The Pooj has a few too many.Triple XXX Root Beer is yet another root beer with an exciting life story (well, as exciting as any soft drink history, I suppose…). Anheuser-Busch first opened the Galveston Brewing Company in 1895, selling beer locally under the name of “Hi Grade” in oak barrels marked with three X’s. When the company started producing soda syrups in 1900, they named them after their distinctive branding, and thus XXX was born. During Prohibition, the company changed its name completely, changed its brewing equipment completely to exclusively produce soft drinks, but only slightly changed their soda brand name to Triple XXX. Later in the 1920s, Triple XXX expanded into the Southwest, and opened maybe 100 Triple XXX Thirst Station root beer drive-ins, two of which still stand today in Issaquah, WA and Lafayette, IN.
Personally, I feel that any root beer that spawned its own drive-in should be a pretty good one, but my experience thus far with Stewart’s and Frostop yielded only better-than-average results. Does Triple XXX redeem the drive-in lot?
For the most part, yes! Triple XXX has a very nice root-y flavor that’s equal parts licorice, vanilla, and molasses, with a nice wintergreen finish. It has a very good, rich scent that’s also heavy on the licorice, vanilla, and molasses which notable does not fade at all the entire time I’m drinking it. Everything is well balanced though, so I like it. My reluctance to give it a higher rating comes from what seems a heavy handed application of sugar – while the sweetness works pretty well with the sharp herb-y flavor, if it was any sweeter, it would border on being syrup-y. On the other hand, the sugar seems to smooth out the texture in the same way adding honey usually does (except as far as I can tell, there's no honey here), so maybe it's not so bad.
It’s a little hard for me to make a clear determination right now, so I’ll give Triple XXX a lower rating for the moment – I’ll definitely need to revisit it and see how it stacks up against other root beers of similar rating. That having been said, I still liked it well enough to go back for more, so for now, Triple XXX gets a very low 4.
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