Was years ago up in the boundary waters canoe area in Minnesota. Some little old lady (I think her name was Dorothy) was living alone in a small cabin on an island miles away from civilization. She would go into town about once a year to get supplies, but apart from that about the only human contact was with canoers that would stop by her cabin to have some of her ‘famous’ homemade root beer. Closest thing that describes it would be a type of dirt-flavored tea… and not just regular dirt, but some of the fresh-off-the-compost-pile-and-not-all-the way-decomposed kinda dirt. Stuff nearly made me retch. But you had to admire her spunk for being able to survive out there.
Nightsong: Henry Weinhard root beer is pretty common around here (Havre, MT) if you look a bit. I think the local IGA stocks it.
I agree that A&W on tap is supernatural. The only object to my drinking at the local A&W/KFC joint (yes, they have merged into one root beer-fried chicken outfit) is that the food there is inedible. Especially when IGA sells Chester Fried Chicken, the best fried chicken I’ve ever had. Course, no fried chicken can compare to the broasted chicken Uncle Joe’s sells. (Uncle Joe’s is a local restaurant that’s divided into an upstairs section specialising in broasted chicken and the bar and a downstairs section which is a very good high-toned (for Havre, anyway) steakhouse. The upstairs section has paper placemats and a country jukebox, while the downstairs section has nice paintings and ambiance. I’ve never seen anything quite like it elsewhere.)