Nice! Refreshing Cola

All I can think about when I drink Nice! Cola is that scene from Wayne's World where they're trying out the green screen. They're pretending to be in all these places and then they get to Delaware and suddenly they’re really bored.

Nice! Cola is Delaware. It’s not bad, it’s just nothing remarkable. I don’t even know if I’d call it average, it’s just...there.

If there is a “water” of colas, this is it. I don’t even know if bland is the right word to use. It has flavor, and it is cola flavor. It’s almost as if it is surrounded by a force field that prevents it from being the cola it could be, and instead just gives you the tiniest bit of cola flavor. Not watered down, just not very prominent.

This is probably a prime example of why the review scale here is the way it is. You need to try this, just so you can understand what I’m talking about. After that, never, ever buy one of these again.

-Mike

Trader Joe's Vintage Cola

I don't want to sound like an advertisement for Trader Joe's, but it is a pretty fantastic place. A lot of organic and natural foods at a very reasonable price. I was very excited when we received one in the area, and more excited to see that they had a small variety of sodas under their label. 

While Trader Joe's the place is fantastic, Trader Joe's the cola, "Vintage Cola" to be specific, is not. It certainly isn't bad, but it isn't great. We'll just go with good. It has a low amount of carbonation, which I'm always a fan of, for a nice smooth mouth feel. It's just the right amount of sweet, and that's with cane sugar of course. Not surprising for a Trader Joe's brand item, but it is made with natural ingredients and no preservatives.

There are hints of spices that you would get from any quality cola, but it just isn't anything out of this world or notable, especially for a product they're selling as a premium soda at $5 for a pack of four bottles. If they really wanted to continue with the Trader Joe's balance of quality and price, I would suggest keeping the same price, but possibly offering it in a 6-pack. 

Again, there is certainly nothing wrong with this soda. I would still classify it as a "premium" cola, and higher quality than the level of most store brands. If you wish to shop exclusively at Trader Joe's, then this is a fine cola to go with, but at a place that sells Virgil's Real Cola for just $1 more, it's hard to pick this up for anything beyond one try.

-Mike

Taylor's Tonics Chai Cola

This is one of those drinks that makes me feel like the end for this site is near.  I mean, how can there be any other combinations left?  Someone has combined chai tea and cola.  

It doesn't really taste like it, though.  Maybe barely, but not the way you'd want it.  The idea isn't completely terrible, but the execution could've been better.  At least the inside of the product is top quality.  Black tea, ginger root, cinnamon bark, yerba mate, cardamon, clove & tea extract, evaporated cane juice…all of which should add up to delicious and spicy.  Well, at least it's spicy.  They also claim to have vanilla in this but I didn't get that at all.

The scent is pretty powerful, like Hallmark votive candle powerful.  That's why it's surprising that it's a little more watery than expected, even though it has a bold flavor.  I suppose that really doesn't make sense either.  It's like the chai part is powerful, although not very chai-like, just spicy, and the the cola part is weak and watery.  

Despite that, it's bizarre enough that you should try it.  I mean…it's chai and cola.

-Mike E.

Hansen's Original Cola

We found it amusing that Hansen's was making a new product called "Original Cola" but there's always the chance that it's decent, so we tried it.  While it might not be the original cola of colas, it's still pretty tasty.

It's very sweet, and thankfully that sweetness is from cane sugar, as noted boldly on the label.  The carbonation is a little heavy, but still refreshing, considering.  The cola taste isn't anything special, but it's still cola, so it's a winner with me.

The ingredient list thankfully doesn't contain any HFCS, as state, nor does it contain any sodium benzoate. This was on the shelf here for five bucks for a pack of six, which isn't too bad.  

While everything sounds kind of mediocre it is a better than average cola and overall a quality soda that sits in the category between mainstream and gourmet.

-Mike

Mary Jane's Relaxing Soda

We mentioned this one enough that we figured we'd finally try it.  The gimmick, as you may guess by the name, is the soda is supposed to be calming, thanks to kava, rather than stimulating with caffeine as most sodas are.

Along with the kava is passionflower extract, which we both think we can taste even though we're not exactly sure what it tastes like.  The non-relaxing ingredients are fairly positive and include cane sugar, caramel color, phosphoric acid, citric acid and "natural flavor."  So no HFCS and no sodium benzoate.  

The taste is easy to describe, it's very much like an RC Cola.  I felt it was lightly carbonated too, so very easy to drink.  Extremely tasty.  Don't go pounding these down, though, as there is a warning on the bottle to not have more than two per day.  But really, if you're drinking more than two sodas per day, you need to lay off.

We both felt we did get a little relaxed, but were both pretty tired, so we're not quite sure if it made us more tired or not.  

Either way we were relaxed and we were very happy with the taste and the ingredients and would easily drink more of this...just not more than two a day.

-Mike

Sprecher Fire-Brewed Cherry Co

There are two situations where I have to struggle to censor myself from shouting out (or typing out I suppose) expletives when writing a review.  One is when a drink is insanely awful, the other when it's insanely great.  Thankfully this is in the latter category.

Sprecher Cherry Cola, or rather "Fire-Brewed" (it's in tiny print) Cherry Cola is amazing.  Obtaining this was a tiny adventure in itself.  First of all I got the tip about it from DW who found it in the grocery store I go to just about every other day.  How could I have missed this?  It's Sprecher, who has a great root beer, making a cherry cola?  I had to have seen it!  Well, it wasn't with the regular sodas.  With the scoop, I went straight to the store next time I had a chance and checked it out.  None to be found.

My next attempt started poorly.  I was in the regular soda aisle and still couldn't find it when I noticed a lost-looking employee with one in his hands.  He couldn't find where it went and I couldn't find one to buy.  I told him "that's exactly what I'm looking for!"  I think he was more excited that he didn't have to keep looking for it than I was to have found it.  Eventually I will have to look for it again because I don't see how I won't be able to pick up one of these on a regular basis.  Here's a preview of what you're about to read:  this is one of the greatest sodas I've had.

This is absolutely delicious.  As soon as I took a sniff I was sold.  It wasn't just the scent of cherries, it was cherry cola.  It smelled boldly of cherry cola.

It's smooth, sweet, rich, creamy.  This is absolutely the best cherry cola I have ever tasted.  But... there has to be a negative, doesn't there?  Yep.  It's got HFCS in it.  It's so good though, I honestly do not care.  I know, shame on me.

Let's look at the positives.  First it's made with Wisconsin Door County cherry juice and Wisconsin raw honey.  Good so far.  It also mentions "the finest cola extract and a handful of selected spices cooked to perfection in our gas-fired brew kettles."  That makes up for it's one downfall for me.

This is so good I'm sitting here sniffing the empty bottle while I'm typing this out.  Crazy?  You try it.

I don't know what's harder to believe, that after over 100 reviews, this is our first cherry cola or that a soda with HFCS is going into my top 5?

-Mike

China Cola

Our journey around the world to find the greatest sodas on the planet brings us to China!  Wait...nevermind.  It's just called China Cola, it's not actually from China.

It is, however, from Reed's, which is always a good sign.  So why is it called "China Cola" you ask?  Well, it's made with Chinese herbs, or at least the label says.  Let's take a look at the ingredients.

Raw cane sugar, szechuan peony root, cassia bark, Malaysian vanilla, oils of lemon, lime and orange, nutmeg, cloves, licorice, cardamon, caramel color.  Yep, it's definitely from Reed's.

I have to say, where it packs a punch in ingredients, they don't necessarily translate into flavor.  Maybe the ingredients were psyching me out, but overall the flavor was very light, with with just touches of each flavor coming through.  The most powerful of them all would have to be the szechuan peony root which did add a bit of spice, but nothing on a level of a ginger beer.  Trust me, this is coming from a guy who grew up with no salt or pepper on the dinner table, if it was the tiniest bit spicy I'd know.  It's just enough for flavor.  Don't get me wrong this is a very good cola, the flavor was just a little too light for me.

I'm going to name names here and say that Virgil's Real Cola (also a Reed's product) is still king for me, in colas and overall favorite soda, although I'd award this a very close silver medal with some others in company like Cricket Green Tea Cola and Natural Brew Ginseng Cola.  I think it would have been up there if it was just slightly more bold.  This was a close one.

-Mike

(Note:  This beverage was provided to us by Reed's)

Club Cool at Epcot

About a month ago I took a vacation to beautiful sunny central Florida, which you're required to call both beautiful and sunny.  Not only did I get to visit my retired parents in Del Boca Vista Phase 2, but I also got to visit my favorite place to vacation and my former employer, Walt Disney World.  Of all the places there the one I love most and visit most frequently is Epcot.  What does this have to do with soda?  Well, as you can see by the photo above, they have a place called "Club Cool" formerly known as "Ice Station Cool."  I looked all over to try and find when this place actually opened but to no avail.  I want to guess it was around 94, but for all I know it may have been earlier. 

Other than being a huge advertisement for Disney sponsor Coca-Cola and a place to sell Coke branded merchandise, Club Cool has various soda fountains that offer visitors a chance to taste different flavors from around the world.  Some good, some...worst soda in the world.  So we'll get to the part you care about, the reviews.  Grab your disposable shot glass sized Coke cup and prepare for around the world soda excitement.

Okay, first up from Mozambique is Krest Ginger Ale.  I like this one, it's a standard ginger ale but really sweet.  Ginger ale is the rare drink which I can deal with being either dry or really sweet, and having quite the sweet tooth I'm fond of this one.  

Second, Fanta Kolita from Costa Rica (that kinda rhymes).  This one was great, really unusual in that I couldn't tell you what kolita is exactly.  I don't want to call it a fruit punch but that's the closest thing I can think of.  It's also red like fruit punch.  This one is also very sweet and a great fruit soda.  Again, I couldn't tell you what fruits, but it's tasty.  

Third, and the most infamous soda for us at The Soda Jerks, and anyone who has been to Club Cool and/or the World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta, is Italy's Beverly.  Beverly is the most disgusting drink I've ever tasted.  Let me give you an example of it's infamy and level of gross.  One of the big things that frequent Disney visitors get sucked into is pin trading.  This started in 2000 and was an off shoot of Olympic pin trading.  Essentially pins are sold at Disney, some common, some rare, and you trade with other pin collectors to get the ones you want.  Back when I worked for Disney in 2001, my friends and I were into this for a bit.  One of the rarest pins is the "wet paint" which was a pin version of the wet paint signs that are in the parks.  It's essentially Donald Duck screaming at one of his nephews for touching paint and getting caught "red handed."  Well, there was a guy who had one who once offered anybody a trade that he'd give them his wet paint pin if they took a large sized cup from one of the quick service restaurants, filled it up with Beverly and chugged it.  At the time, and even today, this pin goes on ebay for 200 bucks.  Nobody would drink it. So what is Beverly?  It's billed as a grapefuit soda, with no sweetness whatsoever.  It's extremely bitter and tastes like every awful medicine you had as a child.  Although I've had it before, I drank it once again for the benefit of this site.  

Number four is a welcome relief from the last one, Mezzo Mix from Germany.  It's a very sweet, kind of flat cola that is intended to be mixed with beer, at least according to the little sign over it.  I can't imagine cola and beer being mixed, but maybe some day I'll try it for the good of all 9 of our readers.  For now I can tell you it's decent on it's own.  

Half way there, number five is tied as my favorite of them all, VegitaBeta from Japan.  This one is marketed as a vitamin drink.  It tastes like a flat, and by flat I mean this has zero carbonation, orange drink.  Almost a not-as-sweet version of Hi-C Orange Drink you'd get at McDonald's.  According to it's Wikipedia page, it's beta carotene, sugar and water.  It's tasty to me, whatever is in it.  

Kinley, my other favorite, is our sixth drink and comes from Israel.  This one is easy to explain, it's lemonade soda.  It's also insanely delicious.  Once when I went on vacation during my high school years, I filled a water bottle up with Kinley and took it home, nursing it for a year until I went back.  Yes it got flat, but oh was it good.  That and VegitaBeta are the two I look forward to drinking the most whenever I get a chance to go in to Epcot.  

From Mexico comes drink number seven, Lift Apple.  It's apple soda, not as sweet as Manzanita Sol (which I'll review some day) but still pretty sweet.  Overall though it's nothing too special and isn't any better than dollar store apple soda.  

Finally, our eighth and final drink, China's Smart Watermelon.  Watermelon soda isn't a common flavor, and it has the potential to be good as I do enjoy things flavored like watermelon, although not real watermelon because I find it to be bland.  In that sense, this soda is fairly accurate because it is bland.  The watermelon flavor is decent, but it does need some more sweetness to it.  

So there you have it, reviews of all the drinks at Epcot's Club Cool.  If you're ever there, try it out, it's usually pretty busy, as any place with free drinks would be, but worth the wait.  As a side note, the Japan pavilion is the only pavilion in World Showcase that sells soda native to their country, so if you're a wanna-be Soda Jerk, then stop by there to pick up some unique flavors as well.

-Mike

Fentiman's Botanically Brewed Traditional Curiosity Cola

First off, congratulations to this product for currently having the longest name on our site, defeating the previous entry by three letters.

Secondly, congratulations on your awesome looking bottle.

The biggest negative about this drink came well before the first sip. It's a very small bottle and costs $3.69. Yikes. It's so pricey I almost want it to not be good.

But it is. It's nowhere near surpassing Virgil's Real Cola, but this is tasty.

On the bottle it says, twice, "UP END BEFORE POURING." I have no idea what it means, but I figured out part of it meant it should be poured in a glass, so I obliged. This drink probably has the spiciest scent of anything I've had yet. Unlike other colas that I can describe with "RC-like" or "Coke-esque," this really does have a cola flavour of it's own. The taste is spicy as well, but still sweet. I was a little concerned that like other old fashioned drinks, it would lack the sweet, but thankfully it doesn't. The back label claims they wanted to "brew a draught from Botanicals, with body and bite that is curiously envigorating. (sic)"

The best way to put this...when I taste this drink, I picture myself as a test subject for the original cola beverage. Or maybe a neighbor in the 1800s or whatever has told me "let's go down to the bar, they have some sort of new beverage called a 'cola.'" I feel that this is what it would taste like.

-Mike

Virgil's Real Cola

I don't think either of us would deny the fact that we have a strong like (maybe love) for Virgil's products. They obviously have the belief that there should be soda beverages made to a higher quality, in the same way that there is cheap wine and fine wine. Virgil's is the "fine wine" of sodas, which is why any time I find out about a new product from them I get excited. I always wondered what a cola would taste like from them, and now I know: it's the greatest soda I've ever had.

Now at one point this might have seemed ridiculous. I was torn between different flavours. There's the sweet fruitiness of Stewart's Key Lime, which I should note is so good I haven't even reviewed it yet, I always down it too quickly when I get a bottle, or, another Virgil's product, their Root Beer. But I've always been a big fan of colas, and this one tops them all.

The smell of it after it's opened tells you that you're in for something awesome. It's very sweet and potent with a vanilla and spice scent. The Cola, like their Root Beer, is very smooth, not too carbonated, just enough to give a tingle. You really can taste everything in it; the vanilla, the clove spices, the cinnamon. It even contains orange and lime, and there is a delicate hint of it in the background.

It's fantastic. The message on the back of the bottle ends with this line: "We decided to make a cola that would rival the super premium quality of our root beer." Mission accomplished.

So as much as I rave about this you'll see the score below and wonder why it's not higher. It's not perfect by any means, nothing has been so far and I don't believe anything will be, but of course in the mission to seek the greatest sodas ever you hope to find it. Also the price of drinks has always been a factor in our reviews, and at two dollars a bottle, while that's a fair price for a premium product, that is something that has to be considered. Normally I don't preach about scores versus review text but I think in this case it had to be said.

-Mike

Red Bull Cola

Alright, so I hadn't found any decent drinks to review until I was walking through the grocery store today and saw Red Bull Cola. Since I figure 50% of it's purpose is to energize you, instead of doing my normal recap of my opinion after I drank it, this will be written over the course of an evening.

It smells like cola syrup, like what you'd get at a pharmacy to calm your stomach. Now regular Red Bull tastes like bubble gum and fire, which isn't a bad thing, I actually enjoy Red Bull, so let's see what this is like...

This is decent, no bubble gum and no fire, maybe really far in the aftertaste but not instantly noticable. It's kind of got an RC thing going on.

Okay now that I've drank about a quarter can I am tasting the bubble gum flavour, again, not too bad.

I will say this about my little experiment, I desperatly want a nap right now, so I'm pretty tired. Let's see how energized this gets me.

Alright, it's been 3 hours since I started this. I'm going to say it's not really that powerful in regards to an energy boost. The taste is good, but being that it's Red Bull it's also expensive, $6 for a 4 pack.

Now a little update, over the last week I drank all 4 cans, two early in the morning after waking up and two late afternoon after coming home from work. It was more effective in the morning, however not as effective as a regular Red Bull. That and it's pretty awkward drinking soda first thing in the morning.

-Mike

Cricket Green Tea Cola

This had to be one of the most aesthetically pleasing packages I've seen, which is honestly part of the reason I picked it up. That and I actually wanted to enjoy the beverage of choice this week so I played it safe with cola.

My theory was correct as I found another winner. The box exclaimed "Cane Sugar. Kola Nut. Green Tea." How could this not be good? In fact, it also stated "Expect this to be good." Sold.

This cola, in comparison to the ginseng cola I reviewed not too long ago, is more of a Coca-Cola rather than an RC, which is okay, although between those two I'd prefer RC. It's hard to explain but there's almost a lemon-tea flavor going on in the background. I guess that should be easy to notice considering lemon cola exists, but honestly I think it's just the crispness of the cane sugar along with the subtle green tea in the background. Green tea is the third ingredient, even above that "less than .5%" of kola nut, so this is more of a green tea soda than a cola, so you will taste it. Being a green tea fan, that's a very good thing.

Whatever it's boiled down to, it's delicious. Easily as good as ginseng cola, but quite different.

-Mike

Natural Brew: Ginseng Cola

I'll get right to it, this is delicious. A really good, smooth, crisp cola. The closest thing I can compare it to is RC, but much lighter, less carbonated, much more refreshing. Lots of adjectives for this cola I guess

Of course the gimmick here is ginseng. Honestly I don't feel any of ginseng's benefits by drinking this, but then again I never have with anything else either, at least not to my knowledge. The other bonus ingredient that you're not going to find in a normal cola is bourbon vanilla. The flavor is evident, but not overpowering, just enough to give you the essence along with the cola flavor.

I'm not sure if there are any spices in this, but there is quite the hint of spices in this cola.

Overall very good, I really don't know what to say yet there's so much to say about it. Worth a try, not an everyday purchase but worth it for now and then running about about five bucks for four 12oz. bottles.

-Mike