Hosmer Mountain Black Cherry

I first introduced readers to Hosmer Mountain Beverages in this previous post where I reviewed their Sarsaparilla. I've come across a bottle of their black cherry soda this time around and I'm always jazzed to taste black cherry sodas. This 12 oz bottle comes in at 180 calories and uses cane sugar. The scent is not very heavy but definitely a black cherry aroma. I like the carbonation level. I think the taste of this is biased a little more toward a traditional cherry soda rather than a black cherry. The flavor is just okay, not as deep and rich as I'd prefer and I find that the finish comes across syrupy like that of a cough syrup. This is pretty disappointing as black cherry sodas go but still good enough to drink without hesitation. 

Mountain Dew Baja Cabo Citrus Zero

This new flavor from Mountain Dew is available in both regular and zero sugar versions. I was only able to secure this bottle of the zero sugar version yesterday. Despite having zero sugar, the bottle still lists 5 calories per serving and still contains caffeine. It has a sort of orange red color reminiscent of gummy worms. When I opened the bottle there was a nice crack of released air and it actually smelled like candy gummy worms. It has a standard amount of carbonation for a Mountain Dew soda. The taste comes across as orange-citrus at first then a taste I would describe as Live Wire blended with cough syrup. Finally, there's a lime flavored finish. I think the non-sugar sweetener affects the flavor too much and would probably be better with the full sugar version. It's not undrinkable but isn't great either. 

Melba's Fixins Coffee Cake

I've been looking forward to tasting this since I came across this bottle a week ago and stuck it in the fridge. This is another interesting flavor out of the Melba's Fixins lineup produced by Rocket Fizz in California. The aroma from this is beguiling... it's a bit nutty and smoky. Perhaps like smoked almonds with a hint of vanilla? The more I inhale it the closer it reminds me to the smell of coffee in a breakfast diner. It has a taste more akin to that of coffee grounds than the sugar and cinnamon coffee cakes I'm accustomed to. I feel like I should be drinking this out of one of those old, stained, white ceramic mugs with the brown pinstripe around the top of the cup that you see in old diners... few of which still seem to exist. It instantly brings me back to those breakfast joints in the 1980's filled early on weekend mornings with the smell of cigarettes and coffee in the air and the occasional whiff of pancakes and maple syrup. I'm going to insist again that the Melba's Fixins flavors are superior to the gross flavors of the Lester's Fixins group. 

O-So Butterscotch Root Beer

Among the many retro soda labels revived and continuing to be produced by Orca Beverage, whose name has come up several times in past posts, is the O-So label. O-So soda began in Chicago, Illinois in 1946 gaining popularity based on their grape flavored soda. The traction they gained grew their network of bottlers as well as the variety of fruit flavors they offered. From what I can surmise, they shuttered production in the early 1990's before the label was picked up by Orca, which operates out of Washington state.

This bottle comes in at 170 calories and is made with cane sugar. Unlike the last butterscotch root beer I had, this one is more root beer scented, but their butterscotch flavoring must be what gives it a slight smokiness. It isn't heavily carbonated but the cap was extremely difficult to twist off and seems to have left some sort of coarse residue around the bottle opening which isn't ideal. While the scent leans more towards a root beer, the taste leans more towards that of butterscotch. I'm not really getting much in the way of the root beer until the aftertaste of a swig. The butterscotch flavoring is adequate but not all that smooth.

Black Bear Orange Soda

Black Bear dates back to 1920 when founder Louis Patmont began bottling spring water in St. Francis, Wisconsin, south of Milwaukee. In 1931 the company was sold to Lucas Unger, who began bottling sodas. Black Bear passed hands again in 1961 which it was bought by the Caruso family, the same family that was known for their Italian-style sodas that later fell under the WBC Sodas of Chicago. The Black Bear bottling facility in Oak Creek, WI closed in 2017 after falling into receivership. Sprecher Brewery of Wisconsin now owns the label and continues to produce Black Bear along with other labels, including their own.

This soda is not made with cane sugar, but glucose syrup and has a very bright orange color. Sadly, the cap on this bottle is a blank. They could have done something cool with a bear silhouette or something. It provides a very traditional orange soda scent. This soda is also frustratingly flat. There's very little carbonation in it despite having just been purchased about a week ago. I'd had higher hopes for this bottle but it did not rise to the occasion. This is a low to middle orange soda so I'd recommend grabbing something else if the option is there. 

Betty Buzz Tonic Water

Actress Blake Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, have a diverse mix of entrepreneurial interests. Ryan is co-owner of Aviation Gin. Blake, for her part, founded Betty Buzz in 2021. Betty Buzz makes a variety of drink mixers, among several flavors are ginger beer, lemon-lime, and a meyer lemon club soda, as well as the tonic water featured here, which probably pairs decently Ryan's gin. Of course Betty Buzz also has an aviation theme to the brand. Now people don't typically drink tonic water straight, it's usually mixed with something. As I'm more interested in reviewing what comes directly out of the bottles and cans on this blog I'll be trying it without mixing so it probably won't be very enjoyable. Tonic water is a carbonated water with quinine in it and was used by soldiers in tropical climates to prevent malaria. It has a bitter taste so is often sweetened or mixed to be more palatable. Tonic water also has another peculiar property in that it will fluoresce under ultraviolet light. 

I quite like the old-fashioned, hand-sized bottles. There is little to no scent from this bottle. Drunk straight, it is very bitter so I can only imagine what it tasted like in Victorian times when it was made in stronger quantities and without sweeteners. This bottle comes sweetened with agave syrup and is still very bitter. Used as a proper mixer this small 9 oz bottle would be able to extend to make two to four cocktails, yet the entire 9 oz is just 50 calories. Not much more to add here other than I recommend blending it with just about anything sweet to cut that harsh bitter taste. 

Sprite Vanilla Frost

Here we have a limited edition flavor from Sprite that was released this past winter. I had picked up a bottle in February but forgot about it in the fridge for a little while, though its still perfectly good. Of course this is a mass produced brand so it uses high fructose corn syrup and weighs in with a 20 oz bottle rather than the 12 oz bottles that are more typical of smaller producers. Opening it releases a powerful vanilla scent. There's no traditional taste of Sprite's lemon-lime blended in here, this tastes like an entirely different drink. It's quite vanilla forward, though not heavy handed or too candy-like. With "frost" in the name, I'd expected something more like that "frost" or "ice" flavoring used in some of the gatorade flavors. Overall, it's nothing to write home about, just sort of "meh". 

Spring Grove Rhu-berry

Another flavor from the Spring Grove lineup... this one a blend of strawberry and rhubarb. This soda is made with cane sugar and is caffeine free. The aroma from this bottle evokes memories of mixing strawberry Kool-aid powder on a hot summer day. There's a healthy amount of carbonation to heighten the taste on the tongue. It tastes strongly of rhubarb, which isn't entirely unlike strawberry. The strawberry taste arises a bit more in the aftertaste. I enjoy the nice little bit of tartness in the finish.

Norka Cherry-Strawberry

As someone who collects some vintage soda advertising, I've been aware of Norka for ages despite never coming across the soda itself to drink. I'd also always sort of overlooked some of their vintage materials when finding them because the style and font in were rather bland and it sounded quite Russian. In fact, there is a place in Russia named Norka, as well as a Russian-Ukranian fairy tale called "The Norka". However, it turns out that Norka Beverages is based in Akron, Ohio and Norka is just Akron spelled backwards... amusingly, something I'd never connected. The Norka Beverage company began in 1924 when Jacob Paquin setup shop. The original Norka soda ceased production in 1962. Michael Considine brought the label back to life in 2015, having previous experience in the beverage industry with Bawls Guarana. 

This bottle comes in at 170 calories, is caffeine free, and sweetened with cane sugar. The aroma is that of a cherry flavored hard candy. The flavor is not what I was expecting. I find that there is a muddled mix of cherry and strawberry flavors at first. This is followed by a short strawberry, but the finish is strongly on the cherry side. Interestingly there's a tart quality about it as well. I find this interesting because so many sodas go the other way and are sickeningly sugary. This has a decent sweetness but brings in a touch of sour that makes the mouth water just a little bit more. 

Jack Black's Blood Red Cola

It has been sometime since I last reviewed a soda from the Jack Black's line up. This brand is made by the Real Soda group, which produces many soda labels. This bottle smells like a number of craft soda maker's colas and the color of the liquid isn't actually blood red either but a very normal amber cola color. I have to say there's nothing remarkable about the flavor. It's a very average cola though I thought the "blood red" aspect in the name might have meant it had a twist to the flavor or they'd at least dyed it red. Its really just a marketing thing and there are better colas that provide more pep than this one. But hey, the cap is kinda cool.