it leads no hints to what the flavor might be.

The scent from the bottle is reminiscent of raspberry to me. There's a hint of citrus hiding behind that raspberry I'm picking up. Indeed, the flavor of it is very much like you might expect from a blue raspberry soda, but it has a tartness in the finish like a lemon or grapefruit. It isn't unpleasant and might even make a decent regular flavor option despite it being a limited edition. 

Mountain Dew Spark

 

Another one of many Mountain Dew derivatives, Spark is described on the bottle as a raspberry lemonade. 

It does have a fruity lemonade scent. Drinking it, I can say that there isn't very much raspberry in the flavor, just a very tiny hint. It tastes like a spiked Mountain Dew at the front. Once it washes to the back of the tongue I pick up that sort of sour lemonade flavor you expect from fresh squeezed. Overall, it isn't terrible, perhaps a bit too sweet like many of the flavors Mountain Dew has tried. I wish it had a bit more carbonation though.

Mountain Dew Dew.S.A

 

This Dew.S.A flavor, was a sort of summer celebration flavor marketed as a mix of three of their spin off flavors, namely Code Red, White Out, and Voltage... a blend of red, white, and blue. 

This blended drink turns out to have a berry-like smell, while the purple color makes you think more along the lines of a grape. The actual taste does feel like a mix of the mentioned flavors rather than a totally new drink. I might even imagine if a kid at a soda fountain filled their cup with each of those it would probably taste a lot like this. I was struggling for a bit with how to describe this but I think the best way to explain this flavor is like if you had a blueberry and raspberry sno-cone and drank the last of the syrup at the bottom of the cone, very sugary. 

Aaaannnndd... now I'm seeing that I actually posted about this flavor once before. Reviewing my previous post is interesting because I think I came about pretty much the same conclusion each time. I'll try not to make this mistake again. 

Mountain Dew Dew.S.A

Mountain Dew has several flavor offerings these days. This is a new release I discovered which combines their red, white and blue flavors called Code Red, White Out and Voltage into a single flavor. For more on the history of Mountain Dew, take a look here.

It has a berry scent to it. The color is a brighter purple with a back light than the picture here suggests. There's a sharp mixed-berry flavor when it hits your tongue but the flavor dissipates over the back of the tongue. I think the mixed-berry taste is dominated by raspberry, which makes for an unusual distraction from main stream soda flavors.

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.

100 Flavor Fountain Machine

I just returned from lunch and was excited to finally use one of these machines. I had heard about this a few years ago but had not encountered one in person until today at one of the franchise locations of the regional deli chain Mr. Goodcents.

These machines operate similar to a printer in that they store several cartridges, which are filled with flavored syrups rather than printer dyes. A computer lets you choose from a multitude of flavor varieties, some of which are not found anywhere else, like Grape Sprite. They can do this because the computer mixes the flavor syrups only as needed instead of in mass batches like the familiar soda fountain "bag-in-a-box" concept which is a large bladder of one flavored syrup a standard soda fountain just mixes with soda water at the time it's pressed.

I of course opted to chose a variety of flavor I had not had before, Raspberry Coke. It was a nice change up. The raspberry flavor remained true to the fruit taste, however I felt it the mixture was too heavy on the raspberry. Because I could almost not taste the Coke, it could have easily been just a raspberry soda. I'll have to try the orange cola next time. This machine will probably keep me coming back to that location for some time simply for the novelty of some new flavors.

Jones Soda Fufu Berry

This is the third Jones soda tasted for this blog, so see my earlier post here, for more about the history of Jones Soda. 

Right off the top it's got a higher than average amount of carbonation and the pleasant aroma of strawberry jello. It also taste like jello. It reminds me of a mix of strawberry and raspberry jello. I've had Jones soda's prior to beginning this blog and never really found any of their drinks enjoyable. Thanks to Fufu Berry I can say that stretch is over because I like this bottle and might even try it with vodka someday. 

Cricket Pomegranate Raspberry

Cricket released it's first soda beverage in 2002 with an aim to make a cola healthier than your average soda. Their soda's contain no phosphoric acids, high-fructose corn syrup, artificial flavors or artificial colors. Their sodas are also enhanced with 2 cups of green tea.

When opening this bottle it became alive with carbonation and had a rich raspberry bouquet. It's tart like a raspberry would be with only a light pomegranate taste in my opinion, which is nice because I quite like the raspberry. As with other Cricket sodas the green tea is tasted in the finish, but it doesn't leave any green tea after taste lingering after swallowing. 

AJ Stephan's Raspberry Lime Rickey

AJ Stephan's was started in the late '80's by Jeff Rose. The water used in these soda's comes from a New England artesian well and mixed with cane sugar. He supposedly has some 200 family soda recipes on hand but only bottles a fraction of that as there are currently 9 different flavors bottled. I found it very interesting to learn that one of Jeff's daughters majored in chemistry at MIT and assisted in some of the formulations of the drinks.

Aside from the simple labels this bottle sticks out due to the contrast of the red soda and the lime green label. It has a sugary-sweet raspberry aroma. The raspberry flavor is really what you taste the most with this, with just a pinch of lime that really compliments the fruit taste well. Lightly carbonated, this is an excellent summer "dessert" drink.