Santa Cruz Organic

The Pooj prays for good results.

(Big Lots, July 2010)

We stumbled upon this brew quite accidentally whilst scouring the not-so-local thrift store for ice cube trays. Ordinarily, looking for ice cube trays and finding root beer instead is cause for celebration, but in this case, we really kind of needed the ice cube trays, which were frustratingly absent from this store… Nevertheless, there was an un-sampled root beet within reach, so I went for it. While my focus here is primarily on bottled root beers, I was willing to branch into the canned sauce in this case because (1) again, it was there and it was fairly inexpensive for carbonated sugar water, and (2) because the missus made a good point (she tends to do that) that if my intent is to try different root beers, then this one does in fact qualify as different. It’s supposed to be an adventure, right? Of course right; thus we plow ahead.

I should preface any further comments on this particular beverage by stating that I generally steer clear of sodas that claim the “organic” label, but not for any principled reason; it’s just that organic sodas typically use organic cane juice, which while certainly tasty, tends to be a bit overpowering in the cane juice flavor. Now I should mention that I really do enjoy chewing on fresh sugar cane – like I said, cane juice is tasty, and there’s also my oft-mentioned nostalgia – we frequently bought sugar cane off of the back of a dump truck full of fresh cane when we lived in Taiwan. When it comes to root beer though, the cane juice flavor has a tendency to overshadow the actual root beer flavor in my opinion. There are definitely root beers out there that do a good balance of cane juice and root beer herbs, and those are quite frankly delicious, but I haven’t found that to be the case with the so-called organic varieties.

Thus was the case with Santa Cruz Organic Root Beer. First impression, upon cracking open a can: smells good, like root beer – this is promising. Second impression, upon tasting the beverage: hmmm, not a very strong root beer flavor – more cane juice flavor than root beer flavor, with a hint of vanilla flavor; closer to a cream soda than a root beer. Third impression, upon pouring the beverage into a glass: whoah – it’s kind of clear, which makes sense, since there’s probably no coloring added, already implied by the “organic” label (while being organic doesn’t preclude coloring; it just seemed unlikely that unnecessary ingredients would be added to something thats selling point is being organic). Fourth impression, upon drinking it from the glass (and this is the perplexing one): it doesn’t taste like root beer at all anymore...!

Strange, eh? It smells like root beer and tastes a little like root beer when imbibed from the can, but loses all root beer flavor entirely when quaffed from a glass? It’s almost like the root beer flavor came from the can itself or something. I suppose I’ll have to taste it side by side – alternating sips between the can and the glass to see if there’s a noticeable difference there. Since we bought a whole 6-pack of it, this should not be a difficult experiment to perform…

Anyways, it was worth a shot. I’ll give it a 2.