Soda Wanna Know Where We Was At?

Jeff was recently intrigued by a video he saw on YouTube about a store called the...

He decided we needed to make a pilgrimage there.

Here's the star of the YouTube video, a genuinely nice guy named John who cheerfully stood still long enough for me to snap a photo of him with my kids:


This place carries a vast selection of hard to find sodas. Regard the highly impressed look on Jeff's face:


We were there for probably an hour, perusing the sundry types of bubbly drinks.

While there, we overheard two other people tell John that they had seen his YouTube video, so apparently we weren't the only computer potatoes there. (There's such assurance in that realization.)

When Jeff finally wheeled our cart over to the cash register, I purposely stepped away, not wanting to know what the resultant cha-ching would prove to be. (Jeff bought most of it with his own "fun money".)

The final haul:

Here it is, artfully displayed on our fridge's top shelf:


This vast array of beverages inspired us to hold "The Soda Olympics". Some of the more interesting contenders were: Cucumber, Double Cola, Rose, Sarsaparilla, Mabi (made from a tree root extract), Mango, Coffee, Curiosity Cola, Pomegranate/Raspberry, Rhubarb, Peach and Blueberry. (Yes, really.)

Here, Jeff carefully pours a mint flavored soda into the crystal goblet of each judge:


Tobias scrutinizes the delicate bouquet of an orange cream:


Pinkies out. (Now that's fancy!)


Delaney clears her palate with some popcorn:


Then, after a particularly nasty sample (the Moxie, perhaps) she clears her palate by rubbing her tongue with a napkin:


We all kept tabs on the competitors by rating them 1 to 10 on index cards:

The Olympics stretched out over many days so that we could truly appreciate each discriminatory swallow.

Tobias's favorite was the "Lenin"ade. It's bottle touts, "A party in every bottle!" and "A taste worth standing in line for!" and finally, "Drink comrade! Drink! It's this or the gulag!" We're not sure what makes this lemonade soviet-style, but it amused us, nonetheless. I searched the bottle to find where it was actually bottled, but that information was suspiciously absent. Maybe we should get the KGB involved.

When the results were all tallied, it was determined that the collective winners were:

bronze...Mint Julep

silver...Orangina

and gold...


...Ironbeer, the only beverage we bought which happened to come in a can instead of a bottle. Ironically, it was also the least expensive of the entire haul. (Don't worry, Ironbeer is non-alcoholic.)

The ultimate loser was the Bitter Lemon which tasted like a porta-potty smells...yuck!!!