I have a thing with trying new sodas when I come across them. Lately two of the better ones that I’ve found are Vimto and Ironbeer. Both of these seemed to have orriginated from outside the United States. What are some other popular brands of soda I may not have heard of? Also, does anyone know any popular mixed drink recipies for either of those two?
Go to a latino area of town and find Inca Cola (from Peru). It’s carbonated, yellow, and tastes like bubble gum and it’s owned by Coca Cola.
Orange flavoured FANTA from Europe is preety good,and I like also ORANGINA.
That second one is available here but not every supermarket has it.
The Jarritos brand sodas are pretty nice. I like the tamarindo in particular, it’s sort of a sour flavor. My kids love the pineapple. They also have orange, jamaica, and a couple of others, maybe even guava. Check any Latin market or most Mexican restaurants.
I’d also thought of Inca Cola and have read that Peruvian food is the “new Mexican”. Probably more like Thai is to Chinese, Peruvian is to Mexican. Similar but not the same; complementary. I can recommend Sabor Peruano to anyone who finds themselves near Cincinnati.
Irn Bru. The original and best.
Scotland’s number one soft drink since the dawn of time. Except I think Coke or Pepsi beat it one year recently, and everybody went mental. People take that sort of thing quite seriously round here.
There are countless variations called things like “Iron Brew”… I have a feeling “Iron Beer” may be another of those, but I could be wrong. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. “Irn Bru” is what it’s called, and it is the single finest hangover cure in the world. Also, more caffeine than Cola, which is good.
A trip to Glasgow is not complete without glimpsing a half-cut worthy winding his way down the street with a 750ml glass bottle of the stuff cargoed in his suit jacket pocket.
My father-in-law spotted it for sale in Russia a while ago. Times have changed. But you only get the glass bottles nearer home!
The Ironbeer that I found claims on the can to have come from Cuba originally, but this was brewed in Miami.
I just asked a co-worker with Scottish parents about Irn Bru and she’s bringing me a six pack on Monday. That’s pretty cool.
I’ll definitely have to check out the Peruvian stuff too. Inca Cola would be interesting.
I can second the Jarritos brand of soft drinks. I got turned onto them by our local mexican restaurant that serves them. What I like is that they are very flavorful, but not over the top like some US brands.
Senorial Sangria. It’s usually sold in the Mexican section of supermarkets alongside the Jarritos sodas that **ShibbOleth ** mentioned and is the sweet, sweet nectar of the gods themselves.
I like Coco Rico Coconut Soda which is evidently from Puerto Rico. The same site also has Mexican Coke.
I’ve never seen it for sale here in the states, but most of the Caribbean islands sell a soda named “Ting”. It’s similar to, but better than “50/50”. We love it.
I wanted to post about Jarritos and sangria soda in particular, which is excruciatingly delicious. Jarritos apple soda is darn fine too.
If you are a fan of random sodas like myself, you may already know this, but ethnic markets are a gold mine for soda pop from other countries.
VIMTO is an anagram of VOMIT. Probably unintentional.
I quite like it, me. It’s rarely seen/appreciated outside Manchester though.
Apropos of nothing, Craig Ferguson once sarcastically commented that if Leonardo was a genius for inventing things on paper that weren’t built in his day because the technology was lacking, then so was he, for inventing… (here a revealed a clumsily drawn sketch) the submarine that runs on Vimto.
I can’t actually prove that all those nuclear submarines chugging up and down the Clyde Estuary DON’T run on Vimto, but then, who could?
If only they DID! Unless Vimto turneds out to be dangerous too, I suppose.
<in alternative universe>
campaign for Vimto Disarmament
Vimto Ploughshares
</alternative universe>
seosamh re. Vimto rarely being seen outside Manchester - years back, when I worked in a library in a City Stockbroking firm, I was amused to discover that what I saw as a practically unheard-of drink had had quite healthy lot sof sales in the Middle East. The reason was obvious, I suppose, but perhaps I had caffeine deprivation.
Britain also has quite a few fizzy drinks in “theoretical” fruit flavours, - but a lot of those orange, or lime, or even raspberry sods are from smallish companies and highly unlikely to be exported.
As has been said, Irn Bru has a sort of iconic status around here.
One of the most popular types of soda in Brazil is Guarana.
Just as there are many cola drinks here, there are many guarana brands in Brazil. It is sold in Portuguese and Brazilian neighborhoods here – they even bottle it in Newark for U.S. consumption. Good stuff.
My neighborhood is filled with Irish folks, some of whom are even here legally! Anyway, the shops are filled with Irish imports and two of the biggest sodas are Lucozade and Club. Club soda is not…uh…club soda, it’s a brand of soda.
My favorite is rockshandy, an orange-lemony citrussy sort of taste that is fun to confuse people with in the gym (I use empty bottles again and again until I lose them, filling them with the safest, purest water in America–NYC tap water). People ask me what a rockshandy is and I invent all sorts of things.
I’d like to make the fifth (or whatever) recommendation for Irn Bru…two reasons: firstly, it’s a great hangover remedy…secondly, how many other cans have a warning that the ‘contents may stain’?!? 
One of the absolute best ones here in Japan (that has been around for a while, most new sodas tend to exist only for a short time…) is the FANTA GRAPE. Anyone who hasn’t tried it yet, must!
Oh, and the Swedish sodas TROCADERO and POMMAC are rather unique, too I think. Very good both of them.
Ah I remember the days when Fanta was just orange. It now seems to cover every colour of the rainbow.
Irn Bru tastes like orange water with shitloads of sugar though. Best hangover cure is choccy milk. 