My local grocery store (Gerrard’s, Redlands, CA) carries the widest selection of “boutique” sodas I’ve ever seen. Artisan root beers, small-batch orange sodas, and some stuff I would have sworn vanished decades ago. They carry Moxie, Cheerwine, Dad’s…all sorts of good stuff. Cola with real cane sugar. Mexican 7-Up. Bubble-Up!
So, what’s your favorite obscure pop?
I love Mexican pop. I have Sidral (apple soda) in the fridge right now. I also like Sangria (grape with lime) and several flavors of Jarritos (they have several fruit flavors). As a kid, I really liked orange Chaparritas - not sure if they still make that brand; it came in little bottles (chaparro means short). And Coke tastes much better in Mexico (no corn syrup…).
GT
There are a couple of variants of Barq’s that it seems you can only get in Mississippi. Barq’s in a glass bottle and Barq’s Creme Soda, to be precise. Goes well with crawdads.
Grown-Up Soda Dry Meyer Lemon and Extra Dry Ginger Ale are my favorites.
I love my Moxie.
Diet Moxie tastes better than the regular, IMO.
It’s not local to here, but I enjoyed drinking it when I lived in New Zealand - L&P (Lemon & Paeroa).
Ditto on that. One out of two VT presidents can’t be wrong about the Pride of Maine!
I will never understand how Moxie was the best selling soft drink pre-Coke.
Wish you could get Diet Saxby’s Ginger Beer in Canada.
I like Tahiti Treat, Sport Cola, Tizer, Jarritos, Dad’s and some of the Jones’ sodas.
gasps You can still get Tahiti Treat? I thought they’d stopped selling it completely! I haven’t had it in years and when I search for it everything I find tells me it’s not made anymore. That was always my favourite.
Uhm… local sodas. I like Stewart’s Root Beer and Cream Soda. I wouldn’t mind finding some Sarsparilla again sometime.
As great a city as New Orleans is for drinkin’ the hard stuff, I always drink plenty of glass-bottle Barq’s root beer and red creme soda. They also have the best root beer I’ve ever had in New Orleans: Big Shot. They make several other fruit-flavored sodas, but Big Shot root beer is smooth, creamy (almost like a vanilla creme/root beer blend), and absolutely delicious. I’d give just about anything to be able to get some in Florida, but I’ve contacted them and they don’t do mail order.
My favorite root beers aside from Big Shot are A&W, IBC (glass bottles), Stewart’s, and Virgil’s, which you can usually get at nicer supermarkets like Super Target and Publix. I also love Stewart’s Orange and Cream soda, and a Chicago-area favorite I had up there, Green River.
I haven’t had Jarritos in a while, but I know I can get it locally. I ought to treat myself to some! The mandarin orange is really good. I also like a lot of the Jamaican and Hispanic pineapple-flavored sodas.
Not local, but I remember Coke had some thing in Disneyworld where you could try Coke flavors from around the world. IIRC, there was one from China that was watermelon flavord. God that stuff was delicious!
Not really a local specialty, I have a fondness for Harvey Weinhard’s Creme Soda. I am having some right now. 
I remember when I lived in Colorado sampling the splendor that is Mello Yello.
Moxiemoxiemoxiemoxiemoxie. Mmmmm, Moxie. It’s like carbonated molasses flavored with horehound and anise. It pours like a mid-grade motor oil, and the foam forms at the bottom of the glass and stays there. Well, almost. But best of all is the logo. It’s the Moxie Man (see it here: http://www.bruner.net/blog/archives/012095.shtml ). Unsmiling, vaguely threatening, even, he points at you - yes, he means you, bub - and admonishes you to drink Moxie. He doesn’t seem to be partaking of any himself at the moment, but the orange glow of health emanating like an aura from his body shows clearly that he hasn’t been neglecting this vital part of healthy living any more than he’s going to accept any excuses for your laxness in this area. Is Moxie delicious and refreshing? That’s not the point. The point is, Drink Moxie, that’s all.
I don’t suppose I could pay someone to ship me a bottle or two of Moxie, or Big Shot or anything else good? Maybe we could get a local soda trade going. I have access to a lot of Hispanic soda brands (including Jarritos) and Jamaican stuff too, if anyone is up to this.
I’ve been reading about Moxie on and off the boards for years now. Last week I finally got to try it.
The experience reminded me of nothing so much as smoking a cigarette.
The act itself was rather enjoyable. (Yes, I enjoyed smoking. That’s why I did it. I no longer seem to enjoy it, which, along with health, is a big reason I don’t do it anymore.) I rather liked the herbal-medicinal flavor of the drink. The problem was that as soon as you stopped drinking it, I got a horrible, bitter aftertaste that filled my mouth like a week-old gym-sock literally for minutes.
I could imagine that if I kept drinking the stuff, I’d get used to the stale aftertaste and stop noticing. (Just like smoking.) Eventually, I might even start to think that taste was normal and feel strange without it.
Why would I want that to happen?
You can get L&P at the New Zealand Ice Cream Company shops if you want to reminisce.
My all time favourite fizzy drink is Bundaberg Ginger Beer.
It’s not a coke, but I like lime flavored Topo Chico mineral water.