Rocky Mountain Beet Sugar - 5 Reviews

Up until this point Rocky Mountain Soda Co has had a consistently great record here on Thirsty Dudes. They have put their own twist on some standard sodas, and their use of beet sugar is commendable. Unfortunately this flavor falls short. I've enjoyed other elderberry beverages that I have tried, but this just misses the mark. Perhaps the deer, or elk, on the label licked the berries a bit, and perhaps those same animals have saliva that tastes like Orajel, but without the numbing factor. The taste of this falls somewhere between fruity and floral, but with a medicinal twist. I don't get it. I expected to love this, but it's just not happening.

Since I have not been presented with evidence to tell me otherwise I am forced to believe that bears are used to harvest the berries that are used to flavor this soda. From what I have seen, the animals are not harmed, or even caged. They roam free through the Rocky Mountains and just return to the bottling plant with their huge paws just full of blackberries. I have no idea how the folks at this company worked this deal out, but perhaps they have been in touch with the folks at Sprecher, who also employ several species of animals. Just imagine bears coming up to the back door of the factory, dropping their days gatherings and receiving a nice chin scratch in return…€¦adorable.

The bears gather only the ripest berries and the result is a soda that has a fantastic, light berry flavor that tastes nothing short of authentic. The use of beet sugar as a sweetener makes sure that it doesn't; taste overly sugary, but it also doesn't give it that generic soda flavor, since the berry taste isn't overpowering. It's one of the best berry sodas I have ever tasted, and that is a flavor that I am very particular about.

I will say that you folks are playing with fire though. Statistically there simply must be at least one mauling per year. I guess the math must just work out to make it cost effective. I guess I would also take my chances though because I totally want to just hang out with that bear, lounging around and eating excess berries.

While climbing the Rocky Mountains, Jack heard about a legend of a mysterious cooler on the top of the tallest mountain. For as long as he was a kid, he always wanted to climb the mountain and find out what was in the cooler. Some people said it was a head of a mob boss that terrorized the city during the 1920's. Some said that it was a secret recipe for a really good pie. Jack needed to find out for sure.

He packed a bag and climbed a couple of the smaller mountains for years to prepare himself for the big climb. Then, one nice summer day, he took his first step up the mountain. Minute after minute, Hour after hour he diligently climbed until he finally made it and there it was, a cooler. A standard issue, blue, plastic insulated Coleman cooler with root beer in it. Not just any root beer but Rocky Mountain root beer.

Sure, it wasn't the finest root beer but it was special because it was made from the Rocky Mountain area. It's a nice, dark root beer that's not too sweet and is actually sweetened from beet sugar. Jack was psyched. He just took the one bottle and left the rest. There was a note on the top of the cooler that said, "Take one and tell no one. Safe travels." He obeyed the rules.

The best time to enjoy a nice cold bottle of soda of any kind is while sitting around a fire in the middle of nature. Don't let anyone tell you anything different. Okay, orange soda may be better at a bbq but everything else is at top speed at a camp fire. This weekend I escaped to the woods with some friends and after a day of taking the majesty of it all in and getting caught in a torrential rainstorm halfway through a five mile hike, the skies cleared and we settled in around the fire. Everyone else popped their beers and I cracked open this ginger beer.

With the first sip I experienced some disappointment. It tasted like a generic soda with a little bit of a burn to it. With hope in my eyes, I put my thumb over the top and gently swirled the bottle around to mix it up, in case settling had occurred, and lo and behold we have a whole new drink. It suddenly went up to a medium burn and the flavors started to burst out. It's the type of ginger beer that tastes more like a ginger ale with a kick. It's what I actually prefer. The ginger actually has a flavor and not just a burning sensation. I slowly sipped it until we ran out of wood and then everyone else went to sleep and I tried to read with a head lamp, but it just attracted every moth in the forest and I needed to run away.

Denver, the home of this soda, has come a long way in the past ten years. When I first visited there was nothing special about the city, and it was not a place that I felt an urge to return to. Now it's a decade later and I was able to visit twice in one month, and I fell in love with that western city. Not only did the city look wonderful, but there were great places to eat, 1Up barcade and one of the best skateparks I've ever visited. As it turns out the guys who run this soda company are involved in skate culture. I wonder if any of them were the dude that I saw do a full flip out of the one bowl at the park. I hope so because that guy was ridiculously good.

Enough about Denver and more about soda. If you're going into this expecting a normal run of the mill cola you are not going to be getting it. This is a new breed, and it's fantastic. It's a cola with both vanilla and a hint of cherry in it. Sure both of those flavors are known to be in cola, but how often do you see them combined? Craft beer seems to be running the world these days, and this is its equivalent in the soda game. There is nothing generic about this cola. It has sophisticated flavors that can either all blend together, or remain separate; it all depends upon how you think about it while you drink it. Someone once told me that if you're eating something and there is a taste in there that you can't quite put your finger on chances are that it contains cinnamon. That person was absolutely right about the mystery ingredient in this soda.

Rocky Mountain Soda Co has given me even more reason to love Denver. I need to head back there soon for a visit where I will eat many burritos, play many games of Galaga, skate until I'm broken and drink all the sodas.