I bought some Boylan’s Orange Soda today at my local supermarket. Boylan’s, if you didn’t know, is one of the few American sodas still sweetened with cane sugar. (The overwhelming majority of American sodas use high fructose corn syrup as a sweetener.) I’ve heard so many people talk about sugar-sweetened sodas as far superior, but I was disappointed. It tasted barely different from Hi-C. Is this just a 32 year old like me not used to the taste? Or are the syrup sweetened sodas better then we give them credit? I’d love to hear all of you used to both sugar and syrup sodas tell me which is better.
I can’t speak for the soda you mentioned but perhaps it’s just a bad soda. Lord knows that within the corn syrup-based soda spectrum there’s good sodas and nasty sodas. I don’t see why cane sugar-based sodas would be exempt.
When I was in Italy this past fall, I loved their cane sugar-based Coca-Cola which tasted much like the US version only crisper to me. In fact, I noticed the difference immediately and then looked at the can to see why. I assume it was the different sweetener. But I was able to make a straight comparison between the two since I knew what Coca-Cola was supposed to taste like.
Maybe it was something else though. Their Fanta is a pale orangeish color instead of the neon hues of the US version so maybe they just add less crap to their sodas.
If you ever get a chance to get your hands on kosher Coke, or Coke bottled in Mexico, do a comparision between it and regular Coke. Both the kosher and the Mexican Cokes are made with cane sugar and taste remarkably better than the high fructose corn syrup sweetened one. Kosher Coke is most readily available during Passover and has a yellow cap.
I’ve had the pure cane Coca-Cola and the corn syrup versians. The sugar does taste better to me but not by any significant margin.
Marc
I drink diet soda these days because of my “diabetus,” but I remember that Target carried some Royal Crown Cola sweetened with cane sugar about 10 years ago. It was much better than syrup-sweetened Coke, IMO.
I get cane-sugar-flavored versions of various American sodas at nearby Mexican groceries. Colas taste slightly different-- the glass bottles seem more important to the experience than the sweetener-- but I’ve noticed fruit-flavored drinks seem to taste incredibly different. Squirt is the one I liked the most; it tasted like I was drinking sparkling sugar-sweetened grapefruit juice (complete with intact sugar crystals that dissolved on my tongue), instead of grapefruit-flavored “drink.” Oddly, Fresca in Mexico is simply another grapefruit-flavored soda instead of being a diet soda, and it’s kind of bland. It’s odd to prefer a sucralose-sweetened drink over its cane sugar equivalent, but hey.
I think the only way one can fairly judge whether cane sugar makes a difference in a drink is to compare the same brand with different sweeteners. Boylans might be sweetened with cane sugar, but if they have a wimpy flavoring base (or, IMO, wimpy carbonation) it’s going to disappoint if compared to a corn-syrup brand with a good base.
When I went on a driving tour through New England last year, I bought and tried a good dozen regional birch beers, and my favorite of the bunch was a generic-looking, artificially-flavored, corn-syrup sweetened brand called Frozen Run. The gourmet, cane-sugar, all-natural, expensive stuff in glass bottles just paled in comparison.
You can find sugar Coke in any Mexican market around here, and it’s the only “regular” soda I can stand to drink. I can’t stand anything sweetened with corn syrup. It has a sickly aftertaste that sticks in my throat.
My waistline is thankful I hate corn syrup, but it’s nice to be able to have a coke once in a while. (My sister feels the same way. She lives in Jersey, I should tell her to go looking for kosher coke, she’d probably have a better chance of finding that)
You can still buy Dr. Pepper made with cane sugar from the Dublin Texas Bottling Plant . I really can’t tell the difference, except that it comes in a glass bottle, which somehow makes it seem more carbonated.
Ahh, all those warm days on the beach in Mexico with a cold Fanta Naranja. Heaven, I tell you.
I get Jarritos anywhere around here and the Mexican grocer carries Pepsi and Coke, as well. I fear I may have to go all the way to Texas for a proper Dr. Pepper though.
Count me in with those who prefer the Mexican version of Coke vs. the home grown Coke “Classic” with the HFCS. Not as sweet as the domestic version, which is the way I remember it tasting when I was a kid. Folks have forgotten that colas are supposed to have some “bite” to them; they aren’t supposed to be the sickly sweet stuff we get served today. (This is why, if I can find it, I’ll often go for RC Cola instead of Coke. Something in its formula makes it more like what I remember colas being like back in the day, although I note that its ingredients list HFCS in there. [According to the listing, “high fructose corn syrup and/or sugar”; so I guess there may be some cane sugar in there too.])
What bugs me about this is, why do Mexicans get to drink the real stuff when good ol’ USA folks like me get stuck with the inferior product? (Unless I pay a buck and a half for a 12 oz. bottle, that is.) Since when does the river flow that way?
(Actually, I’m guessing this may have something to do with Cuba. Mexico trades with Cuba, we don’t, so they get cheaper cane sugar, we’re stuck with HFCS. Maybe when Castro dies, and when all our corn goes into our gas tanks, we’ll get to drink real sodas again. One can hope.)
Oh wow, you’re joking! We stopped ingesting high fructose a few months back and I haven’t had a Coke since then. If I can find a Mexican grocery in NW Columbus. . . . .oh my god this is wonderful.
This message alone justifies the price of the yearly membership to this board.
[QUOTE=Student Driver]
Squirt is the one I liked the most; it tasted like I was drinking sparkling sugar-sweetened grapefruit juice (complete with intact sugar crystals that dissolved on my tongue), instead of grapefruit-flavored “drink.” /QUOTE]
That’s because the Mexican version does have actual grapefruit juice in it. It’s also the reason I love European lemon Fanta; it has actual lemon juice in it. It aggravates me to no end that apparently the American taste in soft drinks (or at least what manufacturers perceive as the American taste in soft drinks) bears almost no resemblance to any flavor found in nature.
I wondered about that; the Mexican bottle of Squirt I had didn’t have the usual importer-added nutritional information sticker. The taste is really distinct in Squirt-- I’ve had other naturally-flavored Mexican grapefruit sodas that just taste like sweet soda, but the Mexican Squirt is wonderfully juicy. (Glancing at my reserve of Mexican sodas, I note my favorite apple soda, Sidral Mundet, also contains juice of the fruit it purports to represent. Yum.)
And to Sprockets, glad to be of service (with the others in this thread). For brands outside of Pepsi and Coke, you might have to visit multiple groceries, or visit multiple times… it seems local tiendas just get mixed lots of bottles, so sometimes there’s a wealth of Squirt and Manzana Lift, sometimes there’s a bunch of 7-Up and Senorial.
There’s not a huge difference, and not everyone can tell the difference.
And as Student Driver said, the glass bottle almost ivariable used for cane sugar sodas- do make a difference also.
Not A Tame Lion no, sorry HFCS is here to stay. It’s much much cheaper, even if one gets imports from Cuba. There is also the strong possibility that Soda manuf refer HFCS as it has a very low 'satiety rating" thus you tend to drink more HFCS than sugar soda. Mexicon likely uses it for two reasons: they are still mostly using much older machines (set up for sugar not HFCS), and they get a nice bonus in sales from Americans looking for sugar-soda. However, I have seen Coke bottled in Mexico with HFCS, so read the label.
That being said: hve your friends give you a blind taste test. Get your fave bev, in cane and HFCS version, both in glass bottle. Cool to same temp. Get buddy to poor 4 cups of soda: 2 cane, two HFCS, and only he knows which is which (and have to glasses identical, etc, except for some tiny hidden mark). Have him turn his back. You pick which you think is better.
(This will bring also bring suprising results for many die-hard Coke drinkers if tried with Coke vs Pepsi)
The Kroger on Georgesville Rd. (Georgesville/I-270 exit) has Mexican Coke. Look for it with the ethnic foods, not in the regular soft drinks section.
Farther north on Georgesville, and over on West Broad, there are several Mexican markets, but I can’t say what they carry.
Cuco’s on Henderson.
Thank you for your help finding sugar-based Coke in NW Columbus. I sent my spousal unit to two Mexican grocery stores today and he came back with four bottles. That stuff tastes WONDERFUL. No sickly sweet aftertaste.
The first cane sugar Coke I had was in cans in Italy and I immediately noticed the difference. Glass might make a difference but I don’t think it makes the difference.
I think the OP’s experience with Boylan’s Orange doesn’t do justice to the brand. Sorry you got a bad flavor! I’ve had their “Cane Cola” and it is excellent. It does, in my opinion, taste distinctly different from Coke or Pepsi, and in the same way that RC tastes different. Just seems like a richer flavor to me.
I’ve also had their diet black cherry, diet root beer, and diet cream, which are also great - sweetened with Splenda instead of cane sugar.
I’m not sure what difference people might be tasting but I find it really hard to believe anybody is tasting a difference between cane sugar, aka sucrose, and HFCS. The reason I saw that is chemical. Basically alot of sodas are pretty acidic and the acid hydrolyzes sucrose into fructose and glucose. (IE if you were to check a coke sweetened with cane sugar you’d find it contained mostly fructose and glucose.) Actually another term for this is an invert sugar. (IE the acid in soda would turn sucrose into an invert sugar, IE fructose & glucose.)