First, the Not So Aweso…   actually not this month.

Last month, I finally tracked down and tried original Steel Reserve and got to experience it’s world-class headache causing, liver destroying glory first hand. This month, I decided it would be best to give my liver some time to recouperate, heal and forgive me for the sacrifice I ask of it every month when doing Awesome Brews, but rather than schluff a month off, I decided to do a special edition of Awesome Brews. So, welcome to Awesome Brews #25 – Teetotaler Edition

Whether alcohol just isn’t your thing, or you’re proudly sober for ## years, for this special edition of Awesome Brews, I went out of my way to find some of the oddest, and awesome soda pop available in my area. Some are familiar, some are odd, some are mediocre, most are wonderful.  I’m not going to start off with anything labeled not-so-awesome this month, but I’m including a huge heap of reviews well above and beyond my typical three-a-month. Hope you all enjoy!

Fentimans Botanically Brewed Traditional Cherry Cola

Fentimans is a British company founded in 1905 that specialize in natural botanical drinks. The Cherry Cola smells old fashioned, like it was taken from a former day and age where things weren’t as refined. Poured fizzy. Odd sickly sweet synthetic taste. Very muted flavor. Can’t taste much in the way of cherry, but can taste the ginger and cola. Poured syrupy but doesn’t taste it. Almost tastes too watery. It’s good, but doesn’t have that 6-pack drink-ability.

Mountain Dew: Dew-S-A

Wow, drink technology at it’s finest. It has the typical weak Mountain Dew fizz, but the taste is unreal because it tastes like a bomb-pop. Dew-S-A is a combination of Code Red, White Out and Voltage in one. Amazingly, you can somehow taste each one individually! You’ll either love it or hate it. Some of my friends think it’s a chemical spill or an unholy trinity, but I’ve fallen in love with this junk. Tastes a bit syrupy from using corn syrup as sweetener unlike most all others on this list which use cane sugar, but it’s not trying to be refined and fancy, just loud and interesting.

End of the Commons General Store Old-Fashioned Ginger Beer

The ginger-beer equivalent of the above root-beer with almost identical properties. Semi-fizzy and light tan. Mellow and smooth ginger soda that’s doesn’t have a typical ginger beer bite. Just like the root beer, an easy drinker.

Sparkle Up Old-School Lemon Lime Soda

From Real Soda, Sparkle Up pours perfectly clear and slightly fizzy. Tastes like Squirt, a citrus soda with a heavy emphasis on the lemon. Certainly not bad, but nothing too extravagant.

End of the Commons General Store Old-Fashioned Root Beer

End of the Commons General Store, is located in Mesopotamia Ohio in the middle of Amish country, and is where I purchased a fair number of these oddball soft drinks. This is their first of two house brands they carry. It’s semi-fizzy when poured but not creamy at all. Don’t expect a frothy head on this root beer like you’d see on A&W. The color is a very dark brown. The taste is smooth and creamy despite the non-creamy head. It’s a fast drinker with enough flavor to let you know you’re drinking a well made craft root-beer but not so much that it assaults your senses.  Mellow and safe, an example of a really well-made root beer.

Chocolate Covered Maple Smoked Bacon Soda

I have no clue who makes this gimmicky stuff.  By the label on the bottle, it looks like it’s going to be epic.  Chocolate Covered Maple Smoked Bacon in a soda pop?!  How crazy is that?!  Unfortunately, it’s nothing but disappointment.  It’s very fizzy and dark brown and it tastes vaguely like chocolate. If there’s any hints of maple or bacon in this soda, I’m not tasting them. Continuing to drink it, the flavor becomes more of a chemical spill with no distinctive patterns or flavor at all.   This is probably the worst soda of this lot.  Pick it up for the fancy bottle and novelty, pawn it off on a friend… who you don’t like very much.

Sprecher Red Apple

Sprecher has been brewing both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks in Milwaukee since 1985. This is one of their non-alcoholic brews. Red Apple has a fizzy head like beer, the amber color like beer, smells like apples, and tastes like the most amazingly sweet red delicious apples you’ve never tasted – because red delicious apples were bred for their bright red looks and thick, bruise resistant skin, rather than their flavor. Like carbonated, sweet apple cider, this stuff is absolutely amazing.

Corn Squeezin’ Smooth Citrus Soda

Dunno who makes this stuff, just that it was bottled at the Louisa Coca-Cola Bottling Company. It’s pee-green – because you wouldn’t expect anything else, and smells like Off – the bug spray. Tastes like a strong, less fizzy Sprite – almost like Surge. Poured somewhat flat with almost no fizz.

Faygo: Original Rock & Rye

Faygo was founded in 1907 by two Russian immigrant bakers named Ben and Perry Feigenson in Detroit Michigan. This is the original cane sugar version of the Detroit favorite. It has an energetic fizz that dissipated quickly, and tastes like a slightly cherry flavored dark cream soda. Smooth and sweet, the biggest surprise is unlike it’s modern equivalent, it doesn’t taste syrupy.

1893 Original Pepsi Cola

Back in 1893, this was called “Brad’s Drink” by maker Caleb Bradham who made it at his drugstore where it was sold. The name was changed to Pepsi Cola in 1898 after the root of the word “dyspepsia” (which means indigestion) and the kola nuts used in the recipie. This original version of the cola tastes like an old-fashioned phosphate. It’s got kola nut extract, some malt flavor, a dash of bitters, some cane sugar, and that’s it. Nothing else needed. Personally, this stuff is amazing. I’m a Pepsi challenge convert but this stuff is what I think the drink should return to.

Moxie

Introduced in 1876 by Dr. Augustin Thompson. Extremely hard to describe it’s flavor except as “unique”. Supposedly is made with gentian root extract which is an extremely bitter substance with reputed medicinal properties. Smells like a cherry root beer. Not very fizzy at all. It tastes slightly like a less-sweet, slightly bitter Dr. Pepper with a bit of black pepper tossed in. Interesting.

Dr. Enuf

Created by the Tri-City Beverage Corporation in 1949 in Eastern Tennessee, Dr. Enuf was touted as a vitamin-enriched energy-drink. Over the years, letters began to pour in to them claiming all sorts of benefits and “cures” of the soda. While they don’t make any claims themselves, their colorful point-of-sales items and bottles emblazoned with the logo “Enuf is Enough!”, help slowly extend their sales into new areas. Pours almost perfectly clear. Looks more like a glass of water than a soda pop. Tastes mostly like a 7-Up. Light lemon-lime citrus with a bit of an extra “zing” to it.

Bruce Cost’s Unfiltered Ginger Ale

Ginger fanatic Bruce Cost wrote in 1984 an award-winning cookbook that traced ginger’s origins and journey around the world called “Ginger East to West”. In 1989, he created this stuff for his Monsoon restaurant in San Francisco. Finally, 14 restaurants later in 1995, he began bottling it so it can be enjoyed all over the world. First look… wow… this stuff is spooky looking! Looks clear with a pile of chalk sitting in the bottom of the bottle. Not the first beverage I’ve drunk that seperates easily, after it was poured and gently blended up, it was a hazy white. The smell isn’t the strongest ginger ale I’ve whiffed, but the taste is one of the sweetest. This stuff is really good and somehow tastes “fresher” than most of the things I’ve had, like it was bottled yesterday. It’s smooth, has little ginger bite, but unlike the End of the Commons General Store brand, this stuff doesn’t sit back and stay content with being an easy drinker. It stands out strong on flavor and has a lot of character. Highly recommended. If you see it at the store, don’t let the white sediment at the bottom scare you off from buying it.

Some of the pictures taken for Awesome Brews were done by Diane Schuler of Schuler Photography