For me, one of the highlights of the visit to Pattaya was the A&W, right across the street from the beach. Someone spotted the sign when we were about halfway from our anchorage to the beach (“Hey! Look at that!”), and several of us made that our first stop after checking into the hotel.
Hijack: Another thing I liked about Pattaya was the green Fanta. Do you know what flavour that’s supposed to be, Sam? I thought it was great.
You’re not going to get it very far away, and it’s difficult to find even locally (ironically, having your local liquor store order an 8 gallon keg is easier and some even have them on hand!), but Schell’s 1919 is the best stuff I’ve ever had.
Yeah, I find the strong reactions fairly curious. I guess I kinda put soda flavors on a mental spectrum of “acquired tasteness”. On one side is cola, Dr. Pepper, etc.–sharp flavors with no real-world analog. It might take a while before you decide if you like it or not. On the other side is orange soda, Mtn Dew, etc.–fairly mild flavors that correspond to stuff people have had (citrus). You probably know right away if you like it or not. Root beer has always seemed to belong in the middle somewhere (obviously not, given the thread comments).
Mmmm. Green Fanta. Love the stuff. It’s an odd flavor though. Sort of like bubble gum. But no one seems sure what the flavor is actually called.
The good thing about root beer is diet versions like A&W tend to taste very much like the regular flavor. Also most brands don’t add caffeine so you can drink it at night without staying awake. I like it and can drink it all day long.
I disagree completely. Diet A&W is putrid.
This is EXACTLY what a number of members of fella bilong missus flodnak’s clan said about root beer when we were in Florida together.
Philistines!
Could it be Cashew Apple Juice?
No. Not apple at all. Nor cashew. Absolutely, without a doubt, not. It literally tastes like liquid bubble gum. I’ve read that this flavor, whatever it is – as in Thai it says only “green Fanta,” and that’s what everyone calls it – is available only in Thailand.
I happen to have a 1.25-liter bottle of it in the fridge right now. Inspecting the label more, there is a little illustration grouping together a pineapple, half an orange and a bunch of bananas. But you sure can’t taste any of those in it. No identifiable fruit flavor of any sort. Just bubble gum. The stuff is highly addictive though.
The Fanta wikipedia pageis fascinating; apparently they make different flavors for nearly every country. It says there’s a Red Fanta too; is it also tasty, Siam Sam? It also describes the green as “cream soda” but I gather it doesn’t taste like cream soda, right?
It’s not like any cream soda I’ve ever tasted. I suspect SCAdian will agree. Nor does it say “cream soda” anywhere on the bottle and cans, not in English and not in Thai. But I have no problem believing that the Thais might believe this is what cream soda is. (I’ve never seen actual cream soda here.) Again though, I’ve never heard anyone call it that.
Red Fanta. Tastes pretty much like Big Red in the US, which I’ve never cared that much for. Is that still around? Just a strawberry soda.
We also have a blueberry Fanta that comes in a neon-blue color.
Definitely not cream soda. It’s been 25 years since I was in Pattaya, so I don’t remember the taste clearly, but it was fruity. Just looked at the picture I took of the can - on one side it’s labelled in Thai, with no picture; the other side is labelled in English, with Donald Duck painting the can green. Not very informative. 8)
Don’t know if Big Red is still around or not - I remember it, but haven’t seen it in years (decades, even).
Mirinda, a brand I’m not sure is in the US, also makes a green soda, but Fanta’s is best. Mirinda does, however, make the best root beer in Thailand, better than A&W’s.
They have the red Fanta at a place called “Club Cool” at the Epcot park at Disney World. It’s a tasting place like the one they have at the Coke World mentioned earlier. They have 6 or 7 types of drinks sold in different countries. There’s Krest Ginger Ale from Africa, Red Fanta from Costa Rica, Mezzo Mix (which is Coke with a hint of orange from Germany), Vegi-Beta from Japan, Kinley (a lemon soda from Israel), Apple Lift (from Mexico), a watermelon flavor from China, and the notorious Beverly from Italy (look for videos of people trying this stuff).
The Wikipedia page says red Fanta is salak flavor, a type of plant. But to me it just tastes like your run-of-the-mill strawberry soda.
They did have pineapple Fanta for a while, and that was really pretty good.
Ah root beer.
I’m a brit, and first tasted it in MacDonalds in the late 80’s. They were rare then. I think MacDonalds seemed to give a nod to local produce at that point, the one in Glasgow sold Irn Bru instead of root beer.
I love and whenever in the US it used to be my drink of choice, wanting something a bit more than the usual brown vanilla sugar liquids that is Coke or Pepsi. I’m unsure how well it did, but it was selling in ASDA in the uk, last year certainly.
However, when I went over to the side of diet drinks, I pined for the root beer alternative. So whenever in the US or Canada, I went looking for it.
My god, that’s a tough job. Only place I found a single bottle of diet root beer in the US was in a gas station in Merced, CA. One single bottle. None left. Every store sold the full fat version in multiple brands, yet diet was unfindable. The fast food places never had it as an option. Couldn’t find it in San Francisco, LA or San Jose.
A visit to Canada a few weeks ago meant I found the A&W chain there, and had some of their draught. However, I was after bottles to take back, and didn’t realise the A&W sold the big bottles of diet root beer in Salmon Arm, British Columbia. I had one, but we were flying back and on restricted luggage, so decided to get stocked up when I got back to Vancouver.
Diet root beer in a bottle in Vancouver? Nope. None of the A&W’s there actually sold the bottles, certainly none of the supermarkets there. I left those shores again with not a single bottle of diet root beer.
BTW, I think the “cola” sold in germany was a mix of orange juice and local cola. It was an acquired taste, not that bad once you got used to it…
Bubble gum flavor has a significant banana-like component (or, at least, it seems so to me). I suspect isoamyl acetate is one of the primary flavoring chemicals used, mixed with some slightly tart fruity flavors. I’m no flavor chemist, and I’ve never tried to make a bubble gum flavor blend before, but I’d start with banana flavor, a little of some sort of berry flavor (maybe strawberry or raspberry), and probably some vanilla to soften it.
It’s possible that your blue stuff uses pineapple and orange flavorings to get the tart element on top of a banana base, and the tart + banana combo is registering as “bubble gum”.
The Five Guys chain and some Wendy’s have moved over to new soda machines with probably a 100 choices. Many of these are just flavors of Coke but the machine has Diet Root Beer and Diet Cream Soda.
Also the Stewart’s chain has always carried an excellent Diet Root Beer on tap. But they specialize in Root Beer and Cream Soda.
Most Supermarkets carry diet Root Beer. At least in the NY/NJ area. It seems like it is more popular drink in the NY area then most of the US. I’m not sure if that is true.
I struggled to find it in central NY, but you’d probably not call many of those stores ‘supermarkets’ though.
I have a large luggage allowance and there was a chance of me taking over like 50 2 litre diet root beer bottles back, if I didn’t get stop for terrorism charges 