So I just tried this tonight, after a trusted friend raved about how good it was (a friend who I knew was like I was…mostly a non-drinker due to not liking strong alcohol tastes).
My quest to find a booze that doesn’t taste like it has booze in it has finally been a success. This stuff is great! It tastes just like root beer. Like, actual root beer, nothing added. Even with other things like “hard” lemonade or stuff like that, you can always taste a SLIGHT taste of alcohol in the drink…but damn, with this stuff, if you hadn’t told me there was alcohol in it, I would have never known or guessed. It tastes completely alcohol-free. There’s not even a small hint of booze found in the taste, at least not that I can tell.
This stuff apparently came out last year around Father’s Day and I hadn’t ever seen it in stores (but, to be fair, I rarely go to the store…opting to instead have home delivery), but after a friend posted about it last week, I went to the store tonight to get some regular beer and spied this stuff on the top shelf… it was at the local Walgreens, so if you want to try some, you might want to try looking there first.
Anyway, if you like root beer, this stuff is for you.
While I will attest to it tasting exactly like a good root beer, I must warn that that stuff is what horrible hangovers are made from if you insist on getting drunk from it. Way too sweet for that.
I’ll second this. I also tried it on the recommendation of friend and was pleasantly suprised by how good it was. I also tried the Ginger Ale which is equally good.
I had a co-worker rave about it and say it tasted just like root beer. I got some (it’s at CVS :)) and it had more of a beer/malt taste than I expected, but I liked it.
I like Mike’s hard lemonade for no alcohol taste, but it does give me heartburn from all the acid. I will have to try the Henry’s.
I found it too intense; something about the sugar level and the intensity of the flavoring. I ended up sipping it for about half of it, then pouring the rest out.
And I’m a guy who will happily drink regular sugared root beer and drink stuff like imperial stouts. This stuff was like a high gravity beer mixed with root beer, and then sugared up from there.
Their alcoholic ginger ale, OTOH, was pretty good. Maybe not as crisply refreshing as a regular ginger ale, but not nearly so overwhelming as the root beer.
This was exactly my experience except that I’ve not had the ginger ale.
I don’t drink too much soda but root beer is my favorite. There aren’t many styles of beer I’ll turn my nose up at. But I couldn’t get a single bottle of this down. I was given a Not Your Father’s Root Beer at a family event. I managed to drink half of it only because I was trying to be polite. Something about the sweetness/flavor triggered the feeling that I was drinking something that was actually inedible.
I’ve had it. It’s decent. Oversweetened, if anything - you’d get a sugar rush long before you had enough of the stuff to actually get buzzed on. Apparently, the brewery that makes it has a 10% ABV (and sometimes a 20% ABV!) version that’s exclusively served on draft. If I weren’t going to be quitting alcohol within the next few weeks, I’d love to know how that stuff tastes.
Also, hard lemonade is awful and Mike should be ashamed of himself.
I did not find the ginger ale to be as good, but different folks. I enjoyed it, but did not find it to be as ginger ale-y as the root beer is root beer-y.
I have had the 10%, but only as part of a “Root Beer Float,” so it was still pretty much just Root Beer flavored once you dulled everything with extreme cold, extra sugar and milk fat.
I got one recently…it was just in the regular fancy soda section at a cafeteria style restaurant. I was half-way through before I realized “this tastes boozy” and I checked the label. Yep. Booze.
I must admit I don’t understand the desire for drinking something alcoholic that doesn’t taste “like booze”, whatever that means. I mean, not all alcoholic beverages taste alike; scotch on the rocks does not taste like a margarita which does not taste like wine or beer. But also, a drink that will get you loaded while tasting like soda pop sounds like a recipe for disaster. Especially if it’s loaded with sugar. As someone said above, sounds like a horrible hangover coming. So I’d love it if someone would explain the attraction.
For me, it’s an occasional novelty. If I’ve had a couple beers with dinner, or half a bottle of wine, it fills the role of an after dinner drink/dessert. Instead of a glass of amaretto, I’ll have a hard root beer float.
Wine gives me a headache. Champagne gives me a worse headache. Whisky makes me immediately feel nauseous. Vodka and gin are too biting and I am scared to try tequila. If I want a buzz, I need something that tastes like a non-alcoholic beverage but gives a pleasantness. It used to be amaretto sours but they are acidy, so now it is White Russians. Yes, they go down easy so I stop at two if I will be driving after a long dinner out.
