Phoenix Food Blog

To go along with why Americans are so fat, www.madatoms.com presents their guide to popular fast food joints:

www.madatoms.com

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We've tried a lot of sodas here on Pop Culture, but I think this is the first time we've had a British soda. Vimto, an old-timey British pop with a "mixed fruit" flavor. Those crazy limeys love it so much they freeze this stuff in to ice pops and cook it in to candies, it seems. We weren't quite as enthused.

Big Red, in various states. We drank the 2 liter.

A trip to Texas two weeks ago reawakened a long-held love of mine: Big Red. The creamy, bubble gumesque concoction is ubiquitous in the The Lone Star State, particularly in the hallowed halls of smokey barbecue joints. We didn't have any brisket to pair with it, but I put the soda to test with our panel of tasters. Regrettably, they didn't find the Waco-made pop (the sixth best selling brand in the U.S., if you can believe it!) nearly as enjoyable as I did.

It didn't take long for Napa Valley Soda Co.'s marketing shtick to work on our tasters. "Look, it's from Napa Valley, I bet it's good," said our art director, Peter Storch, upon seeing four bottles of the stuff, purchased from Big Lots for $2. After trying the stuff, he wasn't disappointed.

As I've mentioned a few times before, our tasting panel seems to loathe super-sweet sodas. In our last review, we made them get over it to appreciate Mountain Dew Voltage, a brilliant new Pepsi product. This week, we picked up something your dentist would like: Dry Soda's Lemongrass. With 50 calories of cane sugar, it's not so much sweet as bubbly.

According to their web site, Dry Soda was started by a Seattle woman frustrated by the lack of high-end non-alcoholic beverages during her four pregnancies. So she started bubbling up Dry in her kitchen, then sold it to fine-dining restaurants. It retains that aim in the wider market -- it's $2 a bottle and not widely available.

And what did we think of it?

I'm not sure when the last time I had a Mountain Dew was, but the last time I remember enjoying one was back when the brand's Code Red flavor came out. I have vivid memories of using the stuff to wash down Flamin' Hot Cheetos while listening to The Writing's On The Wall.

The Pepsi brand has released numerous colored versions since -- LiveWire, Pitch Black or the Taco Bell exclusive Baja Blast, anyone? -- but I haven't been tempted to bite. Yet something seemed inviting about Voltage (Dew charged with Raspberry Citrus Flavor and Ginseng) when I spotted it on the shelf, so I picked up a bottle of the stuff which, it seems, won some sort of people's choice competition prior to it's release in late December. Turns out it'd get my vote, and the vote of our tasting panel, too.

While there were groans when I pulled out a neon-blue 2-liter, we were all blown away by this stuff.

Every week I bring a new soda in the break room to review for Pop Culture and every week I get the same complaints from our tasting panel: It's too sweet... I need to brush my teeth... My cavities are aching... I'm slipping in to a diabetic coma.

This week we're giving the people what they want, a soda without any refined sugar. Izze is made with 70% fruit juice, topped off with 30% seltzer water, to give it some bubbles. They sell it at Starbucks, upscale grocers, and at Target, where I got mine for $3 -- at about 75 cents for a 8.5 ounce can, this stuff is as expensive as imported beer. So is it worth it?

It seems like every product on the market nowadays has to make a nod toward either being "green" or being healthy, so it is that we get the new Cherry 7Up with antioxidants. Now, if you live in Arizona you probably don't suffer from a shortage of vitamin E, the antioxidant in this bottle, but it's always nice to give yourself a reason to feel better about slurping down 100 empty calories. So is the taste worth it?

It's easy to forget now, when there are over a dozen flavors of Coca-Cola available, but a bottled cherry cola -- as opposed to the sort of cherry colas mixed up traditionally at drugstores and diners -- was once a revolution. Like you'd probably expect, Coke came up with it, Pepsi borrowed the idea a few years later and, nearly a quarter century later, Royal Crown is finally getting in on the act, with their newish Cherry RC, which is available in limited markets, but has been popping up all over Phoenix.

So who wins this proxy battle for ultimate cola supremacy? We staged a blind taste test to find out.

As far as I knew knew up until a few weeks ago, Crush came in two flavors: Orange and Grape. Recently I was visiting my family in Ohio when I came across Pineapple, Peach, Strawberry and Tropical Punch. Shocking! Then, I did a little more research and found out that Dr Pepper Snapple actually makes quite a menagerie of flavors, including Birch Beer and Lime. What's more, according to this August article, Pepsi has signed up to start distributing Crush all over the country, so expect to see more and more of this stuff around.

I thought about doing another mass tasting, but our dedicated team of tasters quickly grows weary of too many super-sweet sodas at once, so instead I picked up a sixer of Strawberry at Wal-Mart (where else would you buy soda?) for just under $3.

And what did the team -- Jay, Jonathan, Julie, and I -- think?

As I've written before, here in Phoenix we have amazing access to Mexican sodas - not to mention a store that sells nothing but soda - making this a truly great place to explore unusual soft drinks.

Peñafiel Strawberry isn't quite an obscure soft drink, but it's not widely available stateside. I got mine at my favorite Mexican Grocer, La Tolteca, for $1.80.

Peñafiel is said to be the oldest mineral water bottling company in Mexico, at least according to Wikipedia, and they've been bottling the stuff in central Mexico since the roaring 20s. Peñafiel's Strawberry - which is, like New York Seltzer more of a soda than a Perrier-style mineral water - is a more recent innovation.

So what did the tasting team think?

Normally the tasting team and I go in to these pop culture reviews on essentially equal footing, none of us terribly familiar with the product at hand. This time I threw the tasters -- Jonathan, Jasmine, Peter and Jay -- a bit of a curve ball, serving up one of my all-time favorite sodas, Wal-mart's unbranded "Grapefruit," without telling them what it was.

As a pop-head, I'm not exaggerating when I say that one my favorite things about living in Phoenix is the availability of Mexican sodas. Mexicans are the only people who drink more soda per capita than Americans, and they have a truly amazing array of flavors: usually fruity, a little sweeter and less carbonated. In The Valley of the Sun we've got great access to them - glass bottles are no novelty here - which is why I'll be reviewing them here frequently.

Today I turn my attention to Sidral Mundet, one of Mexico's oldest and most beloved beverages. Bottled since 1902, the apple-flavored pop is said to cure stomach aches and is given to sick children to rehydrate them. I got mine at La Tolteca at Van Buren and 12th Street for $1.80.

As the company says: "Sidral Mundet, once bottled, is submitted to a pasteurization process, which consists in having the tapped bottles go thru a series of water curtains at different temperature levels, resulting in the elimination of any yeasts, fungus or bacteria from the soft drink. The beverage ends up free of any deteriorations or alterations, while keeping its refreshing flavors and nutritive qualities untouched."

So, aside from the supposed medicinal benefits, what does this soda have going for it?

By Martin Cizmar

It’s 10:45 a.m. and you’re thirsty. Do you go for a cup of coffee or a bottle soda? Either you’re drinking coffee in the middle of the say like a cop with 30 years on the force or you’re drinking soda before noon like some punk kid who got up at 6:30 to catch his school bus.

Java Pop could end this eternal dilemma with their organic, fair trade coffee soda. Unfortunately, while the idea seems good, the result is pretty unpleasant.

By Martin Cizmar

Few sodas divide like Faygo. The Detroit soda is maligned by many because it’s cheap, super sweet and associated with Insane Clown Posse-loving Juggalos. On the other hand it’s beloved because it’s cheap, super sweet, and also associated with happy Midwestern childhoods spent riding bikes to the convenience store to pick up a three-liter of Moon Mist.

This week we gave five new premium flavors of Faygo a taste. That’s right, premium, baby. Faygo’s going uptown with their new Classic line of 100% cane sugar sodas in fancy glass bottles – priced at $1.29, they’re totally unsuitable for any purpose imagined by a Juggalo. The flavors, though, are retreads of Faygo classics like Red Pop and Vanilla Crème. Here’s what our team of tasters – two Midwestern transplants with fond memories of the stuff (Jay and I) and two poor souls not blessed with our wholesome, all-American upbringings (Peter and Jasmine) – thought of them.