As one of Southern California’s few root beer-dedicated bloggers**, I regarded it as nothing less than my solemn duty to attend Galco’s Summer Soda Tasting 4 a couple weeks ago, so advertised as The Great Root Beer Taste-Off. Were the sunny weather and free-pouring sugary beverages of a typical Galco’s Summer Soda Tasting not already reason enough to draw the masses, certainly the soda inspiring (possibly) the most variation and (possibly) the most polarizing opinions amongst the pop-pantheon would be sufficient motivation to party hearty, wouldn’t you think?
**a position that is, admittedly, self-bestowed and simply based on the fact that most of the other root beer blogs that I personally follow are based elsewhere in this great nation – that having been said, if you are also one of Southern California’s root beer-dedicated bloggers, I’m really not trying to take any more credit than I’m due, so please leave me a message in the comments so that maybe we can start a Southern California Root Beer Meet-Up Group, or something like that, or at least compare notes and run-on sentences.
Believe you me, with an infant in the house, the complications that merely getting out of the house entails needs some serious incentive to make worthwhile, so I don’t say this lightly. Clearly, infant-ed and non-infant-ed alike shared my sentiment (the former, not the latter)(well, probably the latter, too) – a volunteer at Galco’s pointed out that this was the highest turn-out to date for one of the Summer Soda Tastings. Observe:
With no fewer than 49 root beers represented – not including 6 birch beers, 7 sarsaparillas, and a sad, lonely table of 9 diet root beers (and a table inside the store serving up Jones Peanut Butter and Jelly Soda…) – it was indeed a good time. …not to mention a serious sugar high... Had even a single hot dog vendor had the foresight to set up shop on the sidewalk outside, he/she would have made a killing. As is, we needed to head into the store to grab some salty snacks, where I ran into John Nese’s doppelganger.
Mr. Nese was actually around, but understandably quite occupied, keeping order inside the store as well as keeping tasting stations stocked outside. Since there was no particular order in which we were directed to hit up the tasting stations, we decided to start with Galco’s/Highland Park’s very own White Rose.
From there, we flittered about, eventually camping out in front of the “Flavored Root Beer” table, which may or may not have had something to do with the fact that it was in the shade.
Consequently, we also ended up spending a considerable amount of time partaking of the sarsaparilla and birch beer stations immediately adjacent.
Otherwise we kept it respectable, each downing probably the equivalent of 2-3 bottles of soda, one 1.5 oz shot at a time. Here’s the full lineup:
Did I mention that this was all for a good cause (besides keeping local dentists in business)? The entire event was a fundraiser for the Friends of the Southwest Museum Coalition, who are trying to get the nearby Southwest Museum reopened on a more regular basis. Currently, the museum is operated by the Autry Museum and is only open one day a week – and only for a few hours, at that. You’ll recall that this is the same Southwest Museum that a portion of the proceeds from White Rose soda sales goes towards (there’s a little more information in my White Rose post from way back when). So even if we didn't feel so good afterwards about ingesting so much sugar, we could at least feel better that it was for the greater good of our community.
Until next year, then…
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