Empire

The Pooj makes an obscure reference.

(Rocket Fizz Las Vegas, November 2011)

There is scant information online about Empire Bottling Works, save that the Bristol, RI company has been family owned and operated since Antonio Borges first opened shop in 1930. With that in mind, I don't really have anything else to add, so on with the root beer...! (And yes, I do realize that's the point of this page to begin with, so... yeah…)

With no accessory knowledge to cloud my perception of Empire's root beer, my introduction comes by way of an herb-y scent from the freshly-opened bottle that, while rather faint, is rather good. Poured into a glass, I wouldn't necessarily say it has a head, but there's a decent amount of bubbles that linger at least as long as a poured Coca Cola. On the whole, the flavor has a nice herb bite that's clearly root, but not bitter. It's not particularly smooth, but that's OK, since the smoother root beers also tend to be sweeter and fall into the vanilla-cream camp, neither of which characterizes this root beer. What matters is that the flavor fills both my gustatory and olfactory senses in a cloud of root-iness, then floats upward as a sweet aftertaste with a root beer candy-ish flavor, eventually settling somewhere between the roof of my mouth and my nose.  My only minor criticism is that while the flavor profile (:: the mix) is good, the overall level (:: the volume) could be dialed up a couple notches.

In keeping with the whole brevity thing then, Empire Bottling Works Root Beer is rather good, and so I'll give it a low 4.