Carbonated beverages were a rare treat growing up, but I liked root beer (don’t remember any particular brand) and Orange Crush from the start. In my college cafeteria there were both a drinks dispenser and a soft-serve ice cream machine, so I’d often make myself root beer floats (“brown cows” in local slang). Nowadays I drink ice water at just about every meal other than breakfast, but a cold root beer on a hot day is nice now and then.
I prefer Stewart’s root beer now, but don’t hate any brand.
FWIW, I don’t care for Dr. Pepper, Coke or Pepsi at all. I could take or leave Sprite and 7-Up.
When I was a kid, I loved root beer and orange pop mixed together. Though we never had a particular name for it.
Now, as an adult, I can’t imagine why.
Nah, a “suicide” was every flavor available at the fountain all mixed together. And the “atomic suicide”, same thing but with an Atomic Fireball candy added.
For some value of “a lot”. It’s about half the caffeine of most colas, which puts it pretty much at the bottom of the list, as caffeinated beverages go.
My brother had a small construction crew that I worked for during the summers in the 1970’s when I was in college. One hot summer day we were finishing a four-plex apartment in a small town when it was coffee break time. We all decided to head to the small close-by café since it was air conditioned. The rest of the crew of ten ordered first, and they all ordered coffee. I ordered last and told the young waitress that I wanted a root beer float. Everyone at the table turned to look at me, and one-by-one they all changed their orders to root beer floats too.
hmm I always knew a “brown cow” was a root beer float made with chocolate ice cream
But I’ve always drank root beer being overly sensitive to caffeine as a kid (a jolt cola binge when I went to JC almost ended very badly)… I’ve never cared for plain cola myself I prefer the flavored versions My favorite root beer was hires A&W and a brand that was in a yellow can with a W or M on it
Now I drink either barqs or dads and dads is hard to find sometimes
I have very fond memories of going to A &W as a kid and having a tiny, kid-sized mug of root beer. I enjoy root beer now. I also loved the tray that clipped onto the window, and the sauce they put on their burgers. As an adult, I learned that sauce was ketchup and mayo, but I’ve never been able to recreate that magic sauce of my childhood.
Some years ago, I heard that mixing prune juice and 7Up tasted like Dr. Pepper. That was false. I do not recommend even if you like both!
I had Europeans tell me they don’t like it because of the wintergreen flavor, and that reminds them I specifically of medicine (that some of their medicines are flavored with wintergreen.) I wish I could be more specific about which area of Europe, but I don’t remember who told me that.
I tolerate wintergreen, but it’s not a flavor I particularly like. That said, combined with vanilla and sassafras or sarsaparilla or licorice, I don’t mind it.
Dr. Pepper is not at all in the same category to me. That just tastes like cola flavored with almond extract and maybe a few other things. More comparable drinks might be Moxie, birch beer, and sarsaparilla soda.
It is. There’s a Burger King near me that turns out pretty good smoky grilled burgers that I pick up once in a while, but due to some incompetence they have twice now foisted root beer on me when I asked for Coke Zero. I’ve now taken to sniffing the drink before I drive away. The vile odour of root beer is unmistakable.
Root beer, cream soda, Orange Crush, 7-Up all bring back good memories from my childhood. I still drink them, but not as often as I used to. Coke, ginger ale, and Sprite go best with the foods I like.
I recall driving from Minneapolis to St Croix one day when I was three or four, about the last time my family did something together. There was an A&W there, next to a little park with a WWI field piece in the grass. I loved A&W’s barbecue beef sandwiches washed down with their root beer! This is one of the strongest memories I’ll ever have.
I totally agree with all of that! With the exception of occasionally buying clear (not the horrible red kind) cream soda in unnecessarily retrograde antique-style bottles, I don’t drink any of that stuff any more, but can relate all of it to my childhood, especially summers at our country cottage.
The cream soda I drank as a child was amber colored and had a much milder taste than the red stuff at my local supermarket today. A few years back, I got a recipe for homemade cream soda off the Internet and made a batch myself using real vanilla extract. It was really good.
I remember getting strawberry and raspberry flavored pop from a vending machine one summer in Flint, Michigan. They must have been a local brand, because I’ve never seen them anywhere else. Here in Canada I can sometimes find lime (not lemon-lime) soda in a vending machine, but not very often. And I’d like to try Grape Crush (not the generic kind) again.
Saturday matinees at the Parkway would never have been the same without Green River (carbonated and noncarbonated) from the vending machine in the lobby. Do they still make Green River?
Loved all of those as a child, and I guess I still do, though I’ve not had any in years. Except for root beer–an A&W Teenburger, which I still enjoy from time to time, just isn’t the same without root beer.
Re your post about lime soda–not sure where you are, but here in western Canada, you can still occasionally find Pop Shoppe sodas in various places. (I remember them from years ago in Ontario, but have not seen them when I travel there nowadays.) They’re not everywhere out here, and they do pop up in unexpected places (Shopper’s Drug Mart? Really?) but if a place carries Pop Shoppe brands, look for the Lime Rickey. Great chilled on its own, but mixes nicely with gin and vodka too.
Tahiti Treat, yum! Just like carbonated Hawaiian Punch!
I’m in Scarborough, part of the GTA. The lime soda I’m talking about came from vending machines at Walmart, which also has 2-litre bottles of pink grapefruit soda.
The local Highland Farms sells 2-litre bottles of cherry soda, but it’s artificially sweetened. It’s not bad, but still not as good as if it were sweetened with sugar.
I bought 1.5 litre bottles of cherry pop (imported from Greece, I think) when I was living in Moscow. I loved the stuff, but my Russian ex-wife hated it.
I should mention she bought an imported squeeze bottle of Smucker’s strawberry syrup one day and complained that it tasted awful. I had to explain it’s meant to be mixed with milk and not water. (She clearly had a lot to learn about American foods.)
I remember the Pop Shoppe from when I was still in Minnesota. It was the brand sold at Super America convenience stores. It had cream soda that was colored Windex blue. I was never able to wrap my head around that.
Ew! Not something I’d care to try, though I have had a Black Cow (Coke and vanilla ice cream). Much better, however, is a Creamsicle float (vanilla ice cream in Orange Crush). Yum!
Years ago, the open bar at Minnecon nearly ran out of booze before I could get to it, so I had to make do with a Purple Passion (generic grape soda and scotch). A vile combination, but I was riding high before I passed out!
I know Scarborough very well. PM me about the Scarb you know, and we can compare notes. I don’t want to create a hijack, so it might be better to move our discussion to PMs.
