Doesn’t make sense because root beer flavored stuff doesn’t exist in Venezuela and it the soda tastes like medicine/tooth paste to me too
Growing in europe, I am used to sodas that are more tart than sweet.
I recently visited Canada and of course, had to try some sodas that are not available here (not without paying an arm and a leg of import fees), as well as some sodas that are available in Spain but with reformulated flavors. One of those was a Root beer brand (I think it was Mug? Mac? I have a photo somewhere). Tasted like spoiled licorice, cannot say I liked it a lot.
(Just in case you’re curious about the rest, these are the highlights)
- Cream Soda is the vilest thing I ever tried. I felt my teeth rotting just by drinking a gulp. Closest flavor was as if someone made drinkable marshmallows but felt they weren’t sweet enough.
- Canada Dry was quite decent, although is quite less spicy than Schweppes, which is the standard here (but schweppes is sold as a premium soda for cocktails, and not as a drinking soda). Grew quite fond of the brand.
- I was surprised to find that Nestea is LESS sweet in Canada than it is in Spain. I was very tempted to buy “instant nestea” packets for bringing back home.
- Coke is less tart than our local offer and a bit more sweet but not overly so. In spain it would be the flavor you find in the soda fountain but the bottled ones taste a bit different.
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The key flavor notes in root beer are vanilla and wintergreen, hence the toothpaste etc.
A good root beer will have other herbaceous flavors.
Perhaps it’s not popular in Japan, but Sarsparilla is sold in Taiwan (this is from a Taiwanese Boba Tea / Beef Noodle shop in the Chicago burbs)
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I’ve noticed that British visitors universally liken root beer to Germolene (an antiseptic ointment).
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Israelis say the same thing about root beer - “medicine,” “mouthwash” - they hate it.
I don’t know if its true but, I’ve been told if you serve someone cola that is clear (w/o the carmel coloring) people say it tastes like medicine because they are not primed for the cola flavor.
It shouldn’t be that much of a surprise given that soda started out as a medicinal.
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I grew up on Birch Beer - its sweeter than root beer.
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Is there a reaction video for Americans tasting Inca Kola? The piss-yellow Peruvian soda that tastes like bubblegum?
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It tastes like drinking something after washing my teeth. It’s a acquired taste. Some people apparently hate ammonium chloride too.
They make bäsk in Chicago?
we need an exchange program where people from Japan try root beer and people in New England try umeboshi
She claims it tastes like toothpaste
I mean, that’s literally correct for some kinds of toothpaste.
Some people think root beer is gross because it tastes like Pepsodent. I think Pepsodent is awesome because it tastes like root beer.
These days my favorite “gross” soda is chinotto.
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They should have offered them a root beer float. Vanilla ice cream covered with cold root beer is one of life’s great pleasures.
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I’ll go out on a limb and ask, like most other sodas in the high-fructose-corn-syrup era, does canned A&W actually taste like the real thing anymore? I know Coke sure doesn’t.
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The “root beer” flavor is exactly the same scent that is used for toilet cleaning products in France.
Do the same test with french people and enjoy their reactions.
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Is root beer what the rest of the world knows as ginger beer?
@frauenfelder or @orenwolf the main post is b0rk3d and looks like it is missing a video link.
nevermind… just looked again and it is fixed now. thanks.
No, not at all. Ginger beer is like very strong ginger ale.
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This is a very low alcohol (<0.5%) malt beverage similar to Kvass, correct?
You really have to grow up with that stuff to enjoy it. It’s an acquired taste.
You have to have at least three generations of family interred in some bucolic old cemetery in northern New England before you gain the ability to drink Moxie without gagging.
I like Inca Kola. I just can’t drink too much of it at once because I find the experience rather overwhelming.
And how have we gotten this far into the thread without mentioning Vimto?
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I guess we don’t have it here then. Or it’s stocked so close to Coke that I never go near it.
