I love root beer.
I’ve tried zillions of them. Name brands, micro brands, even store brands from all over the USA.
Yet I’ve never had one that tasted even close to the A&W brand. Like it or hate it, you have to admit it’s flavor is unique. What is it that makes it taste “like that?”
I think it tastes a bit like vanilla.
I don’t know, but I recently discovered that if you mix one part diet A&W root beer with one part Fresca, the resulting mix has a flavor reminiscent of bubble gum. Try it.
I think the syrup was actually better at one time. The real draft A&W used to be the best. When they sold it at the old-fashioned Drive-ins, you were able to buy jugs of it there like a growler of beer. It tastes like it was a certain acidic and more “sasparilla” nuance.
It claims to have aged vanilla in it. But many root beers do so that can’t be it.
On the surface this sounds freaking gross.
But I’m still going to try it!
Bubblegum flavor is usually a mixture if wintergreen, vanilla, and citrus oil flavors (simplified here of course, as it’s a little more complex than that). Artificial root beer flavor is heavy in artificial wintergreen flavor, and A&W has a strong vanilla component. So, mixing with Fresca, which has a strong citrus oil bite could yield a drink with a flavor similarity to bubblegum.
We had an A&W drive in where I grew up in the very early 60’s and 70’s (in fact I think the place still existed until the late 90’s or beyond.). I don’t recall it tasting any different regardless of what package it came in. Although soda “from the tap” can be easily manipulated by adjusting the water supply to the bag-in-the-box syrup.
I’ll find out later. It’s after 12 and making a midnight run for a can of Fresca seems kind of g**.
You mean, you can’t tell the difference between canned, or even bottled coke, and fountain Coke? Same for Rootbeer.
I think its hightones are acidic (probably a citrus oil… maybe lime and some kind of specific acid addition?), vanilla, and a pronounced sarsparilla… moreso than others.
Is it just me or is it also one of the “sweeter” rootbeers? Maybe a bit more sugar than most?
We still have the old-fashioned drive-in and you can still buy jugs of it. Haven’t done that in a while but in my memory the jug/mug root beer was a stronger, not as sweet taste as the canned A&W root beer. I might have to do some experimenting this week.
Bit of a hijack, but since we’re talking about bubblegum and soda…the Peruvian standby Inka Kola tastes like bubblegum to me, but I think it’s trying to have (artificial) banana flavor. So, maybe artificial banana (and perhaps, to a lesser degree, the real thing) has something of that “wintergreen, vanilla, and citrus oil” melange? Or maybe not.
Been a while since I’ve had Inca Kola, but it did remind me of Juicy Fruit, a banana/gum flavor.
I might be misremembering the citrus component of bubblegum now that I think back, and it could be an ester flavor (a typical artificial banana/fruit flavor) instead… Fresca has ester components as well, which might be the contributing factor to “A&W/Fresca = bubblegum” rather than the citrus component.
Been too long since I had that flavor chemistry lab… 
While other root beers have vanilla, I think A&W has more. It always tastes like I should be drinking a float.
You should be. Mmmmmmmm. Root Beer floats.
The “draught” A&W root beer is syrup, sugar and water mixed up in a big barrel. The fact that it’s made that way makes it unique compared to other root beers.
Based on your location, I may have worked at that very A&W.
G**?
I’ve always thought A&W was kind of midway on the root beer spectrum, with Hires on the warm, broad end and stuff like Barq’s on the sharper, bitier end.
Maybe it ends in ‘gry’…