Few soda companies can be considered as influential as Coca-Cola. In some parts of the country if you order a “coke” they immediately give you a Coca-Cola without asking. With a brand name like Coca-Cola, and such a distinctive flavor, how can I be pitting two bottles against each other? The sweeteners, of course! The Coca-Cola sold in the United States is made with that ever-present sweetener, High Fructose Corn Syrup, otherwise known as “HFCS”. There are, however, certain places where the more traditional cane sugar is preferred.

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My experience with diet sodas is extremely limited, involving Diet Coca-Cola and Diet Dr. Pepper when I was a kid. I remember them having a very strong less than pleasing aftertaste. Introduced fairly recently, in 2009, Blue Sky Free is a diet label under the Blue Sky brand owned Hansen Natural. This may have just been a fluke but, my first attempt at opening it failed. The can was extremely difficult to get my finger under the pull tab. This was the same for every can in the six pack. I had to use my keys to get that initial opening.

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Red Rock has rather long history, so it surprised me that I’ve never heard of it until now. Started in 1885 by Lee Hagan and G. T. Dodd in Atlanta, Georgia, the Red Rock Company was one the the earliest soda manufactures to arrive on the scene. The ginger ale and cola was very popular up until 1960s, so much so, as to be the only product endorsed by Babe Ruth, which much of the memorabilia shows. Unfortunately in the mid 1950s the company began to decline and by the 60s the company had gone under. Recently it has, however,  been acquired by Sensient Technologies of Indianapolis and is now available online.
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While a lot of soda makers turned to pure cane sugar in lieu of high fructose corn syrup, only Oogave skipped over cane sugar in favor of organic agave nectar.

Now this is what I want in a natural and organic soda. Containing just carbonated water, organic agave nectar, citric acid and some natural flavors, about the only more natural drink would be water itself. Esteban’s Cola has just one more ingredient added to that list: caffeine.

Agave nectar is a natural sweetener that comes from the Agave plant, related to the american aloe plant. (more…)

Virgil’s, a company that strives to create hand crafted sodas bring in all natural ingredients from around the world to their brewery. These sodas are actually brewed with yeast yielding a more natural carbonation instead of the forced mechanical carbonated sodas offered by other companies. When brewing soda the yeast is allowed to ferment, but is chilled immediately when the drink is carbonated and it is not allowed to fully ferment like alcohol.

Real Cola is their take on the standard cola. When I took the first drink I was trying to place the taste, it had a faint cream soda feel to it. I then noticed that the list of ingredients included vanilla, along with some other oils and spices like cinnamon and nutmeg.

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