Root Beer Field Trip: Galco's & White Rose Root Beer

 

(July 2012)

Welcome to my 100th root beer posting!

First off, disclaimer: I’ve actually had over 100 root beer varieties, so this is not quite as monumental as actually being my 100th root beer sampled. Reading Draft (or sometime thereabouts) would have probably more accurately been my 100th root beer variety, not counting the random microbrews and generic labels that I’ve had in the past, so this is really just the 100th root beer I’m writing about. And there are certainly others out in the great www, who have sampled many more root beers than I (here and here, for instance – I admire your tenacity and metabolism), so even a mere 100 is really no big whoopdedoo in the grand scheme of things. But sticking with something this long is pretty significant for me, particularly since I don’t think I’ve ever written this much about any single topic (that I was not employed to do, that is).

Being that this is, then, a momentous occasion after all, I can’t waste it on just any root beer. Thus for my 100th root beer posting, I’m paying my respects to everyone’s favorite Soda Pop Stop (certainly my favorite), Highland Park’s very own Galco’s Old World Grocery. We’ll get to Galco’s soda label in a minute, but let’s begin with some history, shall we?

This is just the international soda aisle...

Galco’s was still an Italian grocery store when owner John Nese’s family took over, having been one since it opened in 1897. It stayed just that for a long while, holding steady even during its relocation from Downtown LA to Highland Park in 1955. After a fateful exchange with a large cola conglomerate wherein the company insisted on charging him more to stock their products than they charged the chain grocer down the road, Nese decided to exclusively stock sodas from companies of similar size to his own company. He discovered smaller independent bottlers who were unable to compete with the likes of Coca-Cola or Pepsi for shelf space in larger grocers, and who would often otherwise be bought out by those larger companies and closed down simply to eliminate competition (source). Nese (who is a native Angeleno, hailing from pre-Dodger Stadium Chavez Ravine, and a fellow Trojan – Fight On!) found that giving these small businesses a place to ply their wares also gave his customers a better selection of products because he was not limited to selling the product lines of the larger companies with which he held contracts, nor was he required to sell the products in the pre-packaged quantities provided by those larger companies. By the time Nese took the store’s helm from his father in 1995, he had already established enough relationships with small bottlers and enough reputation for carrying their unique products that he transitioned the store to primarily sell soda, beer, and old fashioned candy (vestiges of the Italian market still remain in the form of the fully functioning sandwich counter at the back of the store). Today, Galco’s stocks over 550 different types of soda and nearly as many types of beer, as well as wine, spirits, and lots of the aforementioned candy (source).

Freedom of choice indeed ... by the case-load ...

A little over a year ago, Galco’s launched their own soda line under the old White Rose label. White Rose Soda was originally introduced in the 1930s by the Rose Springs Water Company, which operated out of Highland Park from around 1900 to around 1960 selling water drawn from the White Rose Spring. The White Rose Spring itself was located just off of Figueroa Street, and was sourced from the North Branch Creek which once ran behind Galco’s current location on its way to the Arroyo Seco (source). Just as it presumably did in the past, the White Rose label proudly boasts that it is “Highland Park’s own,” though the soda is actually made by Natrona, which you may recall is actually based in Pennsylvania and also produces the Red Ribbon line. But we’ll let that one slide for now because they make root beer!

The Pooj is the very picture of purity and innocence.

White Rose Root Beer is only the second soda released under the resurrected White Rose label, and was only just unveiled this past July 22nd at Galco’s 2nd Summer Soda Tasting. The event was organized in part by John Nese to raise funds to permanently reopen Highland Park’s Southwest Museum, which literally stands right up the hill from where White Rose Spring once sprung (source). A portion of the proceeds from each and every White Rose Soda sold will go towards the museum effort as well. I could fill several posts with information about the Southwest Museum, but Hector Tobar at the LA Times has already done a much better job than I ever could: READ! For our purposes here, I’ll summarize what I’ve gleaned from Mr. Tobar’s article: the Southwest Museum, founded by Highland Park dignitary Charles Lummis in 1914, is the oldest museum in Los Angeles and houses the country’s largest collection of Native American artifacts (a collection Lummis started himself) this side of the Smithsonian Institute. Over time, the Museum has fallen into disrepair and is therefore only partially open these days, hence the effort to raise funds to repair it so it can be permanently reopened. So today we’re drinking root beer for a good cause (and a local cause, too, since I live in the Highland Park area and drive past the Southwest Museum almost every day)!

The scent released from the freshly-opened bottle is herb-y and slightly licorice-y. Once in a glass, the scent steers more towards the cola side of things with some roots around the edges and some vanilla towards the back. Initially, the taste is almost cherry-ish, like a less-sweet Cheerwine with a slight medicinal bite, not unlike horehound candy, that hangs on the sides of the tongue. As the carbonation (on the larger end of the bubble-size spectrum) dies down, more vanilla comes out in the flavor. Later, there’s a sweet finish with an herb-y aftertaste that’s herb-y in the sense that it tastes like some kind of plant material (not sure what, since the ingredients only list “natural and artificial flavors”), reminiscent of loquat syrup. Finally, in tune with that plant-like elixir flavor, it leaves a menthol feeling in my mouth that stays long after the other flavors have faded, seemingly indicating some wintergreen in there somewhere.

Red Ribbon, from my recollection, did not taste like this – I would still like to do a side-by-side comparison of the two Natrona root beers to see where they differ. I’m more than a little torn as far as it comes to this particular Natrona product, however. On the one hand, I really want to like it because I really like Galco’s and I really like that sales help to re-open the Southwest Museum, not to mention the fact that White Rose is literally from my neighborhood. But on the other hand, I don’t like White Rose Root Beer enough for it to be an every-day root beer for me.

Perhaps I set my expectations too high and White Rose was therefore bound to disappoint, doomed from the start by no fault of its own. I may need to revisit White Rose at a later date to give it another shot, and will also need to try their Cream Soda. Either way, I will certainly revisit Galco’s (probably on more frequent dates than I should) and support them in that way. At the very least, I should find other ways of supporting the Southwest Museum that don’t necessarily involve drinking soda. That all having been said, White Rose Root Beer gets a high 3.