Oh, I love that stuff, but can’t find it anywhere here! Perfect for shandies, which I love.
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All root beer tastes like Germolene to me.
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I want to mention how weird it is up here in the northwest to be in a grocery store and see a “pop” aisle.
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Do you ever make floats with it? In distant times I would go to Howard Johnson’s and get a root beer float with coffee ice cream. Perfect combination.
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I had an Inca Kola in Peru. Just unbearably sweet to my taste, but I almost never drink pop. I may have had a Coke in the last two years. If I’m having lunch at a restaurant and don’t feel like a beer, I’ll have a club soda, which doesn’t clash with the food.
I did enjoy Orangina in Europe, even though I’m not sure I’m in their target demographic.
Ah, Vernor’s. The ginger ale of my youth. I hadn’t seen it for years, then ran across it in New Brunswick in the '90’s. A quick google shows me that it’s still around. Apparently it’s older than Coca-cola, produced since 1880.
I would definitely try a rhubarb pop. I imagine it’s not as cloyingly sweet as many others.
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I tend to fall in love with local, impossible-to-get-outside-of-the-country beverages when I travel. In Scotland, Irn-Bru (“It’s made from girders!”). In England, Lucozade. And when I was in Switzerland, I drank tons of Rivella, which tastes like a very light, refreshing, not-too-sweet ginger ale. They briefly tried to bring it to the states once, but I guess “it’s made from lactose sugar!” wasn’t a big selling point for Americans.
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No time like the present to try something new. Thanks for the suggestion.
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Orangina is everywhere in Canada. Easier to find than verners!
Side note: if you tweet about Orangina they will reply. Not @ them just about them. Their twitter account is on point.
As i found out one day tweeting about white trash sangria aka red wine + orangina. 
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I had to look that up. Never heard of Germolene.
But in my experience, most Europeans don’t like root beer, and cannot fathom why Americans do. At least, those root beers that taste somewhat like the consensus “root beer” flavor. Root beer has no particularly standardized ingredients or even flavor profile, and different brands can vary wildly in taste, depending on if they emphasize vanilla, molasses, sassafras, anise, caramel, or apparently essence of stinging nettle in their recipe. The hard candy known as “root beer barrels” is nasty, and tastes like Dad’s or Hires root beer. I think of A&W as the standard baseline root beer flavor. Barq’s isn’t really a “real” root beer. For one thing, unlike most root beers, Barq’s has caffeine. Also:
For many decades Barq’s was not marketed as a “root beer.” This was in part a desire to avoid legal conflict with the Hires Root Beer company, which was attempting to claim a trademark on the term “root beer.” It was also due to differences from other root beers at the time. The formulation was sarsaparilla based, contained less sugar, had a higher carbonation, and less of a foamy head than other brands.
Anyway, I’ve tasted a few root beers that had a particularly medicinal flavor, but when it comes to brands like Weinhard’s, A&W, IBC, Stewart’s, Frostie, Dog-n-Suds, or any of the other creamy vanilla-y ones, they all taste like a sweet dessert treat to me.
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I recall some modern art (the abstract expressionists) documentary where the American artist was introducing all the Europeans to NY cuisine… They didn’t care for Coke, but soon realized that hot dogs don’t go well with red wine.
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So good for healthy!
As for Vernor’s,
It is a Michigan product, and when I lived in the upper Midwest I knew lots of Michiganders who were obsessed with the stuff. I find it undrinkable, but used to pretend to admire it for their sake.
@JemmieDuffs and @Melizmatic, POG is pretty much the go-to soda hereabouts. Any time we threw a party for the kids we’d need to stock a couple of cases of the stuff. Even now the fridge has several cans of this in the back:
though the POG in cartons from the local dairy is better.
ETA: I just noticed, no cream soda on this thread?
For that matter, where’s the discussion of phosphates and egg creams?
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Celery Soda FTW!
At a closeout store I once got some cucumber soda - I think there idea was it would be a mixer (like Ale81 or Mountain Dew, originally). It was damn nice all by itself.
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Before the tot discovered Ramune, I’d buy Hawaiian Sun Pass-O-Guava when it was on special.
I used to make egg creams at home with Fox’s U-Bet Syrup.
Phosphates I’ve had only in Missouri and South Dakota.
However, a new soda fountain offering both egg creams and cherry phosphates has opened up downtown where I live. 
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I’ve had this one, which was oddly pleasant:
For pure this is awful/delicious/can’t stop myself I’ll go for Vietnamese salty lemon soda.
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They still make that? I’d kill for some U-Bet…even better, some Bosco. (Fun fact: the “blood” in the Psycho shower scene is Bosco syrup. Yum!) All I ever see around here is Hershey’s, Torani, and Ghirardelli. No good for a proper chocolate soda drink.
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The Pop Shoppe
In my youth we would regularly drink grape, orange, cola, and my favourite, Lime Ricky! My little one bought a six-pack on our recent excursion to Burnaby, B.C. but we’ve bought bottles a mere 22 km from home.
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One my previous bosses would give us Materva, and call it “liquid crack”.
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Living in Tijuana, there’s a lot of Coke here in the can or bottle (aka Mexican Coke), so I drink it on occasion when I want caffeine.
My daily drink, however, is this:
Interesting that Jarritos has been completely eclipsed by Coke and Pepsi products here.
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Squirt is probably my favorite thing out of the Coke/Pepsi stable.
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Just so you both know, if you like Squirt (I do too) you will definitely like Ting.
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