Hansen's Diet Root Beer

While the Pooj isn't looking, the elephant train heads to the watering hole.

(Pilfered from the Fridge-In-Law, August 2010)

Yes, I know this wouldn’t normally count in my tally since it’s both canned and diet, but since it was a root beer, I figured I should at least keep track of it…
I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it was actually decently good. There’s a fairly good initial root beer flavor, which gives way to the typical weird artificial sweetener aftertaste after a few seconds. So I suppose if one were committed enough to the cause of decently good root beer to time their sips such that you get the initial flavor just as the aftertaste is arriving, this could work. But it’s kind of like being the reoccurring bad guy on a single season of Dexter – you can sort of stay one step ahead of Dex in every episode of the season (i.e., timing the sips to get the initial root beer taste of subsequent sips to cover up the aftertaste of the previous sip), but he’ll eventually catch you and kill you in the season finale (i.e., when the can is empty and you’re out of fresh sips, and the aftertaste comes for the reckoning). Or kind of like a high-speed chase on the TV “news” – you can keep driving away from the po-po, but for goodness sakes, you’ve got 4 network news helicopters following you in addition to all the squad cars and S.W.A.T. aircraft who know where you are and where you’re going, so do you really think they won’t eventually catch up with you? Or kind of like trying to dodge a Chuck Norris roundhouse kick – you think he missed you with the steel of the toe, but that boot heel’s coming back to high-five your skull in 3, 2, OW.
OK, so it’s not quite as bad as certain death, certain tasering, or certain tattoo-to-the-temple-by-Walker-Texas-Ranger, but I wouldn’t go rushing out to the store to get more right this instant. Buuuut, if I’m in a position where a diet mass-market root beer is all that’s available to me, I certainly would not thumb my nose at the free beverage, and I would gladly choose the Hansen’s Diet Root Beer over other diet sodas.
Not quite a 3, since it’s not really better than mass-market root beers and because of the whole artificial sweetener thing, but I’ll give it a very drinkable 2.5.