Reply To: JoCoJollyGoodShoAGoGo – The UK Tour
It’s interesting what flavors become near and dear to people’s hearts. When I’ve visited the UK, I was always wild about Ribena blackcurrant drink, which you could get in those little juice boxes at train stations and so on. Here in the US, you can find very expensive bottles of the concentrated Ribena, but I find mixing it is a bit hit or miss — not the wonderful fruity vitamin C experience that the juice box on a train platform is for me.
Root beer and cola drinks are not all that different — the core flavor of root beer is that aromatic sassafras tang, which is a bit gingery with a hint of the same kind of round, full-bodied flavor of good licorice. But the other elements are similar to cola drinks, which are basically a mixture of citrus, vanilla, and what they refer to as “brown spices” — basically nutmeg, cloves, and allspice, as I understand.
I prefer Coca-Cola, which has more cloves than Pepsi. People who prefer Pepsi tend to like the freshness of the citrus, which is stronger in it. But poorly conceived copycat colas are no better than crappy root beer — both are sort of bland and samey-samey.