Now you have Moxie

I want YOU  to taste my hair tonic!

Elixir! Tonic! Spunk! These are just a few of the antiquated words that come to mind when drinking Moxie. Around since 1884 and named the official soft drink of the state of Maine in 2005, Moxie has a long, colorful history that will make you ignore the fact it’s got an aftertaste strong enough to pin Lincoln Hawk in arm wrestling.

As hair tonics go, Moxie is pretty tasty. Kinda like root beer mixed with Dapper Dan pomade. Believe it or not, I kinda mean that as a compliment. Drinking Moxie makes you feel like hopping in your Model T and driving to the druggist or the town square to watch some olde timey medicine show, and with good cause — back in the day, Moxie was known as “Moxie Nerve Food,” and was said to cure everything from “softening of the brain” to “loss of manhood” (yes, I totally got that info from Wikipedia). That’s exactly the sort of marketing that could get a soft drink buried by a certain soda goliath in Atlanta. The rise of Coke eventually pushed Moxie into obscurity, leaving Moxie staffers to ponder whether they too should’ve infused their elixir with cocaine instead of styling gel.

The Verdict

If you’d like to wax nostalgic for a simpler time, when a man took his best girl to the drug store for a phosphate or something, try a bottle of Moxie if you can find one. The flavor should rate a 6, but based on the fact that, for a while at least, they convinced people that soda was good for you, I’m giving them an 8. And if you don’t like the taste, you can always put it in your hair.

The Red Scare: Cheerwine

I see Cheerwine at all the North Carolina grocery stores, but never buy it because I’m too busy buying 2-liter bottles of Diet Harris Teeter. That changed the day I had to make a presentation at a North Carolina high school. From the get-go, it looked like a soda fiasco – the vending machines were scheduled to not operate until 1 p.m., leading me to wonder how kids didn’t fail every class before lunch time (then again, maybe that’s why they brought us there in the first place).

Anyway, the vending machine had apparently been stocked by some elitist hipster douchebag, the type who despises anything enjoyed by more than five people. My options were Cheerwine, RC, or some off-brand chocolate drink. I decided to help out the local soda company and buy the Cheerwine.

I really enjoyed Cheerwine – it’s kinda like a less-syrupy Cherry Coke. I sipped on it through lunch and the afternoon, and the caffeine and sugar helped me fight through what could have been a presentation-killing carb coma.

The only problem is I worried that my mouth had turned bright red. I tried to check in the bathroom mirror, but this particular high school used polished sheets of metal instead of glass. Obviously they didn’t want to upset the vampire portion of the student body who had no reflection, so they put up mirrors where you could only see a hazy outline of yourself. For all I know my mouth was as red as a circus clown’s – bad when you’re giving a presentation. The people in the room didn’t look at me with any more confusion than the average person, so I was probably okay.

The Verdict

Cheerwine gets a 7 out of 10. I wouldn’t seek it out, but it’s a nice change of pace, or the lesser of several evils if I ever run into a non-Coke or Pepsi vending machine again.

Second opinion via Greensboring

Photo Credit: Silenceofnight on flickr

Carabao: Good for what ails you

I’ve never been a big consumer of energy drinks. Regular ol’ pop has enough caffeine for me, thanks. But how could I say no to a bottle of Carabao? I mean, it’s got a freaking skull on the label. Plus, there’s a red bird, possibly a phoenix, emblazoned on the skull’s forehead. The obvious subtext here is that Carabao will give you enough energy to master death itself. How could I resist?

The Experience

I cracked open the bottle and drank the entire thing before I got to work. It was only a 5.7 ounces, plus the brown glass bottle made it look like something I shouldn’t be drinking on the job. Carabao looks like cough syrup. It tastes like cough syrup. And after I drank it, my nose stopped running. I actually had to check out the ingredients to see if it contained NyQuil. I didn’t find anything from Vicks, but did stumble on something called Nicotinamide, which is used in various medicines. It also sounds suspiciously like nicotine. Perhaps that’s why the label says children and breastfeeding mothers should steer clear of Carabao.

The Verdict

Carabao tastes pretty good, if your favorite beverage manufacturer is Vicks. As far as the energy content is concerned, give this to corpse and it’ll have the strength to dig its way out of its grave. It’s not quite awesome enough that I’ll become a regular energy drink drinker, but it didn’t turn me off, either. So if you’re looking for a morning jolt and don’t much care about taste, or you just want to start a zombie apocalypse, Carabao is probably the drink for you. 7 out of 10

Second opinion via Screaming Energy.

No sir, I don’t lychee it: Yeo’s Lychee Drink

Yeo’s Lychee Drink. Note that it’s not soda. It’s not juice. Nor is it a cocktail, elixir, potable, libation or tonic. It’s a drink, period. Beyond that, this Yeo character isn’t letting on. The can does boast that it’s an “Authentic Asian Drink,” so at least we know it wasn’t made by a bunch of Australian poseurs or something.

I’ve never eaten a lychee. I’m not even sure how to pronounce it. Frankly, I don’t want to know. What I do know is I felt like I was drinking a can of strawberry soda after leaving it open on the back porch overnight. I’m aware this drink isn’t carbonated. Yeo’s apparently isn’t aware that it should be. Gulping Lychee Drink is like mainlining the syrup they pour on a Hawaiian ice.

The Verdict

Yeo’s Lychee Drink gets a 3 out of 10, which is dangerously close to Diet Coke territory. Strangely enough, I’ve got a feeling combining the two would yield something tastier than the sum of its parts – not that that’s any real achievement, though.

A Far East Take on an Old West Drink: Hey-Song Sarsaparilla Drink

I grew up near Sioux City, Iowa, known for plane crashes, meat packing, and the sarsaparilla that bears its name. A good sarsaparilla is a tasty change-of-pace beverage, as fun to drink as it isn’t to type. But aside from lawmen in westerns, who drinks sarsaparilla anymore? Where can you even find it?

Apparently you have to go to the soft drink craftsmen of Asia. Hey-Song Sarsaparilla Drink is a, shall I say, interesting take on this olde thyme phosphate from Taiwan’s most olde thyme soda company. Just like Cheap Trick had to make Live at Budokan before they hit it big in the states, perhaps sarsaparilla’s sojourn to the Orient is a precursor to it overtaking cola as America’s soft drink of record. More likely, Hey-Song is a shining example of why sarsaparilla had to be exiled in the first place.

A Dental Fiasco

Of all the sodas from the far east, I figured Hey-Song Sarsaparilla Drink would be a pretty safe choice. I also assumed a drink loaded with sugar wouldn’t remind me of the dentist’s office. But Hey-Song disappointed me on both counts by mixing sarsaparilla’s traditional root beer taste with the cleansing flavor of Crest mint mouthwash. Only communists could make a beverage that destroyed your teeth while tricking your brain into thinking they were getting a fluoride bath. That’s like sitting through an entire NASCAR race and not seeing a single crash.

Recycling: The Final Solution

This has nothing to do with the taste, but I must point out the unfortunate Taiwanese recycling symbol. Somehow, doing a good thing for the earth isn’t the first thing that comes to mind.

The Verdict

Well, pardner, Hey-Song Sarsaparilla Drink gets a 4 out of 10. The best I can say about it is its Listerine aftertaste reminded me to brush the hell out of my teeth after I finished.

A Recent Expedition Bears Strange Fruit

As the Soda Jerk, I scour the globe to find the most exotic flavors of sugar water available. My most recent excursion took me into the heart of the Orient, by which I mean the Silver Wok grocery store in Chapel Hill. With a bevy of strange containers before me, I returned with the four soft drinks you see before you. I omitted the fifth can I purchased once I realized I’d accidentally bought coconut milk.

Stay tuned for the exciting details of these astonishing elixirs!

Diet Pepsi Max

Ginseng! More Caffeine! Max! The folks who cooked up Diet Pepsi Max would have you believe it packs so much punch, Coca-Cola will have to reinsert cocaine into its secret recipe to keep up. With its alleged extra juice and lack of teeth-destroying sugar, I decided to give it a shot. Here are my thoughts on the total soda experience, which includes…

The Hype

First off, I love the Pepsi Max TV spots where the Dallas Cowboys’ groggy offensive coordinator botches the play call. The ensuing confusion allows the New York Football Giants to crush QB Tony Romo, just like Jessica Simpson will break his tender heart when she ditches him after the Cowboys get knocked out of the playoffs.

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is either a really good sport, or is totally cool with the public perceiving him as a meddling jerk. He swipes the hapless play-caller’s headset in exchange for twenty ounces of Pepsi’s newest concoction, which they’ll have you believe will give you the energy needed to coach Tony Romo through his impending playoff choke job. Once I saw that, I was hooked.

The Effect

I signed up for an 8 a.m. class. As on all college campuses, finding a parking spot is like looking for a five-leaf clover in the desert, so I had to get up early to take the bus. If that situation doesn’t call for extra caffeine, nothing does.

The font on the label looks kinda like the THX sound demo. I really noticed this when, after about twenty minutes, all that ginseng and caffeine made a similar whooshing noise in my skull.

The soda did its job. I wasn’t just awake. I was so keyed up the molecules in my body almost vibrate fast enough form me to walk through walls. Or just smash through them. Seriously, the entire class all I could think was, Why am I sitting here when I could be out there fighting crime?!?

The Taste

The fact that I’ve prattled on for five paragraphs about everything from TV commercials to believing I was the Incredible Hulk without once mentioning the flavor should tell you all you need to know. Diet Pepsi Max doesn’t taste bad. But if I was just worried about taste I could get the same thing from Diet Harris Teeter. And that’s two liter’s worth for eighty-nine cents, no less.

The Verdict

On a scale where Coca-Cola is a 10 and Diet Coke is a 1, I’d give Diet Pepsi Max a 6. The taste deserves only a 5, but in the end I bumped it up. It’s not every drink that gives me the strength to lift a Hyundai Accent over my head.