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.

7 Up

In 1920, Charles L. Grigg left Vess to create his own soda company, Howdy, which is also based in St. Louis. Howdy's original offering was Howdy Orange Drink, later Howdy Orange Soda. It took a reported 11 years to complete his formulation for a lemon-lime flavored soda that was originally called Lithiated Lemon-Lime. Lithiated referred to the chemical lithium citrate, a pharmacological mood altering drug. Before you jump out of your skin at that thought remember that many early sodas were first developed as health tonics by pharmacists and there were others using lithiated citrate at the time as well. Lithiated citrate was removed from the recipe in 1948.

The name was later changed to 7 Up Lithiated Soda and then changed again to just 7 Up. The name 7 Up was arose along with early advertising, which called it "7 natural flavors blended into a drink with a real wallop." 7 Up eventually became the star of the Howdy Corporation so the entire company became the Seven-Up Company.

In a strange act of diversification, Westinghouse purchased the company in 1969 and then sold it to Philip Morris, the tobacco company, in 1978. Hicks & Haas bought 7 Up in 1986 which later led to merging with Dr Pepper and then with Schweppes.

Although the recipe is different from the original, they currently use high-fructose corn syrup, which somewhat contradicts their claims of being 100% natural depending on your stance of what "natural" means. Among their advertising successes are the "Fresh Up, the "Un-cola" and Spot. I think if most people were asked what the "Un-cola" they'd say it was 7 Up. That tagline actually came out in the 60's but must have become popular again during the cola wars providing people with an easy alternative. For people in my age group, I think we can all remember Spot advertising in the early 90's. Spot as a cartoon character took on the role of company mascot in advertising and appeared on merchandise, there was even a Nintendo NES video game featuring Spot.

In terms of taste, I'm not sure I need to describe to most people what 7 Up tastes like. It's got a pleasant lemon-lime scent and middling carbonation. In terms of carbonation levels in the two most popular lemon-lime sodas I will still give Sprite the edge. I personally feel 7 Up has a more lime-like aftertaste. Overall, it isn't a soda I drink that often but can still enjoy. Although I generally pair lighter flavored sodas with light meals... I can also say that this can pair well with something like barbeque sauced dishes because of the palate cleansing aspect it can have.

Swamp Pop Noble Cane Cola

I like finding small producers like this and learning about their story. In Lafayette, Lousiana, around 2012, John Petersen, already the owner of a retail store, and his cousin, Collin Cormier, owner of a food truck named "Viva la Waffle" decided to start creating sugar cane cola. Lousiana has long history of sugar cane farming and with the sales of colas at Collin's food truck they jumped into the game. The name of the soda is a bit of a play on words taken from a musical sub-genre in the region called Swamp Pop dating back to the 1950's in the Acadiana region. The genre is a mixture of rhythm and blues, country and french music styles. When Swamp Pop was born they experimented in making their own flavor profiles but later turned to commercial flavor chemists. Their line includes flavors of a kind of regional nature such as praline cream and a strawberry soda named after the town of Ponchatoula's annual strawberry festival. 

Starting with the bottle, I'd have to say I really enjoy the aesthetic of their labels. The familiar scent of kola nut and maybe cinnamon. It feels slightly viscous when tasting it and almost creamy thick. Some of that no doubt stems from the smoothness you find from using sugar cane. The flavor is quite unique for a cola. I expected something cheap tasting with just a pretty label, but this is surprisingly good. I give this a strong recommendation and look forwarded to finding their other flavors.

Cicero Beverage Co. Lime Soda

Cicero Beverage Co. is located in Chicago, IL. My grandfather grew up in Cicero, when it was still populated heavily Czech/Bohemian residents. 

St. Patrick's Day is the perfect day to review this soda. Although Cicero Beverage makes several sodas of different colors, Lime was the best choice for today because the river on the label changes color based on the soda. For those outside of the U.S. that read this blog, Chicago, which has historically had a large Irish population, dyes the river green on St. Patrick's Day.

The soda itself is well carbonated. The flavor is a bit lacking though. There are some good lime sodas, but I often find bottlers that create a very hard-candy type of lime flavor. It's not a bad lime, I've had much worse I think. But it's not amazing either. I am interested in tasting some of their others in the lineup because they do offer several flavors and some are intriguing.

Sioux City Prickly Pear

It's been a few years since Sioux City appeared on the blog and it just so happens I found a new flavor.

It has an exotic aroma, like a passion fruit. The prickly pear cactus, pictured on the bottle, does produce a fruit used for food. However, looking at the ingredients, it appears the flavor of this drink is entirely man-made. Boy, this drink is pungent. The flavor is quite unique. It is both fruity like a mix of passion fruit and cranberry, but acidic and just a tiny bit bubble-gummy. It also reminds me of a lychee soda. I recommend trying this at least once for the sheer strangeness of the flavor.

Cola Turka

In 2002, Pepsi and Coca-Cola dominated the growing soda scene in the country of Turkey. But with an growing nationalistic movement, 2003 saw the birth of Cola Turka from a company named Ülker. The same year of their launch, Chevy Chase made some controversy for starring in a couple of commercials for the drink. It wasn't being in the commercials that fueled talk, it was that the commercials, filmed in New York City, show Americans being transformed into Turks by drinking the cola. This was during a time of heightened political and and religious tensions with Muslim countries. Cola Turka can be found in some European countries as well and they make two other versions, Light, and Cappuccino, a mixture of cola and cappuccino flavors. 

While I can't read the ingredient label, because it's in Turkish, it smells of kola nut and cane sugar. It's a dainty little glass bottle, but well made. The carbonation is pleasing, but there's nothing about the taste of this cola that would differentiate it from Coca-Cola, other than perhaps being slightly less sugary. So other than being just another cola, it would seem this is more of a national symbol you may drink to make a statement. Other than that, thanks to my mother for bringing this bottle all the way back from Turkey for me.

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.

World Market Limoncellino

Sweet and aromatic... this bottle smells like the freshest lemonade. It's very tart and as you'd expect just like Italian limoncello liqueur. It is rich and somehow very sweet and very sour at the same time. The carbonation is smooth, with slight, tiny bubbles. The effervescence is more like an addition to the flavor than to the texture. While not something I'd consider an everyday drink, I highly recommend it as a breakfast or dessert beverage. 

Nesbitt's Honey Lemonade

Nesbitt's has a colorful origin. You can read about that here, at my first post for Nesbitt's.

At first whiff, this soda smells no different than any other high fructose corn syrup filled lemonade and the bottle doesn't appear to have much carbonation. The flavor is light compared to most lemonades. It isn't heavy, overly sugary or even very tart. There's no taste of honey, if anything I sense a pear-like flavor when hitting the taste buds on the sides of my tongue. This is a pleasant drink. It's refreshing and not the kind of drink that sickens you from sugar. I give it a thumbs up.