Soda Pop (992 reviews)
7 Eleven 7 Select Orange Soda
Buffalo used to have a chain of convenient stores called Wilson Farms. They weren't all that incredible, but they were a staple of Western New York. A year ago, 7-11 swooped in and bought the franchise and has converted them all into their homogenized storefronts (as best they could given the various building sizes). A legacy is gone, but now Buffalo has a lot more 24-hour stores, which is great.
I will admit, I did not buy this bottle here in Buffalo. It was actually purchased in a 7-11 in Salt Lake City. But I recently (as in yesterday) moved back to Buffalo and have more to say about 7-11 here than a random one I went into in SLC. I remember I bought this because I hadn't had orange soda in a while and had a craving for it. While this wasn't the best orange soda ever, it definitely satisfied my craving. I would put this in the middle range, where most generic orange sodas lie. They're good, but not amazing.
- Website
- http://www.7-eleven.com/
- Country
- United States
- Sweetener
- High Fructose Syrup
- Categories
- Soda Pop
- Rating
- Reviewed By
- Derek Neuland on 11/15/2012
- Comments
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Hotlips Blackberry Soda
Sometimes you date a girl who lives across the country and you go visit every other month. Sometimes things don’t work out and you end up splitting up right before you leave from a visit. Sometimes your flight gets delayed and you turn around and said person is standing there asking if you want to get food. On top of that sometimes pizza and great soda can mend the relationship (for a couple more months at least).
Portland, OR’s Hot Lips is a diamond in the rough. Well, not a diamond in a sea of bad food, as that city has obscene amounts of awesome veggie food (Vita Café I’m looking in your direction). It’s a special place because it is a place where you can get a decent slice of pizza on the west coast. For the most part I don’t even tough pizza past Wisconsin and even that is really pushing it. Hot Lips was great for its pizza, but even better for it’s soda. They take local fruit and add sparkling water and a little cane sugar. If you’ve ever read Tom Robbins’ “Still Life With Woodpecker” you know that blackberries run rampant in those parts. This is so simple and so wonderful. It tastes light lightly sugared blackberries, because that is exactly what it is. Why anyone would mess with a recipe like this boggles my mind. Okay, I understand that they want to save money, but they end up with a product that is not even close to this in quality, those big dummies.
I was always under the impression that this soda was only available in Portland, but my ladyfriend (of three years, not the previous ladyfriend which I mentioned above) found it in a health food store in North Carolina. I really hope Hot Lips expands their reach and takes over the country with their quality soda.
- Website
- http://hotlipssoda.com/
- Country
- United States
- Sweetener
- Cane Sugar
- Rating
- Reviewed By
- Jason Draper on 11/14/2012
- Comments
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Nativa Organics Tropical Fruit Flavoured Drink
On our great Canadian drink adventure about a month ago Mike and I came across theses sodas in a Shoppers Drug Mart. I called dibs as quickly as I could because it's a soda with pineapple and passion fruit in it. I'm pretty sure that if Mike would have tried to grab it for his own I would have drug him out to the parking lot and we would have had to put up our dukes. The idea of Mike and I in fisticuffs is absolutely absurd. I can't even envision it in my head without the visions of us putting our fists up like an olde timey movie and erupting in laughter. Luckily, it never came to that, as Mike knows my taste buds and gave it up happily.
You might ask yourself, if I was so excited to an extent that I would have been willing to pummel one of my dearest friends, why did it take me a month to drink it. The answer is simple. The night was the first night of a tour I was on and Mike and my ladyfriend brought the drinks I purchased back home for me. This bottle was lost in the shuffle and it just resurfaced. What a glorious day it was.
All of my expectations of this drink were not only met, but they were surpassed. It's sparkling water, fruit juice and nothing else. The folks at Nativa were smart enough not to gunk up the mix by adding sugar. It tastes like some one blended up some pineapple and passion fruit, squeezed in a spritz of mango and strained out all the bits. Then they poured the remains into some sparkling water. The fruit itself is sweet enough to overcome any potential seltzer flavor. It's the perfect fruity soda. I've never had one that was better.
It turns out that this is the beverage version of an M Night Shyamalon movie. It turns out the soda has been dead the whole time. Wait, that's not right. It turns out that this wasn't made by some specialty soda company. Nativa is actually the Shoppers Drug Marts' store brand. Now that is true magic.
- Website
- http://www1.shoppersdrugmart.ca/en/food-and-home/brands/nativa-organics/collections/nativa-snacks.as
- Country
- Italy
- Sweetener
- No Sugar Added
- Rating
- Reviewed By
- Jason Draper on 11/13/2012
- Comments
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Big Shot Cream Soda
Blech. Oh you like sweet pop? Consider me your number one researcher because I have found some sugary stuff for you. This is cream soda but it is more sugar than cream. I've got two sips invested into this guy so far and I can just hear the blood rushing towards the loins of dentists due to the amount of sweetness just degrading my poor teeth. Otherwise unaroused, middle aged men who secretly but not-so secretly love their quasi-attractive, semi-overweight receptionists and not-so secretly hate their wildy attractive wives just losing their mind at the thought of tending to my dental work due to the unfortunate run in with this pop. Dentists who expensive cars they hate but drive regardless because of the looks they get from girls. Dentists who have personalized license places that say things like "N1CETEEF" and " NYDENT15T" and "BR4CE584." They all want me.
- Country
- United States
- Sweetener
- High Fructose Corn Syrup
- Categories
- Soda Pop
- Rating
- Reviewed By
- Mike Literman on 11/12/2012
- Comments
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Ski Infra Red
It seemed like everyone was either out of town or had plans yesterday so I started my winter ritual of wasting my time playing video games a bit early. Since my ladyfriend was one of the people that were out of town, the cats and I had the apartment to ourselves. I played far too many hours of Final Fantasy, until I got a call that Mike was available and he wanted me to come over and play even more video games. I swear outside of a couple of winter months I rarely if ever play these things. We ended up playing Home Run All Stars Derby for far too long and laughed way too much.
Since the day was filled with electronic fun I decided I needed to imbibe an appropriate beverage. My good friend Kevyn gave me this soda and this seemed to be the perfect time for it. The description of the can proclaims it to be a “citrus wired cherry soda” aka cherry soda with caffeine in it. I suspected it to taste like Mountain Dew Code Red, which it did, but much better. The base is like a cherry soda with a light Mountain Dew taste to it, but the kicker is that there is also orange in there as well. That’s what sets the drink off, and gives you these weird orange burps afterwards. I was just struck by the vision of actually being able to see burps exiting someone’s mouth and them having an orange tint to them. Strange times.
- Website
- http://www.myskisoda.com/
- Country
- United States
- Sweetener
- High Fructose Corn Syrup
- Categories
- Soda Pop
- Rating
- Reviewed By
- Jason Draper on 11/11/2012
- Comments
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Saint Arnold Handcrafted Root Beer
In my travels to the wonderful town of Austin, Texas, I found this bottle left in a co-op by Saint Arnold himself. It was an unexpected gift, but it was much appreciated for I hadn't had a new root beer in quite some time. Given that it is "old fashioned", I expected it to have a strong bite and rooty taste to it. On the contrary, it had a nice smooth vanilla taste to it. Saint Arnold brews a hell of a root beer and maybe some day he will leave a bottle somewhere else I'll be traveling.
- Website
- http://www.saintarnold.com/
- Country
- United States
- Sweetener
- Cane Sugar
- Rating
- Reviewed By
- Derek Neuland on 11/7/2012
- Comments
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Ramune Cola
Well. What a disappointment. If this wasn't in a fun bottle, it would have gotten a two but I gave it the benefit of the doubt and gave it a three. Flavor alone, two. Undoubtedly. Not because it was bad but because it was one of the most boring colas I've ever had. In the everlasting quest for the world's greatest cola, this is at the bottom of the list. I have had generic, supermarket cola that is better than this. It's just cola. No depth, body, or anything. Oh you want cola flavored pop? Here is some cola flavoring. Done. Corn syrup knocks it down. Just boring. Plain and simple. It's times like this when I really wish that I had that octopus flavored Ramune.
- Country
- Jamaica
- Sweetener
- High Fructose Corn Syrup
- Categories
- Soda Pop
- Rating
- Reviewed By
- Mike Literman on 11/7/2012
- Comments
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- Buy Now
- Cola Ramune
Blue Sky Organic Orange Divine
Last night was the US Presidential Election, and Barack Obama will be our president again for the next four years. I was half-heartedly watching the election coverage on my laptop as I read last night. Watching states turn blue was a treat. I was waiting for the swing states to switch over (mostly Ohio, Florida and Virginia). I had decided that when Florida went blue I would celebrate with a nice orange soda to pay my respects to the people in that state who made the right decision. Time went by and Florida stayed grey. I got to thinking about that orange pop and I really wanted it. In my head I justified that by drinking it I would help usher on the counting of the votes. I think I messed things up guys. Luckily other parts of the country picked up the slack and the blue won, but I’m pretty sure the fact that I picked such a lack luster soda was what delayed the count (it’s 11am now and it still isn’t done).
Blue sky was one of the first organic sodas that I remember seeing on the market. In 2000 or so I remember going to the local health food store to get a nice seitan sandwich and I grabbed my first can of Blue Sky (not Orange Divine). I remember thinking it was good, but nothing spectacular. That’s fine, not everything needs to be over the top. I thought I knew what I was getting into with this can. It has natural orange flavor in it, so I was expecting it to be a lesser tasting/more sweetened Orangina. I ended up getting something that was between a sparkling orange juice and your everyday orange soda, except it had been filtered through the general taste of a health food store. Something was definitely off about it. It tasted as if it had been lightly spiced for some unknown reason. There is nothing listed in the ingredient list that should give it such a flavor, so I’m stumped.
Again, I apologize to the folks of Florida for delaying the count of their votes. If I had chosen a better orange soda I bet this would be all wrapped up.
- Website
- http://www.blueskysoda.com/
- Country
- United States
- Sweetener
- Organic Cane Juice
- Categories
- Soda Pop
- Rating
- Reviewed By
- Jason Draper on 11/7/2012
- Comments
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Sprecher Fire Brewed Grape
Did the association of purple/grape things and apes start with the Hanna Barbera character? I mean it makes sense due to rhyming, but I feel like I’ve seen more than a handful of things with primates tied to the flavor grape that don’t use the word “ape” so the whole rhyme thing is out the window. A quick internet search also tells me it’s a strain of medical marijuana. Is it possible that this gorilla got so high that it started to mistake grapes as its beloved bananas? It got so into the grapes that the juice dyed it’s once glorious coat and gave it a purple hue? I think I’m on to something people. Think about it, when a primate that is wacked out of its gourd gets loose in your grape fields and ends up juicing them all before grape juice season (I say it exists, so it does), what else are you going to do but make soda with it? I mean, sure you’re going to have to boil it down to get rid of all of those gorilla germs (great potential band name that I’m allowing you our readers to use), but why not just give it a little marketing twist and call it “Fire-Brewed?”
I think this hippy gorilla has done the world a favor. This is a nice soda that falls on the higher end of the grape line. It’s a bit light on the carbonation, which I would like to see more of, but I won’t hold that against it…much. As I mentioned it’s made with grape juice and not a bunch of artificial flavoring, but it falls in-between a sparkling grape juice and your traditional grape soda. It’s a good place for it to be. It also has honey in it, and between that and the fire brew, it gives it a very special flavor that is unique to the Sprecher company. Like all their sodas the only problem with that is that although the flavor is delectable when it’s nice and cold, as it gets warmer that flavor starts to take away from the overall greatness of the beverage. It becomes more pronounced and is too distracting. The solution for that is to not dilly dally while you drink this and don’t forget to bring some snacks for our primate friend; he’s got the muchies like you wouldn’t believe.
- Website
- http://www.sprecherbrewery.com
- Country
- United States
- Sweetener
- Glucose Syrup
- Categories
- Soda Pop
- Rating
- Reviewed By
- Jason Draper on 11/3/2012
- Comments
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Grace Island Soda Cream Soda
You know what I hate? I hate when people get perfume in my pop. I absolutely hate it. I often leave open bottles of pop on the floor at grandmother’s homes and you know how grandmas are. They spray that perfume on with a Super Soaker before raging at the Bingo parlor, just gallon after gallon of lavender and Chanel No. 5.
I must have accidentally left this bottle open at everyone's grandmother's house in Western New York before I drank it because this drink tastes like a slew of different old women. It was a lot like the Pakola Ice Cream pop that we drank many moons ago. It tastes nothing like you would expect and everything like you don't want. Not a strong sales approach.
- Website
- http://www.gracefoods.com
- Country
- Canada
- Sweetener
- Sugar
- Categories
- Soda Pop
- Rating
- Reviewed By
- Mike Literman on 11/1/2012
- Comments
- View and Leave A Comment