Caruso's Legacy Root Beer

Ingredients: Filtered Carbonated Water, Pure Cane Sugar, Caramel Color, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Maltodextrin, Citric Acid, Sodium Benzoate (Preservative)

Smell: Wonderful sweet smell from this one. Sort of how you imagine a root beer should smell.

Head: Nothing really special here, quite average.

Flavor: One of the sweetest Root Beers I've had that uses Sugar over Corn Syrup. And I like a nice sweet Root Beer, so that 's a plus. Aftertaste has a hint of vanilla, and the bite was good.

Overall: The last Root Beer I reviewed I mentioned that it was a perfect example of doing everything right, but nothing extra. This Root Beer is the next step up from that, where it doesn't do a lot extra, but that little taste of vanilla, and just how it's a well rounded drink, makes a step above the rest. B.

Purchased from Alsip Home & Nursery

Dang! That's Good Root Beer

Ingredients: Carbonated Water, Sugar, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Caramel Color, Citric Acid, and Sodium Benzoate (Preserves Freshness)

Smell: Standard stuff here, nothing especially sweet or anything.

Head: This one wasn't bad. Not tall or anything, didn't last very long, but still not bad.

Flavor: Lot of normal stuff here. Not super sweet, but certainly not bad. Didn't taste any undertones of anything. The bite was good, the aftertaste was also not bad.

Overall: The Butterscotch version of Dang! That's Good really overpowered the Root Beer flavor, and I was hoping that the normal version would present me something really tasty. In the end Dang! That's Good is pretty average. Good stuff but nothing really special.

Purchased from Alsip Home & Nursery

Saranac Root Beer

Ingredients: Filtered Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Caramel Color, Sodium Benzoate (Preserves Freshness), Natural & Artificial Flavors, Citric Acid.

Smell: A pleasant smell, hints of vanilla.

Head: Nice and tall and long lasting. In fact it lasted through the entire drink, but wasn't so heavy that it blocked the drink either. Really kind of perfect in a way.



Flavor: This is near what I would think if as my perfect blend of smoothness and bite. Just enough of both so that it's just a pleasure to drink. Pretty sweet with hints of vanilla in the aftertaste.

Overall: As you can probably tell, I enjoyed this one. It does a lot of things right. I'm not quite giving it an A, because it blow my expectations away, but this is going to be one I point to that just does everything a good a Root Beer should do perfectly. B, Above average for sure.

Purchased from Alsip Home & Nursery

Rat Bastard Root Beer

Ingredients: Carbonated Water, Cane Sugar, Molasses, Citric Acid, Caramel Color, Caffeine, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Herbal Blend (American, Siberian, & Korean Ginseng; Jasmine; Clove; Dong Quai - Angelica; Skullcap (Mud Dog Weed); African Capsicum; Ginko Biloba; Gotu Kola; Goldenseal; Echinacea; Reishi & Shitake & Cordyceps), Sodium Benzoate (to preserve freshness).

Smell: For something so complex as far as ingredients, I really thought I would get a lot from the scent. In actuality, I didn't really find much out of the ordinary sassafras flavor.

Head: As you can see, it's fairly impressive. It shrinks quite a bit, but there's a nice short froth on top for most of the drink.

Flavor: Surprisingly not as "weird" as I expected. Very smooth, with not really any bite at all. There definitely flavors and hints of flavors in the background, but they weren't the usual types like Vanilla or Anise. Almost more fruity, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. And as you can see with a ingredient list like that you can see how certain flavors could get lost. But the aftertaste was fairly normal and pleasant.

Overall: I'll be honest, if this one had a little bit more bite I would have really liked it more. I just can't quite give this a B, like I was originally thinking. It's unique enough, but without any kind of kick to it (and considering it's caffeinated and has ginseng it really should!) it's too tame. But not bad at all. Solid C.

Edit: I've gone back and thought about this one, and my mind's really done a 180 on this one. It lacked bite, it had odd flavors in it. I'm thinking I found the uniqueness of it to be charming, but it really ended up making it pretty bad. This one's getting a D. Sorry for the momentary lapse in judgement.

Purchased from Alsip Home & Nursery

AJ Stephans Root Beer

Ingredients: Pure Carbonated Water, Cane Sugar, Flavor, Caramel Color, Sodium Benzoate as Preservative.

Smell: Nothing really out of the ordinary here. If anything, maybe a little less sweet smelling than average.

Head: As you can see, it's a pretty standard sized top, not very long lasting at all, basically gone after your first drink.

Flavor: A good standard flavor here. Not trying anything new, and had a really enjoyable bite. The aftertaste is pure sassafras.

Overall: Not bad at, but also not breaking any new boundaries either. I've had worse, I've had better, so this gets a solid C.

 

Purchased from Alsip Home & Nursery