It is not very often I get to go to Trader Joe’s the nearest one being about forty-five minutes away seems so close yet when I need to grocery shop gets further and further away. One this day I was heading to my old college roommate’s town to go on a brewery tour at the Samuel Adams Brewery in Jamaica Plains, MA. On the way knowing I pass right by a Trader Joe’s and I stopped there as a rest stop.  Searching the drink aisle I came across the vintage soda line and picked up a four pack for later.

To be honest the closest thing I have had to an orange cream soda is an Orange Julius. The drink was bright orange light a typical orange soda would be but it was not clear the solid orange color burning a hole in my retina. I took my first sip, sweet orange cream flavor rushed over my palate. The first thing I noticed was the real sugar, sweet but no too heavy. The second was the sweet orange flavor being chased by the creamy finish, that masked the further complex orange notes to come through. Although I missed the complete orange taste the creaminess did remind me of that combination or orange and vanilla of an Orange Julius but had the sharp bite of the carbonation to follow it.

It was another good pick for a first time try. I would buy this again but it would not make one of my everyday soda lists.

Welcome IWYS viewers and Thirstrate readers! To celebrate my day with DeAndre Upshaw of Iwearyourshirt.com promoting my blog I am running a contest.

The game is simple, to be entered into drawing for the prizes you must guess the mystery beverage dipicted above and post a comment below with the correct answer in this form:

Name or Email/Facebook or Twitter link (So I can contact you somehow):

State or Province (Contest open to residents of the US & Canada only):

Guess:

I will than pick two random winners out of the correct guesses at 11:59 PM EST on Jan 15th 2012. First pull will win a $20 VISA Gift Card from Thirstrate and the second pull will win a Thirstrate T-shirt (X-Large) and a bottle of one of my favorite sodas. That’s two winners in total. Remember it is open to residents of US & Canada only and multiple guesses are allowed but please out of consideration don’t spam the comments section on this post with said guesses. Good luck and have fun with it!

UPDATE: I will holding off on accepting all comments so the contest remains fair, only wrong guesses will be accepted before the drawing so you can try again.

UPDATE II: The big winner of the $20 VISA Gift Card is Christine Lessard and the second place winner of a Thirstrate T-shirt and a bottle of soda is Geeg Wiles! Congratulations and thank you everyone for entering! Winners you will be receiving a message from me shortly for your contact info.

Today I review a beverage I first found at a beer festival in Vermont. After a few too many “samples” of beer at the festival me and my old college roommate we sitting in the grass refueling on some empanadas. Looking around I saw a sign for Maine Root Root Beer Floats. I turned to my old roommate and said, “Well now that’s the true no-alcoholic beer!”. He replied, “Pfffftt that’s not even beer.” Root Beer was actually popularized in American as both an alcoholic and carbonated soft drink. Originally brewed by Native Americans with sugar, yeast, herbs, and various roots and barks it was a pharmacist from Philadelphia, Charles Hines who first commercially sold the elixir.

I received a package of samples from Maine Root after contacting them about a month or two ago. Maine Root Root Beer is the Cadillac of root beers. It was fair trade, organic, good froth, and extremely well balanced. I love the notes that were slightly stronger were anise, clove, and my favorite wintergreen. The froth or foam lasts a good bit of time especially in a chilled glass and the whole experience of drinking this takes you back to simpler times. Buy this is you like root beer next time you’re in the store.

On another note this blog is teaming up with Iwearyourshirt.com who will be promoting my blog on their website, twitter, Facebook, and live show. There will also be a contest based on a mystery picture style game that the randomly selected winner will a $20 VISA gift card and another randomly selected winner will receive a Thirstrate T-shirt and a bottle of one of my favorite sodas. More details will be revealed as the contest unveils tomorrow. My shirt wearer is DeAndre Upshaw who is a crazy creative guy, his links are DeAndre: http://facebook.com/deandreupshaw; http://twitter.com/deandresays and the live show will be 4:00 – 4:30pm EST tomorrow.

See you than and thanks for reading.

Before work the other day I was feeling pretty low on my energy stores so I went to a dollar store near my eye doctors to see if they had any good selections. To my chagrin there was not much of a selection. But one line of products did happen to catch my eye. This can stood out to me, Rip it as I found out later is actually owned by the same company that make Shasta and Faygo, National Beverage.

I love citrus and that day I loved energy even more so I bought 6 cans for a whooping $6.30 and tried them at work that night. I was a little skeptical about a energy drink that costs 99 cents. Some ways I was right, some wrong.

The color was a bright lime green as it should and it smelled very strong of lime. The taste however was really artificial tasting. It didn’t taste horrid and had some bitter, tart, and spice notes. But the sugar bomb was almost to much for even me to handle. For 99 cents though not bad, and it had a bit of a kick after the second drink.

My final thought is if you want an affordable energy drink this is your choice if you don’t mind it not having the best flavor.

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Here’s to the holiday post and there’s no better beverage to taste test than candy cane soda? Yup, Jones has put my favorite holiday confection into a glass bottle. Nothing more I love than dropping a few of the mini candy canes into my tea during winter time, but how would the flavor stack up side by side with the candy, I tested both.

The thing about a real candy cane is I don’t usually even notice the sugar. I opened the soda to find a real neutral smell except for a small hint of a maraschino cherry smell. Taking a gulp you get a rush of sweet carbonated soda with a very brief matching flavor to the candy cane.

The drink is not overly outrageous and not something you have had before in a soda. It is something different but not exactly a perfect match the candy itself the taste doesn’t last throughout.

I have been a fan of Jones for a while, not really for they’re regular flavors but their limited edition ones. This soda is actually my first Jones I have ever had, Ginger bread originally seen in the 2007 holiday pack is back.

Jones Soda was actually founded in Canada and has its headquarters in Seattle, Washington.

The 2011 Ginger Bread soda is a deep caramel brown color with a funny picture of someones dog licking his own face with a Santa hat on. Inside the cap it says a quote they admit taking from a fortune cookie mine was, “Prosperity and love are in reach.” You can submit your photos and quotes for the caps and bottles.

Taking my first taste of this unique beverage you are invited by a thick cream soda like flavor. Vanilla is one of the bases of a drink with a spiced finish. This would definitely would make good fodder for maybe like a eggnog ice cream and ginger bread soda float, yeah that sound good! It a very slow drinking soda as the spice can overwhelm you if you were to chug the whole thing. Not a bad start to the holiday pack, this soda is really special and something different that tastes good.

Next to be taste tested will be candy cane in a few posts or so.

What can I say! Sometimes when you least expect it you find the most interesting sodas ever. On my way to an eye doctor’s appointment and Vietnamese Pho Restaurant for lunch I saw a big Faygo beverage cooler beacon calling my name. Now it wasn’t the glass bottles I wanted but to be able to try an item I been looking for a long time, I’ll survive.

Faygo is bottled and distributed from the proud state of Michigan. This particular flavor is actually a very rare find. It was fan submitted to a contest and Jeannie Traviss won and got her flavor candy apple chosen. Candy apple has risen to an almost cult like status because it has been discontinued and reintroduced at a moment’s notice.

The color is definitely candy apple red. This 24oz bottle smells great upon opening it; the sweet apple smell is something new. The flavor is even more unique, it tastes exactly like a caramel apple to me. I truthfully have never had a candy apple so I don’t know if it perfectly matches that, but it reminded me of a candy I used to get as a kid, Tootsie Roll caramel apple pop. It is average in terms of carbonation and is extremely sweet; one bottle will give you one heck of a sugar buzz.

The thing this flavor had going for it was its uniqueness. This stand out flavor may become someone’s new flavor cult underdog, for me it’s a conversation starter for sure to have a place in my refrigerator if I can find it again.

Ho Ho Ho! This time I am reviewing Frostie beverages that I received from the distributor that now has taken over ownership of the company. Frostie is an old fashioned soda from as early as 1939 when the owner used an old abandoned jailhouse to launch the drink. It was originally bottled in Cantonsville, Maryland near Baltimore. Intrastate distributors works out of Detroit, Michigan but I am unsure where the soda is bottled today.

Frostie Cherry Limeade again was one of the drinks when I first saw I had to try first. I have always loved the combination of cherry and citrus since I was a young kid going out to eat with my family to the Ground Round and would always drink a Shirley Temple with extra cherries.

The one thing that struck me right away was the clear bottle embossed with the Frostie named is beautiful, from the label to the bottle cap. Being that is winter the old man winter logo and snow is ever so fitting. I also loved the colors on it.

When I opened my first bottle I noticed a slight glitch, the dreaded twist off cap! In my experience drinking as many bottled sodas as I have, twist caps don’t give the pop and good seal a pry cap does and therefore loses carbonation either very quickly or don’t have a lot to start. The only other thing I would have liked to see is real sugar used instead of high fructose corn syrup.

The taste was great though the brightly sweet maraschino cherry flavors hits you first and foremost with the lime being detectable all the way though and more pronounced at the finish. A solid drink that reminded me of past, easier times.

If you want however, good luck, it has been very hard for me to find. I have to contact the distributors directly to get samples since I couldn’t find them in stores around my area.

http://www.frostie.biz/

Today I am reviewing a can of Pit Bull Cherry Lime I received from a fellow reviewer who ran a contest over at BevNerd. Pit Bull is made in the USA by Hip Hop Beverage Corporation out of Carson, CA. They do a lot of charity work and community awareness in the area of health and they support our troops, which is all fantastic.

Before work I chilled down one of the cans I received of the flavor I was most interested in trying, Cherry lime. I popped it open and did a long pour into a pint glass I chilled. The clear pinkish-red beverage filled out the glass and the foam disappeared quickly.

The smell was heavy on cherry and was reminiscent of Ludent’s cough drops. The taste confirmed for me a bit medicinal like taste, which it not always a bad thing. The cherry was heavy on the tongue until it faded away to a citrus finish. The sweet and sour notes mixed and gave each taste a chance to shine when you drink a large gulp. The one thing I would pick on was the fact I felt the lime flavor was trumped by the cherry most of the time and was only short lived as a finishing note.

Not perfect but few drinks are Pit Bull Cherry Lime puts arguably one of the best fruit combos together in a strong energy drink that only lacks in its balance and odd sight medicinal flavor.