A&W Cream Soda

A&W cream soda is perfectly ‘ordinary’, not in the negative sense that is sometimes attached to that word but in the sense that it is near indistinguishable from many of the number of other brown cream sodas on the market. Smell-, colour-, and taste-wise there is nothing much to set it apart from the pack, but oh what a pack! Darcy’s recent post on Canada Dry cream soda ranked cream sodas according to colour, with green at the top and brown sitting a respectable second; I agree 100% with his rankings, and if I were to make a list of my own, ranking my favourite types of sodas, cream soda would probably be #1 or #2. So yes, A&W cream soda may be a fairly standard brown cream soda, but brown cream soda on the whole is of a high standard indeed, and this is a very very enjoyable soda.

With all of this in mind, there’s not too much I can say about A&W cream soda. The vanilla is extra-creamy, more so than most other brown cream sodas, which is 10 points in A&W’s favour; their use of high fructose corn syrup, that texture- and taste-ruining sugar replacement (which is apparently linked to some sketchy health concerns, although I’m yet to see conclusive proof of this. The sheer grossness of HFCS I have seen conclusively proved, however, by my own tongue and tastebuds), gets those hard-won points taken right back.

Nice aftertaste that turns slightly nasty after 5 seconds or so, but only slightly. Good level of carbonation, in fact when I first poured it into my glass it had a two-inch ‘head’ that slowly disappeared as I drained the glass of its liquid contents, I meant to take a photo but forgot, very cool. Contains caffeine, comes in an ugly can.

Overall a solid brown cream soda, nothing more, nothing less, nothing wrong with that.

70/100

-LC

Available at Leo's Fine Food and Wine, Kew.