Crush Peach

How did we not review Crush Peach? Have we finally reached the point that something fairly common on grocery store shelves isn't good enough for us? Probably not. Honestly it's so common at this point I thought we already did it.

I got Crush Peach the other night, again, thinking I was the one of us that did not have it yet, however was wrong. Now that you know the riveting back story on this, allow me to cut to the chase: this is the best peach soda I've had.

Orange Crush is my favorite (chemical filled) orange soda, so I only expected the best from this, and it delivered. For some reason, despite Orange Crush's mild carbonation, I was worried that this would have heavier bubbles. That seems to be a trend with peach sodas, or at least my memory is telling me that. Thankfully this has mild carbonation like orange crush.

Of course there is really no way for me to tell since I've already had it, however I think that if you were someone really into soda (or at least really into Orange Crush) you'd actually be able to tell this was a Crush soda. There's just something about the combination of sweetness levels, the slight "tang" in the flavor, and as mentioned the carbonation, that makes me think of Crush. 

So, yeah, it's great. Peach soda was kind of a novelty to me before, since there really wasn't a good go-to for me. Now with Crush Peach, this becomes as normal a flavor choice as an orange soda.

- Mike E.

Simple Truth Blood Orange

Kroger, a somewhat larger grocery store chain, has recently started pushing their organic products, which they're labeling "Simple Truth." Until yesterday when someone brought me a bottle of their Blood Orange so...er, sparkling beverage, I had no idea they were branching out this far.

The ingredient list is fantastic: sparkling water, cane sugar, apple and blood orange juices from concentrate are at the start. Nothing concerning after, in fact the coloring is from additional fruit and vegetable juices. Even the front of the bottle boasts "Free from 101 artificial preservatives & ingredients." To be fair, it is probably free of many more than 101, as I'm certain there are more than 101 ingredients in the world, but maybe they mean in comparison to your normal blood orange soda. Not that that's a normal thing.

Which is where my initial concern came in. I'm not a huge fan of "alternate" orange sodas, like tangerine. At one point Minute Maid had, if I recall correctly, a tangerine orange soda, and not standard orange, and it was terrible. It was like a dry orange soda. Hardly sweet with a dull orange flavor. Thankfully, the Simple Truth Blood Orange is far, far from that.

I don't know if you're familiar with "Slush Puppie," but they're a brand of slushes sold in schools. Sure, lots of schools have full-blown fast food restaurants in them now, but ours did not. The only fancy thing we had was a Slush Puppie machine. I never once bought my lunch at school cause, well, that's disgusting, and they hardly gave you any food, but I would often partake in a Slush Puppie. 

Getting to the point, my favorite flavor was orange, and I would drink it though the straw, but I would bite down, making sure I only got the syrup and none of the tiny ice chunks. No joke, this tastes just like that. I'm sure that the Slush Puppie had a few more than 101 artificial preservatives and ingredients, though.

So, yeah, this is good stuff, and it makes me excited to try some other Simple Truth products. Now I understand why the person who gave me this said they drank the other three prior that day.

-M

Nice! Grape

Even if you haven't had hundreds of sodas in your life, sometimes when you pick up a drink you just know what it's going to be like. Let's use something like, oh, I don't know, Nice Grape as an example.

To me there are two types of grape soda: sweet or not as sweet. The sweet kind tastes like they may have put a bit too much syrup in there. Like you can actually taste grape syrup. I probably prefer that. Secondly there is the not as sweet, which tastes like maybe there's too much carbonated water in there, and may be a bit too bubbly.

Thankfully this falls into the former category, and doesn't have much carbonation going on. Sadly, that's about all there is to say on this one. As with the other Nice! beverages, it's filled with chemicals. The only way I could recommend this is if you want a cheap grape soda at a Walgreens. All three of you. 

-Mike

Boom Chugga Lugga Cherry Soda Pop

Buckle up, kids.

While I have full intention of finishing up the oh-so-exciting reviews of the Nice! line-up of drinks from Walgreens, a mysterious third party that we'll call Y has provided a mysterious second party that we'll call W with a selection of five sodas from what is probably one of the most ridiculous named beverage organizations I have heard of: Boom Chugga Lugga.

This is the kind of thing that makes you embarrassed to order it. Like this local place that sells veggie burgers called the "No Meat Please!" No sale. Or like when Raising Cane's drive-thru attendant says "chicken, chicken, chicken, which one are you pickin'?" and you just sigh and drive away.

These folks have a theme, at least, and that is bears and cherries. Thankfully they all have some sort of cherry flavor to them, and not bear. Oh, and I should mention that these are Michigan cherries. I didn't even know that was a thing. 

Anyway, as a sneak preview of what is to come in these reviews, I figured I'd start with just the basic cherry. 

Wow. Wow wow wow.

For a long time my favorite fruit-flavored soda has been the Key Lime from Stewart's. No more. 

This is amazing. It's both perfectly sweet and tart. The cherry flavor is crazy bold and the carbonation is the right amount of light to make it smooth but still enhance the tartness.

Sadly, I'll have to add this caveat every time: sodium benzoate, along with a vague "natural and artificial flavors" listing tacked on behind cherry juice concentrate and "pure sugar." Bummer.

Still, I am super impressed, and beyond excited to try the rest of these. There is one in particular I have very high hopes for. I honestly haven't been this excited to write about soda since the early days when a crazy person like me could go into a grocery store and there would be at least one soda I hadn't had.

-Mike E.

Nice! Strawberry Cherry

Continuing through the world of Walgreens generic sodas, now labeled with their "Nice!" brand, we find their Nice! Strawberry Cherry. This seems like a winner combination: two fruits, both red, both that end in "erry" and both featured in sodas often either as the leading act or an accompaniment. 

The smell is a bit concerning - kind of medicine-esque. Honestly at first the taste is a bit concerning as well. Part of it has the expected "can't miss" combination of two fruits that make for good beverage flavors, and part of it does make you think Robitussin. 

There must not be much of the latter because I keep sipping. In fact, I'd say it's pretty good. One of the bummers for strawberry soda for me is that it always seemed lacking. For one, it had kind of a "dry" taste to it, like it wasn't very refreshing. Also strawberry soda never seems to be very strong in flavor. The cherry does its job, as it has done many times before in soda, and really compliments the main act, making it way tastier than it ever has been before. 

Of course the big negative is that this is chemical city, just like the other Nice! brand beverages. Considering my general blah attitude on strawberry soda, this is very refreshing. I can only imagine what an already big fan of strawberry soda would feel about this combination. 

-Mike

Nice! Orange

In the cover of darkness, DW handed me a sack full of soda. The darkness was a coincidence and he just happened to see me first. So nothing too exciting I guess. But sack full of soda, right? These were some new items from Walgreens, who likes to refresh their store brand every 3 months it seems. Okay, maybe not that often, but fairly often.

The first one I tried was Nice! Orange Soda. Nice! is their new brand monicker. How often have I used monicker on here? Probably not that often. Anyway, to compare it to a name brand, it's very Crush-esque, which is about the best "name" you can get in the world of orange soda.

It's quite sweet, and has a nice, bold orange soda flavor. To give it some distinction from Crush, I'd say it seems a bit "lighter," if that's even possible. Maybe it's the carbonation, which is also light, unlike Sunkist or, dare I say it, Minute Maid, which both have heavier bubbles. I also want to say it has a bit of a vanilla to it. In fact, after I took my first sip, I double checked the bottle to make sure it wasn't an orange cream. I'd say it's maybe 25% down the road to being an orange cream.

The bummer of this is it's chemical city. HFCS and sodium benzoate all up in this bottle. I also learned there is a yellow 6. Who knew? I suppose if you're in a Walgreens and really want an orange soda and don't care how many chemicals are in it, this is a fine alternative to something like Crush. Aside from that, nothing classy here.

-Mike

Jarritos Lima-Limon

As you may expect, this is probably going to taste like Sprite or Sierra Mist or something else that is lemon and lime, and it does, sorta.

It actually brings back a memory for me.  So at my grandmother's house she used to have two refrigerators.  Seriously.  She also had three giant freezers.  Having a giant freezer wasn't odd, in fact growing up I didn't know anybody who didn't have one, whereas now I don't know anybody that has one, but three was pushing it a bit.  They were always full.  Guess she was preparing for the rapture or something.  Anyway, she always kept a supply of the most generic sodas you could get in that downstairs refrigerator, and this tastes like the lemon lime one.  Or at least I think it does.  I don't remember much.

It's kind of the reverse of what I like in lemon lime sodas.  I really like sweet lemon lime sodas, but I suppose I like really sweet everything.  Well, except this time before my whole vegetarian thing where I had Captain Crunch chicken.  That was gross.  But sweet drinks I like.  This isn't sweet, but the flavor is pretty strong.  Also the carbonation is quite mild, unlike a Sprite or Sierra Mist.  

Kind of like what I said with the mandarin, if you want a lemon lime but what to mix things up a bit, give this one a shot.  It's pretty darn good, and quite different from what you're used to.

-Mike E.

(Note:  This beverage was provided to us by Jarritos.)

World Market All Natural Orange Passion Mango

If you haven't had Nantucket Nectars, I'm deeply sorry, because I'm going to compare this to Nantucket Nectars.  That and you should really have it because it's delicious.

Although this has way less juice (12%) than that, it still strongly reminds me, even from the first scent of it, of the orange mango from Nantucket Nectars.  Supposedly this has passion fruit in it too.  I'll take their word for it.

Luckily the ingredients back up their all-natural claim, with cane sugar, juices and purees.  Like I said, it does taste like juice, except carbonated, which is slightly odd, but it's not as "thick" as juice, although not as smooth as a soda either.  Thankfully the carbonation is at a minimum to balance that out.  

I really like this, again, mainly because it tastes like carbonated Nantucket Nectars, and I appreciate it's attempt at being a "juice soda" without sacrificing smoothness or sweetness.

-Mike E.

Jarritos Mandarin

I'll admit, I didn't have high hopes for this.  Once upon a time Minute Maid's orange soda was mandarin orange and it was pretty dull.  Thankfully I was way wrong about this one.

There is a mandarin flavor going on here, meaning it's orange but not.  It's also got a sweetness to it that mandarin orange sodas usually don't have.  The ones I've had before have been just weak and not very sugary, but this is the opposite.  Very sweet, full of flavor, and just enough of a "different" kind of orange taste that really sets it apart from other manadarins and all other orange sodas in general.

I don't have anymore to say about it.  Being a Jarritos product it is made with sugar and not HFCS.  If you're looking for an orange soda but you're kind of tired of the run of the mill ones out there, this really is something that sets itself apart but still satisfies.

-Mike E.

(Note:  This beverage was provided to us by Jarritos.)

Jarritos Guava

Guava.  I don't know what it is.  For all I know it looks like one of those clay pots on the front of the bottle.

But it doesn't.  Thankfully, I mean how disgusting would that be?  Anyway, this is the first of many beverages in the line up thoughtfully provided to us by Jarritos.  It's kind of pink-ish so it's hard to know what to expect.

The initial smell is...not promising.  Thankfully, though, it doesn't taste too bad.  I'm not sure what it tastes like, but it doesn't taste bad.  Like I said on the Popcast, it's like it is trying really really hard to be a fruit.  Like you know the flavor is fruit, but that's about it.  

There's also something unusual about the sweetness, or the flavor, I can't tell which.  The way I tried to describe it with so far all Jarritos is that it's like a bubble of nothing surrounds a sip of each drink.  Like they need to bump up the flavor or sweetness just a little more.

Not to say this is bad, it's not, it's just...different.  

Oh, and added bonus, since it's from Mexico it's made with real sugar.

-Mike E.

(Note:  This beverage was provided to us by Jarritos.)

Central Market Organics Italian Soda Pear Apple

That's a long name, isn't it?  Dan W recently presented me with this tall, oddly shaped bottle claiming it to be good.  Well let's find out.

First off we've had a decent run with Italian soda, so that's a plus.  Secondly it's not only pear, it's apple too.  That has to be good.  Finally, the ingredients:  organic pear and apple juice from concentrate, organic sugar, natural apple flavors, natural pear flavor, etc.  Nothing bad here.  Even made it Italy, which works with the whole Italian soda thing.

Sadly it's missing something.  What that is, I'm not sure.  Maybe it's too watery, with not enough fruit flavors?  Maybe the sweetening needs to be kicked up a bit?  Perhaps it needs more bite?  I can't tell what's wrong, but something is.  It's crisp, but at the same time too heavy.  But how is it heavy when it's lacking flavor?  

This may sound ridiculous but I think part of it is the bottle.  This is the first time I'm going to say the plastic bottle may be the culprit here, because there seems to be a kind of plastic-y thing going on with it.  I could just be trying to find out what's wrong with it and grabbing at straws.  Who knows?  All I know is despite all it's positives, it's missing something, and that's a bummer.

-Mike

R. W. Knudsen Spritzer Boysenberry

This company's name and logo both make me wonder if they sell jams and preserves, because if they don't, they're wasting their name and logo.  Even this can makes me think it should have jelly in it, but considering it says "spritzer" that kinda ruins the whole thing.

According to the can, the goal was creating an alternative to soda by making a drink which was fruit juice and sparkling water.  Now I don't know if you've ever tried adding a little water to make a fruit juice more mild, but you can add a drop to a glass of juice and it'll ruin the whole thing.  Needless to say, I'm concerned.  Granted they did meet their goal of what should be in it, as the ingredients are sparkling filtered water, grape, boysenberry and plum juice concentrates.  So here we go.

Sadly my theory was correct:  this is dull.  It is watered down juice.  Not only that it tastes dirty.  Like they didn't wash off their fruits before juicing them.  I like the idea, and maybe it would work with another flavor, but with the boysenberry, it's just dull and dirty.  Again, with a logo like that, make some jam.  I'd buy it.

-Mike

Sof Drink Pineapple

I haven't had a Sof Drink soft drink in a while, and they impressed me with their cream soda, a style I normally don't favor, so let's see what they can do with pineapple.  As you can see it's extremely yellow, number 5 according to the ingredients.  The ingredients get a plus for sugar, a minus for sodium benzoate, and a curiosity about the "artificial and natural flavorings" which makes up the rest of the list.  This is one case where only a few ingredients might not pan out well.

It smells like a dull pineapple Life Saver, and that concerned me.  The flavor isn't much better.  It's not awful, but it's not impressive either.  Very clean for a pineapple, but not clean enough.  It even has a mild carbonation, but that's not enough to save it.  There's still that "sticky" taste going on, which is odd considering there is no HFCS.  If they would have been able to make this as crisp as their cream soda, a feat still unmatched, then there might be something to pull this one out of mediocrity, but alas, no.

-Mike

Bundaberg Peachee

Peach doesn't seem to be the most common flavor for soda.  We've done around 160 reviews now, and this is only our second that involves peach, which is a shame because it's a good, sweet flavor.  We have done Bundaberg products before, and they've had a good track record, so seeing this recently on the shelves I had to give it a go.

First off I enjoy how they call it "Peachee."  That's whimsical.  Already you know it has to be good.  I know as we get older that our tastes can become a little more mature, but with sodas my tastebuds almost always act like a child, and what does a child want to eat, Fruit Loops or Froot Loops?  Actually I preferred bran, but that's a whole other issue.

Another good sign came with the ingredients.  Aside from the bummer of having sodium benzoate, it's sweetened with cane sugar and involves something called "peach brew" which is an ingredient that has it's own ingredients.  The highlight is it does contain 5% peach juice, and it's always good to throw the real thing in there.  One more note about the ingredients, one of them is "antioxidant."  Maybe that offsets the evil of the sodium benzoate.

Enough of the build-up, this is quality stuff.  It's definitely the best peach soda I've had, again, not that there have been many.  It's quite sweet but with a bold peach flavor.  Very smooth too, with mild carbonation and just the tiniest bit of bite to give it some variety.  In fact each time I take a sip it's a layered experience, where I get the sweet peach candy-type flavor first, and then it ends on the slightly sour bite.  

The best peach soda I've had, the best Bundaberg product I've had, and one of the best fruit flavored sodas I've had.  

-Mike

Sanagaria Ramune Strawberry

Here's another one of those awkward Japanese sodas with the awkward marble floating in the middle and the awkward cap that forces you to pour it into a glass otherwise the awkward marble gets stuck there awkwardly.

This one is flavored, as opposed to the last one we tried, and this is a very good strawberry flavor.  It's a lighter strawberry flavor, and the color of it represents that, pink rather than the usual red.  

It's also much sweeter than a normal strawberry soda, which I'm a fan of, as I like sweet.  Things can't ever be too sweet.  The odd thing is not only do they use sugar, they also use HFCS.  An odd half and half combination.  Whatever percentage it is for each, it leads to a candied strawberry flavor rather than the fruit.

The carbonation in it is light, which I also enjoy.  Overall it's very refreshing, especially since it's a strawberry soda.  My biggest complaint is that the bottle is so small, but then again that's probably why Japan is a fit country.

-Mike

Deerfield Juicy Orange Cream

The last Deerfield product we reviewed, which in case you don't remember is a line of HFCS-free drinks from Walgreens, wasn't much of a winner (that was the root beer) but this one turned out much better.

This is a nice, crisp and sweet orange flavor, similar to Crush, but, again, without the HFCS.  The "cream" title is accurate, as this has a nice creamy finish to it.  I hate to use the dreamsicle reference, but it's pretty close. 

It certainly isn't a Virgil's Orange Cream, but it's easier to find in most cases.  Speaking of cases...

-Mike

Thomas Kemper Orange Cream

Back to the northwest we go, the land of Thomas Kemper, amongst other things.  Today we're going to take a look at their orange cream.  In fact we'll even one up that and not just look at it but taste it too.  Yeah, I'm sure I've used that joke already, but I refuse to go back through all my reviews and see if I did.  For all I know I used it last week.

Anyway, like other Thomas Kemper drinks it has the combo of cane sugar and honey.  Along with that you get some vanilla extract.  It also promises that you'll feel like you're 11 years old again, which I suppose if you had a good childhood, would be a nice treat.  I think I've pretty much felt the same throughout my life so I couldn't tell you what age I felt at the time I drank this.

The drink's biggest problem is it takes a page from the book of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.  Yes, they have a book, but only we in the foods industry are privy to it.  What I mean is it's not necessarily orange cream but rather cream orange.  Too much cream, not enough orange.  The flavor in general is a tad dull, to be honest.  The generic Deerfield from Walgreen's outdoes this, and both have the advantage of no HFCS. 

Sorry, TK, it's good, but nowhere near your ginger ale.

Finally, I got to use privy in a review.

-Mike

Reed's Cherry Ginger Brew

We welcome another Reed's Brew, this time it's a cherry and ginger combo.  We've had these before, with the Spiced Apple, which was amazing, and the Raspberry Ginger, which was...okay.  I believe I said it was more Ginger Raspberry than Raspberry Ginger.  I thought I'd be using that line again with the cherry this week but instead I have to say this:  It's not Cherry Ginger, it's not Ginger Cherry...it's just Ginger.

Thankfully a good ginger, and a red one at that.  That's about the only place I'm getting cherry out of this is the color.  It does claim to have cherry juice, 22% at that, but I guess they should have bumped it up a bit for balance.  I'd say a good balance would be...50/50?  

It does serve one big purpose though, it's the best middle-ground between ginger ale and ginger beer that we've ever had.  It has that burn, but it's very slight, it goes away reasonably speedy, and is tasty.  So if you're looking to get a hint of what a ginger beer could be without taking the daring plunge (okay, it's not that daring) then this is for you.

-Mike

Regina Pizzeria Raspberry Lime Rickey

To me a lime ricky is just a very limey drink, and I'm not making a deraguatory term about British people. Well, I looked it up, and a lime ricky can be anything mixed with lime really, alcoholic or not.

I wanted to find a drink unique to Boston while I was there, so in this case we have a raspberry one bottled by a local pizzeria.  Honestly I didn't see that it was raspberry, so when I first had it, it tasted like lime and a mystery flavor that was probably a berry.

Its okay, but just kind of bland for a lime drink. I think they need to up the lime more. The flavors seem too even to me, like a 50/50 blend, and it just doesn't work in this situation. The idea of lime and raspberry is great, just not this one. Combine that with the fact that this is an HFCS chemical cocktail and it's slightly below disappointing.

The pizza was good though.

-Mike

Organics Blood Orange Italian Soda

There is something really gross about the name "blood orange."  I guess it's because I'm a wuss and don't like blood.  But really, even if you're okay with Discovery Health or slasher flicks, does that really mean you'd want to drink something with "blood" in the title?  All my True Blood watching fans are saying "yes" right now, and "no" to me using so many quotation marks.  So we'll move on.

The last Organics brand drink we did (which, if you recall, is a Walgreen's brand) was a delicious pomegranate, in fact a pomegranate I'd gladly have again.  Let's find out how this...orange-type beverage fairs.

First of all this is, just like the pomegranate, very natural.  Organic blood orange juice, organic sugar, black carrot juice...very nice.  No HFCS, no sodium benzoate.  The scent is fantastic, it smells just like an orange slush puppy, if you know what that is.  The taste though is like carbonated orange juice for the most part.  That's not really a bad thing, but it does hurt the refreshness level.  I mean, orange juice isn't very refreshing.  The flavor makes the drink kind of "heavy" so to speak.  The carbonation is fairly mild, but the natural orange juice gives it weight.  Refreshness?

If you like orange, bloody or not, this is one for you to try.  It's very natural, but the heaviness takes some points off.

-Mike