Damn Fine Root Beer Road Trip, Part 1: Triple XXX Drive-In

Behold: The largest lit Plexiglas sign in the Western United States (for reals).

(Issaquah, September 2015)

So the Missus and I were ostensibly in the Seattle area for a wedding, but as you may have already gathered from my previous 2 posts, I had ulterior motives (well, I did want to go to the wedding, too. ...honest...).  Having missed earlier opportunities to ostensibly visit family in Lafayette, IN, home of one of the last 2 remaining Triple XXX establishments, we made sure to take a drive through the (fantastic, big, majestic) woods (Douglas firs, Diane) to find the other one – which just so happens to be the only one that still has the traditional root beer barrel storefront. 

The first Triple XXX Drive-In in the Pacific Northwest actually opened further southwest in 1930, but was demolished to make way for a car dealership.  Its current home in Issaquah was built in 1968, and had traditional car-hop service until 1996, when the drive-up portion was demolished to make way for an office building.  Thankfully, the restaurant portion still remains, and its current owners – the Jose Enciso family – don’t seem to want to remove anything else to make way for anything else (source).

…and perhaps have a serious case of horror vacui…

Evidently we were seated in the Elvis corner.

A fountain barrel from days gone by – with separate spigots for syrup and soda.

Truth.

Triple the X, double the root beer, Porta the Pooj.

These days, the Encisos get their root beer syrup from the Coca-Cola Company, but I’m not entirely sure whether it’s Triple XXX syrup or just Barq’s.  I’m inclined to think the former, given that it has a more licorice-heavy flavor than Barq’s typically has.  On the whole, it has a sarsaparilla-like taste, though less vegetal, and not much of an aftertaste (although it’s a little hard to distinguish much past the lingering smell of hot grease – not a bad thing, per se, but it does dull the senses a bit).  Texture is on the thinner side as well, so it’s hard to tell whether its made with sugar or HFCS.

At the end of the day, I have no complaints (just a very full stomach).  I think I still like the bottled Triple XXX better (and I really should still try the IN version at some point for comparison), but I’m nevertheless enjoying the whole experience here.  Triple XXX Drive-In gets a low 4.

...and bonus points for commitment to the theme, even down to the picnic tables…

Triple XXX

The Pooj has a few too many.

(BevMo Pasadena, April 2011)

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.