Manzanita Sol Apple

While visiting my brother in Phoenix, I came upon this soda at a gas station. This is an example of why I always look through all of the refrigerators when I stop at gas stations when I travel. Manzanita Sol is an apple flavored soda bottled by Pepsi. I'm sure it began in a board room since I can't really find any sort of history on this beverage. And while that means it doesn't have the soul of some of the old family brewed sodas... it still tastes good. 

The bottle carries a very crisp apple aroma and has a rich amber color. The carbonation is extremely light, though I don't think it subtracts anything from this particular drink. It tastes very much like an apple cider you'd expect to find in the Mid-West during any given autumn but without the small amount of apple pulp left behind. It's flavor is refreshing and that light touch of carbonation gives a snap to the tongue. It literally makes my mouth water. I give this a high recommendation. It would go well as both a non-meal accompanying thirst quencher as well as a nice dessert drink.

Jarritos Mexican Cola

As the first Jarritos soda to appear on this blog, you may already be a little familiar with it since you can find it in many U.S. supermarkets among the Mexican foods. The name Jarritos, means "little jugs" and was so named because the water, flavored with fruit, popular in colonial times was served in clay jugs. Jarritos was founded by Don Francisco Hill, a chemist by trade, in 1950, in Mexico City. 

Strangely, the first flavor they came out with was a coffee flavored soda. Yes, there are other coffee sodas out there, but this seems like an odd choice for the first product of a new company. So Don Francisco created a process of extracting juice from the Tamarind. For those not acquainted with it, the Tamarind is a tree native to Africa that spread to other countries with similar climates because the ugly pods it produces as fruit were used in cuisine and medicine. Again, not my first choice for a new beverage but Jarritos, armed with its new extraction process started bottling a tamarind flavored soda. They were smart to subsequently also release a list of several more traditional fruit flavored sodas as well. In 1988 Jarritos began exporting to the U.S. Today they produce around eleven flavors.

Other than being a product of Mexico, I don't know that there is any real difference between this "Mexican Cola" than any other cola. It smells very refreshing though. Interestingly it's cola flavored but it has a sweetness to it like that of candy. It reminds me of those little candies shaped like soda bottles with cola flavoring. It's sweet and nice, a nice break from many of the colas I'm accustomed to. Although I can imagine drinking too much of it might get sickeningly sweet. I would definitely classify this as a dessert drink, ideal for a light treat after a cookout.

Inca Kola

Jose Robinson Lindley, an Englishman who immigrated to Peru, began a bottling company in Lima, Peru in 1911. Although they already bottled several flavors of soda, in 1935, Jose created Inca Kola. The primary ingredient is lemon verbena, a perennial shrub, who's leaves smell of lemon. The company grew steadily and within a decade Inca Kola became a defacto national beverage. Through the 1970's it was the country's most popular soda by market share. In the mid-90's a resurgence occurred due to several fast food chains dropping Coca-Cola for Inca Kola. But due to poor finances the company fell into debt and entered into a merger with Coca-Cola. The result was Coca-Cola owning the brand everywhere outside of Peru, but also owning a part of it within Peru.

Despite its name and color, it smells just like Big Red. This particular bottle must be a bit old as it seems totally flat. It also actually tastes quite a lot like Big Red. It's got that bubble-gum-cream flavor but there is the faintest hint of lemon in the finish. I seriously doubt with the modern, corporate ownership it still includes the herbs used to flavor the original. I was told that some need time to take to the flavor of this, but growing up around people who drank Big Red this doesn't seem strange at all to me. However I was never that big of a fan. If you do like Big Red, then you will like this.

Tropical Banana

Today's drink is Tropical. This drink is from Honduras, where's it's a popular drink, and comes in two flavors: banana and grape. I haven't been able to uncover much on it's history, though it is produced by Cervecería Hondureña, which is primarily a beer brewery.

The bottles look nice with the soft curves of the twisted glass, even the lip of the bottle is softly curved. The banana scent is very strong. I could smell it immediately when the cap came off and smells very sweet like banana flavored candy. Banana flavored sodas may be popular with some, but it's no reason they aren't big time like grape and orange. To me banana soda just tastes weird, maybe because you're mind doesn't expect such a flavor from a liquid. Not much to say here really because it's not something I would drink regularly. A few swigs is interesting though. It's just to strange and strong for my particular taste.

Jones Soda Green Apple

Another flavor in a line from Jones Soda. My initial post on their Strawberry-Lime details their history if you're interested. 

I'll continue to keep tasting the Jones lineup both because I'm curious about some of their flavors and because they are little hit or miss. I have found both good and bad from these guys, but their gimmicky packaging never really did much for me. This green beverage smells like a Granny Smith apple. It does have a crisp apple taste, albeit with a strong acidic bite. Despite the off-putting color it sort of grows on you. It's an interesting try in the small world of apple flavored sodas.You might want to give this one a comparison for yourself. 

Henry Weinhard's Orange Cream

Here's a brand with an interesting and extensive history. While I don't generally discuss alcoholic beverages there is a complicated intertwining of beer and soda brewing because so much of the equipment and processes cross-over as well as the period in US history, called prohibition, which forced much of this cross-over. 

Henry Weinhard was a German man who immigrated to the US in 1856 and opened a hotel/bar in Portland, Oregon. By 1862, he had built his own brewery to produce his own suds. He eventually also purchased additional hotel/bars and business was well enough that Henry offered to pipe beer through a public fountain in the city of Portland. The city politely declined worried about rowdy horses drinking from it, though I think they should have been more worried about the city's residents. Without a fountain to plumb beer through, Henry gave his employees free beer. There are stories of Henry declining large buy outs of his brewery and saving banks from collapse as well, but you can read those stories of hero worship somewhere else. 

Henry died in 1904 and his family took over the company. It was during prohibition, 1920-1933, that the brewery started making sodas. This was common among many beer breweries during the era because they already had the equipment, bottles and distribution needed to do so. Although it was a strong family run company, and later after a merger with a local competitor, a regional one... the brewery was sold to Pabst in 1979. Pabst, in turn, sold to Stroh's in 1996. In 1999, Stroh's handed the brewery over to Miller, and so the building was shuttered and moved the operation to their plant in Tumwater, Washington. The production of the sodas continues out of Ft. Worth, Texas.

The orange cream soda itself smells wonderful, like an orange cream ice pop. My first taste of this was good, as good as the smell made it seem. It really does taste good when it first hits your tongue. My issue with it would be the finish, that is as it passes the tongue when you swallow, it looses the creaminess and ends up with more of an artificial taste you'd expect from a lab. So it's an alright soda, but I think it's label over reaches what you want from something called gourmet.

Route 66 Lime Soda

Today's selection comes from Route 66 Sodas. I've previously mentioned them when tasting their root beer on this entry. This time I'll be drinking their lime soda.

I can smell the tartness from this nuclear green bottle. The color no doubt owes itself to the yellow #5 coloring, the same used in Mountain Dew. It's got a lime flavor that is light. Based on the unnatural color I was expecting a heavy handed dose of lime. However, at the finish there is a slight taste more like disinfectant. It's still not all that bad and tastes a bit like a lime ice cream. It's an okay soda, but not something I would tell someone to jump at if they saw it.

Canada Dry Cranberry Ginger Ale

Oddly I just realized I hadn't yet made a post about Canada Dry's ginger ale. Canada Dry is one of the better ginger ale makers in my opinion. I was really excited when I found this in the grocery store again this season. I discovered it last year when they must have been trying to get rid of some stock left over from the holidays and I only found a single bottle. The label wasn't clear if it was seasonal or not but sadly that turned out to be the case. When I saw mass quantities in stock just before Thanksgiving I bought up a bunch of the stuff. 

Canada Dry, like many other soda brands, began with a pharmacist who made soda water. This time the pharmacist was John McLaughlin, in Toronto, Canada in 1890. It took him some time, but in 1904 he began selling Canada Dry Pale Dry Ginger Ale. The drink became a hit in the states after he shipped to New York City in 1919, leading to a production plant there as well. The drink's popularity spread rapidly, sparked in part by prohibition laws in the U.S., which led to its use as a mixer to help cover the taste of poorly made hooch. Like many other soda makers, the company went through a series of sales and consolidations. Today it is part of the Dr Pepper Snapple Group based in Texas. 

The aroma of this particular flavor is just heavenly. The cranberry flavoring is just right, not overpowering like some mixed berry drinks. You can still taste the ginger out of it and the carbonation plays in the mouth perfectly. I cannot say enough about how much I love this seasonal soda and wish I could find it year round, though that may take something out of the anticipation of getting it. I highly recommend buying some if you have the chance. It's also ideal for holiday parties and currently only seen in 2-liter bottles.

Empire Bottling Works Banana

Just a little southeast of Providence in Rhode Island, lies Bristol, not to be confused with the larger more well-known Bristol, Connecticut. From the smaller Bristol, RI comes Empire Bottling Works. Empire is a small company providing sodas for the region since 1930 and is still run by the same family that founded it. And small it must be because they don't appear to even have a website. 

I've been curious about what to expect since I first got this bottle. Although I have bottle caps in my collection for banana flavored soda I've never before had one to taste. I go in with low expectations not because of the brand but because the more exotic flavors that you don't encounter everyday can be hit or miss. 

Whenever I open a bottle for taste testing I always smell it first and this one reminds me of banana pudding. It smells quite yummy and has a deep yellow coloring. The taste is interesting. To really get the flavor you've got to hold it on your tongue a bit. It does indeed taste like banana, ripe not green. At the same time it has a small hint of that imitation lab-made flavor that takes you out of the moment, the moment of true banana taste. That could be due to citric acid in the soda since the ingredients list extract and not a bunch of chemicals or flavoring. I'm sure there are fans of this, but it seems a bit strange to me and not something I'd find myself sipping on as a refreshment.

R-Pep

The history of R-Pep seems a little interesting. While I was unable to determine the definitive inventor of the drink, it appears it may have been a creation of Clem Bottling Works in Malvern, Arkansas. Clem Bottling Works began back in 1907, founded by J.M. Clem. The year the R-Pep formula came into existence is unknown at this time. This was a family run business until 1972 when it was sold to Dr Pepper. Harold Clem, J.M.'s grandson, then went to work for Dr Pepper. In 2011, Excel Bottling from Breese, Illinois obtained the trademark to R-Pep and resumed bottling it with the original formula. Regular visitors to this site may recall reading about Excel in this previous post.

A bottle with adequate carbonation, it doesn't have much of a scent. The soda itself is not an analog of Dr Pepper as some web hits mention. To me this tastes less of spices you feel in Dr Pepper. Instead what I taste is cherry with traces of chocolate. It's also has a soft sweetness from the cane sugar used. It's a good drink, but I'd like it to have more carbonation.