Field Trip!

This past weekend, I learned that “there’s a fine line between hobby and mental illness.” Now I’ll have to admit that I gleaned this sage statement from a souvenir sign in a gift shop in Temecula, possibly while crossing this referenced line… I say this because this past weekend’s excursion marks the farthest I have ever driven specifically to look for root beer. Granted, I was already in the Lake Elsinore area for a wedding, so I didn’t drive that far by comparison – 20 miles farther south than I would have already had to drive for the wedding, so only an additional 40 mile round trip, really. But hey, I live in Pasadena, so driving two and a half hours down to a part of the Southern California desert I’ve been avoiding (more specifically, a part of the I-15 freeway I’ve been avoiding) since I moved out to LA is no small occasion. And while I have acquired root beers in other cities and even in other states, those root beers had just been welcome highlights to trips I had to take anyways. My trip to Temecula, however, was with root beer in mind – thus my first chronicled Root Beer Field Trip!

You may recall that I’ve already written fondly about the Old Town Root Beer Company’s root beer, so you can imagine that I was quite excited to visit the Old Town Root Beer Company itself.

See, I was really there…

I’m not clear as to how long the company has been around, but I do know that owners John and Cory Montgomery make their house label root beers (three varieties so far) from a family recipe they found folded up in John’s grandmother’s family Bible. John and Cory – who are very nice, by the way – still run the shop, along with what appear to be younger generations of their family. Turns out John used to live in Pasadena, too, not too far away from where we live now!

The brew that started it all. With some friends.

According to the local visitor’s guide, John got his start in sodas through a Dr. Pepper bottling plant he owned with his family, later branching into various pursuits including a Coca-Cola bar in the Ukraine. Here’s just a smidgin’ of what has to be a couple hundred different sodas they sell in the store.

The two best things from Mansfield, OH: the Missus and Stewart’s – you probably already know which one I like better…

For vintage soda collectors, they've also got old soda bottles and mugs. I was tempted by the barrel-shaped Dad's mug on the far right...

Bottoms up.

They also sell root beer floats made with one of their signature root beers – poured straight out of the bottle, as opposed to a tap, as I first hoped. I’m not disappointed, though, since the root beer flavor was still quite good, even mixed with melty ice cream. Nice and refreshing on a hot day, so much so that it didn’t survive long enough to be photographed…

On the road again…