RootJack
/The folks at RootJack told the folks at ThirstMonger to tell me to drink RootJack without ice at an extremely cold temperature…purple monkey dishwasher. I’m pretty sure the part about the purple monkey dishwasher was something added along the line, but needless to say I was quite pleased to see a beverage company tell me to stay away from ice. So for a week this bottle of RootJack, Orange Flavored Root Beer, sat at the back of my fridge chilling. Everytime I’d open the door I’d want to reach in and drink it, but I couldn’t… I must wait. How does one keep oneself from drinking such an ususual product? Orange flavored Root Beer, I’d never heard of such a thing, but my mind tells me it should work. Looking at the label I’m happy to see that RootJack is sweetened with sugar and also contains a bit of guarana seed extract for energy. This fun hybrid of flavors also has 100% of the vitamin C I need in a day, to fight scurvy of course. With that said, it’s time for me to crack open this bottle and set sail for nowheres in particulars.
The scent that rises from the depths of Davy Jones locker is root beer heavy with a hint of the orange promised on the front of the bottle. Do you know what a pirate’s favorite letter is? You probably think it’s RRRRRRR, but he truly lives for the C. Moving on.
TWist is better known at the Dread Pirate Roberts.
That is super bizarre. Wow. The first few glugs were just straight root beer, but then the citrus took hold of my taste buds and punched them square in the jaw. The hint of orange the aroma spoke about was just the tip of the krackens tentacle. I thought that RootJack would be root beer with a hint of orange. I thought wrong as each sip starts off like calm day at sea; just enjoying a root beer with my swabbies, then the orange whale throws itself on board looking for Ahab. It’s really confusing for my mouth and brain. Each is frantically trying to figure out if it’s ok with this mixture of worlds.
The sweetness level of RootJack is just right as I would have no problem drinking this with a meal. While the flavor is wild, I still feel like it could pair well with your standard fare of hamburgers and hotdogs without taking away anything from them. I’m also seeing why they wanted me to drink this cold. The orange flavor could come off as offending to some if this was room temperature. Even the bottle tells you to “Serve Cold”. When’s the last time you saw another soda tell you the obvious?
As the soda bottle empties the orange flavor becomes a bit more bitter, but not enough to turn me away from finishing it off. Now that I have a proper place to put my message written on parchment, I’ll give you my final thoughts. RootJack is truly a unique beverage from start to finish. The mixture of two common flavors may confuse the mind to the point of not knowing if what you’re ingesting is something you like or not, but once you get your mind right you’ll find you wish you had another. I’ve gotta hand it to RootJack for taking a chance and setting themselves apart from the rest of the sodas out there. The flavor combo was a little too combative for my tastes, but I still want to recommend that you buy multiples if just for giving some to your friends.
~A
