"root beer" news and stories

Down in Louisiana, there's a bit of a brawl over root beer. The great-grandchild of the founder of Barq's root beer, the self-described dark cola with a bite (check the razor-sharp jaws on the can-headed dog of a mascot), sued Coca-Cola last month over shares he says the giant does not legally own, reported the Times-Picayune, Sunday.

According to the claim, Coca-Cola "did not have the legal right to purchase one-third of the Barq's company when its acquisition was made in 1995, because that portion belonged to [Arthur Louis] Robinson, who never agreed to turn it over despite signed contracts to the contrary," the Times-Picayune states.

Confused? Basically, the claim seeks to overturn the agreement Robinson signed in 1971, which handed his portion (an inheritance), over to his sisters.

Happy National Root Beer Float Day!

A combination of root beer, vanilla ice cream and the fluffy froth they create, root beer floats have been an American tradition since they first started appearing in the late 1800s, shortly after the root-heavy soda was first produced in 1880. According to lore, the float was created by Frank Wisner of Cripple Creek, Colorado, who claims to have been inspired by the snow-capped top of nearby Cow Mountain to plop a scoop of vanilla ice cream in the top of his root beer. The concoction was later dubbed "black cow" or "brown cow" by the town's children.

There's really nothing to making your own root beer float, but you can purchase it at numerous fast-food places like Sonic or A&W. But if you crave something beyond the traditional beverage, you can make root beer float granitas with the aid of your freezer. For solid desserts, try Smitten Kitchen's chocolaty root beer float cupcakes or adding root beer to white cake mix for a fluffy root beer cake.

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If you're a fan of flavored vodkas and can stand a little fun being poked at you, I recommend this post from the A.V.Club. They reviewed three new flavors of vodka from Three Olives brand, and it's pretty amusing.

The flavors in question are tomato, root beer, and triple shot espresso. Not being a huge vodka fan in the first place, I found this review ,um, not too helpful, but entertaining. In the name of humor, they were a little homophobic, but I tried to remember to take it with a grain of salt.

Apparently, the tomato flavor was the least popular, which sounds reasonable to me. Can anyone find a reason for tomato flavored vodka? It didn't even get great reviews with bloody mary mix. The root beer flavor was deemed "all right', but apparently it went well in a root beer float. The triple shot espresso was by far the favorite. A.V.club also tried it with a Starbucks Mocha Frappuccino to raves.

If you have your own personal review of these or any flavored vodkas I'd love to read it. Maybe it'd inspire me to try vodka more often.

Though I drank a lot of root beer years ago, these days all of my soda needs are taken up by Diet Coke and Pepsi (yes, I have someone learned to love both of them). But icy cold root beer can hit the spot on a warm day. I have to admit I've never had it with alcohol involved.

But AOL Food has the recipe (from DrinksTV) for Hard Root Beer, which is basically 8 ounces of root beer and 2 ounces of spiced rum. Pretty simple and delicious-sounding (unless, of course, you don't like root beer and/or rum, I guess). Some people, however, think the amount of rum should be kicked up a notch. This one calls for some experimentation.

I don't actually drink a whole lot of soda, so when I indulge in a bottle of carbonated sugar-y syrup, I want it to be good. I want it to be as bubbly and flavorful as possible, because I sometimes go months between tastes. I was excited to receive this sample pack of Thomas Kemper, mostly because they've recently switched to sweetening their sodas with cane sugar (down with high fructose corn syrup) so there isn't as much guilt in drinking this beverage as with the conventional stuff.

On first taste, the root beer flavor was everything I look for in a soda. Fizzy, strongly flavored and creamy, I was ready to keep on drinking it. However, I was really disappointed by the other two flavors (and I hate saying this, since I really do like the Thomas Kemper company). The Black Cherry lands on the wrong side of the cough syrup divide and the Ginger Ale just doesn't have enough punch. My boyfriend was willing to finish the bottle of Black Cherry, but neither one of us wanted to kill the Ginger Ale. It was sort of disappointing.

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