Question: Where to Buy Boylan’s Soda in Michigan?
Answer: Quite a few places carry Boylan Soda in Michigan. They don’t all carry the same flavors, it depends on the store. Whole Foods for example only carries the flavors that do not contain sodium benzoate. Here is my list:
Busch’s (they recently started carrying single 16 oz glass bottles)
Meijer
Nino Salvaggio
Whole Foods Market (flavors without sodium benzoate)
Plum Market
Cost Plus World Market
The Produce Station
Hiller’s
One of the old fashioned sodas, that I recently purchased from Cost Plus World Market, was Pig Iron Cola. The 12oz glass bottle, with a scary looking gray pig on it, gives a website to visit. So I learned that Pig Iron BBQ is a restaurant in Seattle, Washington. It’s a BBQ lovers paradise, that just happens to be into old fashioned soda pop. You can go there and wash down your pulled pork and cole slaw with a number of old fashioned drinks including Bubble Up, Orange Crush, and Grape Nehi, just to name a few.
The Pig Iron Cola is bottled by Orca Beverage Soda works, and is made from pure cane sugar.
This bottle was drank by my wife, so here is her opinion on the flavor:
When it comes to cola, this one is more Coke than Pepsi. But you would have to drink a 6-pack of Coke to get the satisfaction you get from one bottle of Pig Iron. It has a rich, dark flavor and just the right amount of carbonation. Great to wash down your favorite salty snack with.
I recently purchased a bottle of Old Town Root Beer Company root beer at Cost Plus World Market. I attempted to find some information about the company, but the website listed on the bottle did not work. The bottle says that it was brewed and bottled by the Old Town Rootbeer Co. and then lists the followings cities: San Diego, Barstow, Chicago, Branson, and a city near you! I did find that there is a small store in the Old Town section of San Diego that sells all sorts of root beer including this one, which you can get fresh out of the tap. I could not find anything about them having a store in Chicago, which is the closet city to me listed on the bottle.
Now for the the ingredients, we got carbonated water, cane sugar, honey, natural and other flavors, sodium benozate, phosphroic acid, real vanilla. I like how they used the word “other” in describing the flavor. Is “other” another word for artificial?
I like this root beer, but I didn’t love it. It tastes better than the mass produced root beers like A&W’s and the various store brands, but it didn’t taste better than premium root beers like a Frostop or Gale’s. It did not have much of a foamy head, which is ironic because of the huge foam on the mug that appears on the bottle’s label. I would be curious what it would taste like straight out of the tap, but it would appear I would have to go to California for that.
This past week I found a sale at Cost Plus World Market on vintage sodas. One of them was NuGrape. NuGrape was first bottled back in 1921. The producers formed the National NuGrape Company. Since then several different companies have held the NuGrape license. It is now bottled under the control of Big Red Ltd, the makers of the Big Red line of drinks. NuGrape is sweetened with pure cane sugar. I picked it up in a 12 oz glass bottle. If you visit NuGrape.com, you will see the drink with a modern look in an aluminum can.
For years, my number one grape flavored beverage was the one made by a company from my very own state of Michigan, Faygo. It pains me slightly to say this, but sorry Faygo, NuGrape has you beat. This is the most pure tasting grape soda pop I have ever had. It has the right amount of carbonation. It’s a shame you don’t find this at every mega mart, right next to the Sprites, Dr. Peppers, and Cokes of the world. I hope Cost Plus keeps these in stock for a long time. It is truly “a flavor you can’t forget”.
Have you been looking at where to find some classic soda from when your youth? Well I stopped into Cost Plus World Market, the other night, and found they were having a sale on classic or vintage soda pop. You could get 6, 12 ounce glass bottles for $6. The normal price of each bottle is $1.29. There were many choices to choose from. Here is what I picked up (there are still more choices beyond what I got).
NuGrape
Old Town Root Beer Co. Root Beer
Bubble Up
Boylan Orange
Zuberfizz Key Lime Cream Soda (they also had a 8 pack of 4 Zuberfizz flavors (2 of each one) for I think $6.99)
Pig Iron Cola
All of these carbonated delights were sweetened with pure cane sugar. I am not sure how long the sale last for but if you are looking to relive memories of carbonated refreshment from your youth, or your looking to try a blast from the past for the first time, head over to your nearest Cost Plus World Market store.
This is part of a series of posts on juices and unique drinks that I have come across. Everyone knows the Pepsis and Cokes of this world and many sites cover the wines and beers, but I am bringing to you the rest of the beverage world
I was browsing through different soda pop selections at Cost Plus World Market and I came upon a unique flavor – chocolate! This soda from the Zuberfizz line from the Durango Soda Company (out of Durango, Colorado) comes caffeine free and sweetened by pure cane sugar. It has the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory logo on it, so I assume you can find it at their chocolate stores. It smells like chocolate, my almost 2 year old daughter enjoyed smelling while I drank it.
Drinking this is like drinking a carbonated Tootsie Roll (which is good or bad depending on your opinion of Tootise Rolls). It has an aritifical chocolate taste, that isn’t too bad. It’s not something that goes with every meal, more of an after dinner or snack drink.
This is part of a series of posts on juices and unique drinks that I have come across. Everyone knows the Pepsis and Cokes of this world and many sites cover the wines and beers, but I am bringing to you the rest of the beverage world
This blue cream soda by Frostie was one of several Christmas soda pops available at Cost Plus World Market. The biggest question I had was flavor was blue. Was the color just blue? I have had red cream sodas that really just tasted like the regular cream soda. Looking at the bottle didn’t give me an answer as all you see is a picture of a sundae with whipped cream and cherry on top in a blue glass. So after I tasted the drink I concluded that the blue wasn’t just a color additive but a blueberry flavoring.
I liked the creamy blueberry taste of this pop. It had the right amount of carbonation and the flavor was clear, unlike the previously mentioned store brand red cream soda. I am looking forward to grabbing the Frostie flavors again next Christmas (hope they have them again at Cost Plus!).
This is part of a series of posts on juices and unique drinks that I have come across. Everyone knows the Pepsis and Cokes of this world and many sites cover the wines and beers, but I am bringing to you the rest of the beverage world
I like to try unique soda pop flavors and this one would is definitely unique. Can’t say I have seen another cherry limeade soda. This was just one of the Frostie flavors available as part of a Christmas special at Cost Plus World Market. When I went to pick up this flavor, that were all out but my wife found one when she went and I got this bottle in my stocking on Christmas morning.
The biggest question I had about this drink was whether or not it would truly have the taste of both cherry and lime. I can answer that question now with an astounding YES! They managed to get a perfect balance between cherry and limeade with the right amount of carbonation. Anyone that is a fan of cherry limeade, needs to try this soda pop. I hope I can find it again next Christmas.
This is part of a series of posts on juices and unique drinks that I have come across. Everyone knows the Pepsis and Cokes of this world and many sites cover the wines and beers, but I am bringing to you the rest of the beverage world
Since 1939, Frostie soda pops have been on the market. They recently changed distributors to Intrastate Distributors Inc. in Detroit, MI. Frostie belongs to the Orca Beverage series of nostalgic drinks. I found several flavors at my local Cost Plus World Market. They encouraged you to buy several of them to form your own 6 pack as a great Christmas gift. The first flavor I tried was their orange soda. It had an orange tang that you usually don’t find in orange carbonated drinks. It was made with pure cane sugar instead of corn syrup and is caffeine, which I like.
It was unique among orange soda pop. It’s not my favorite but I wouldn’t mind having it again.
This is part of a series of posts on juices and unique drinks that I have come across. Everyone knows the Pepsis and Cokes of this world and many sites cover the wines and beers, but I am bringing to you the rest of the beverage world
This is one of several unique carbonated drinks that I found on a trip to Cost Plus World Market. It was bottled by Orca Beverages, who make a wide range of nostaglic and gourment sodas. This was is sweetended with pure cane sugar. It comes in a glass bottle and claims to be a “vintage soda”. This soda pop differs from most carbonated drinks is that it says it contains dark sweet cherry extract instead of just artificial or natural flavors. It has an authentic cherry taste, it doesn’t taste like that nasty cough syrup you had as a kid.
It has the best cherry flavor of any dark cherry flavored drink I have had. I liked it even better after it has been opened for a day.
