My Favorite Experiment. Ever.

Let me preface this with: I love cream soda. I love it. Mucho. My sweet D loves cream soda as well. I am a MAJOR fan of Henry Weinhard's Root Beer, so I figured I'd be a fan of their cream soda.

Wrong.

It tastes like bubblegum. It smells like bubblegum. I like bubblegum, but not in my cream soda.

I was at the store last night and decided to conduct a little experiment when I got home.

WalMart sells IBC.
Winco sells Henry's and Stewart's.

 We begin with Henry Weinhard's -

As you can see this beauty is sportin' a lot of foam. That doesn't necessarily mean that it has more carbonation, however. It looks good; a nice golden color. But, alas, it smells like bubblegum.

And it tastes like bubblegum. Yuck.

Carbonation was pretty good though. It had a moderate bite, which I feel is important.

I want a big bite in my Sprite, but not in my cream soda. It needs to slide down the throat.

Mmmmmm... 

 Next in line: IBC. A little darker color, no foam at all. I was worried about the carbonation level, but my worries turned out to be un-warranted. The carbonation level was slightly higher than the Henry's, but it was perfect! The taste was better than Henry's as well, but it still wasn't on the money. It had a slight chemical-mixed-with-wintergreen taste. Not as bad as it sounds, but not ideal either.

 And last, but definitely not least, we have Stewart's. I'd never tried Stewart's before. I was skeptical.

I. Was an idiot.

Stewart's was like liquid gold. The taste was perfect, the smell was perfect, the carbonation level was perfect.

The taste almost reminds me of honey. Smooth. Subtle.

Bliss in a bottle.

No chemical taste, no bubblegum taste, just sweet goodness.

Money. Big money.

You want some now, don't you?

I can't blame you.

Miscellaneous Remarks: There were several things I found interesting while I was perusing the list of ingredients on each bottle.

1. Henry's and Stewart's have  identical ingredients except for one: their flavoring agent. Henry's flavors with "pure vanilla bean extract" (surprising!) while Stewart's flavors with Quillaia Extract.

2. Henry's and Stewart's both have a preserving agent. Necessary. Understood. However, IBC has THREE preserving agents. Yuck.

So there's the tale of the cream soda folks. My personal favorite is - BY FAR - Stewart's!!!

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