BevNet has a fairly positive review up of a new line of sodas with some fairly interesting flavors: Rhubarb, Lavender, Lemongrass, and Kumquat. The brand is called DRY Soda, and I only wish I could get some locally. With a mixed-case price starting at $25, plus shipping, I think I’m going to have to wait a bit before I get to try it.
I’ve actually been thinking that the people behind Snow would do a fabulous job with lavendar flavored soda.
It looks like King Kong devastating a nice area rug, but tastes much better than that sounds.
– Dara Moskowitz describing a dish at Los Ocampos at the Midtown Global Market
The East Lake St upswing continues it’s stratospheric ascent with this news in the Strib that the owner of Azia (and a few other noteworthy local restaurants) is putting in two new restaurants in the area. The former Ember’s/House of Lalibela/Molly Quin’s Irish Pub at 33rd and Lake is going to be a pan-asian place, and then he’s going to top that by putting in something called the “Manhattan Martini Lounge” at 35th and Lake. Both due before Thanksgiving, it should make for even more wonderful options for dining this fall.
I just had a real lychee fruit for the first time. I have had lychee flavored things, and various packaged lychee objects, but have never had the actual fruit. What an amazing little bundle of textures. The exterior of sharp bumps, the inner leathery skin, the meat of the fruit itself, the inner skin before the stone, and then the stone itself. A co-worker just offered one to me out of the blue and I’m really happy she did.
In the last two weeks I’ve run into something a little different at two places that I’ve been for dinner. It appears that both the new Chatterbox Pub location in Highland Park and Signature Cafe in Prospect Park are serving sodas from The Shamrock Group. So far, the cola and the root beer flavors that I have tried are pretty decent, though nothing stellar. It will be interesting to see if I seem them showing up elsewhere around town, I know the original Chatterbox Pub near my home still has Weinhart’s for their root beer.
And while I’m thinking about it, do give the Signature Cafe a try if you have the chance. It’s got a very interesting and varied menu and a staff that is… well, friendly doesn’t begin to describe it.
Gizmodo has a neat entry about “smart labels” that allow simple dating of items in the fridge. Cool idea, though I have suspicions about how well it will be picked up.
BevNet’s new BevBlog has a theory on energy drink flavors that has more than an inkling of truth to it.
I personally can’t stand any of the “energy” drinks that I’ve ever tried and basically have just given up on them entirely. Besides, they almost all have too much caffeine for any normal human, much less for those of us who have dropped it completely.
Something interesting from comparing the bottles I have on my desk right at this moment:
| Soda | OZ | Calories | Sugar |
| Berries & Cream Dr. Pepper | 20 | 250 | 65g |
| Bundaberg Australian Ginger Beer | 12.7 | 170 | 40g |
| Snow | 12 | 112.5 | 25.5 |
| White Rock Organics | 12 | 120 | 30 |
Target’s Archer Farms line of food products now has a “premium” soda available, at least in the Twin Cities market. I saw 4 flavors today at a non-SuperTarget close to work: Sarsparilla, Ginger Beer, Strawberry Creme, and Diet Peach. I picked up a 4pack of all but the Diet and should have had a chance to taste all of them by the weekend. The ingredients do list sugar instead of HFCS, so I have some hope that it might be at least drinkable and if it’s done by the same people who make their “Italian Soda” line of beverages there’s a strong chance there will be at least one good flavor in there.
So while I was filling up the fuel tank for the first time on my new-to-me 2003 VW Golf GLS TDI, I ended up having to go into the store to pay for the gas. Looks like the modern convenience of the card reader hasn’t made it to the diesel pumps yet.
Anyway, while in the store I figured that I’d take a look for anything new and lo and behold they had bottles of Berries & Cream Dr Pepper.
So how is it? Well, it’s a lot like Dr Pepper. Seriously. The base flavor is very strongly the classic Dr Pepper flavor, it’s just that they’ve added a bit of something else in there. That something else comes off as a relatively light but additional sweetness and a fairly soft vanilla finish. The Vanilla Coke and Pepsi people could learn something from the vanilla flavor Cadbury Shweppes and Co are using in this. Certainly worth a try, but nothing astonishing and new as far as I’m concerned.
Unfortunately they did not have bottles of the new “100% Natural” 7-Up. That’s something that I’m actually looking forward to trying.
