By OWEN MORRIS
Don't ask why I started thinking about old-timey sodas, OK? I just did. For some reason, I started wondering about the difference between ginger beer and ginger ale, between sarsaparilla and root beer, between birch beer and root beer, between sarsaparilla and birch beer...
It's my job, after all, so a taste test was in order.
Actually, it was more like two taste tests, since ginger ale and ginger beer can be put into one category of soft drinks while sarsaparilla and birch beer are cousins of the root beer category. Sarsaparilla is the Finkel to root beer's Einhorn; they're essentially the same thing and both are primarily flavored with sassafras or an artificial version of sassafras. Sarsaparilla derives its difference from the fact it includes the ingredient (wait for it) sarsaparilla, which is supposed to taste a little different. In reality, most people can't tell.
Birch beer doesn't have the same ingredients as root beer (nor does it contain any alcohol) but it tastes a lot like root beer. It's just made with birch root instead of sassafras.
Birch beer and sarsaparilla are much harder to find than root beer. After searching four stores (Whole Foods, Hy-Vee, Price Chopper, Dean and Deluca) I was only able to find Lost Trail Sarsaparilla. Finally, at Brookside Market, I found one of each: Sioux City Sarsaparilla and Boylan's Birch Beer.
Back in the official Fat City tasting room, everyone liked the Lost Trail sarsaparilla, calling it "great smelling" and "really complex" but no one could pinpoint how it was different from Lost Trail's root beer.
Later, I called Lost Trail to see what the difference was. "Root beer and sarsaparilla are pretty much the same," said Shauna, the woman who answered the phone. "Our sarsaparilla has more essence of licorice to it."
Sioux City sarsaparilla, on the other hand, didn't have much kick or licorice flavor to it. "Tastes like a bland root beer," said one coworker. Overall, it failed to make an impression with people beyond, "Are you sure this isn't Barq's?"
The same could be said about Boylan's Birch's Beer, which easily won the coolest bottle contest but also did not distinguish itself from root beer. "Not birchy enough," one of the tasters said. Nobody disagreed. I thought it tasted like a really good root beer but in a blind-contest against other root beers, I would never have been able to tell that it was made with birch instead of sassafras.
Overall, everyone felt slightly disappointed. It's not that any of these sodas were bad, it's just that none were that different from the root beer testing conducted a while ago.
On Monday, we'll try ginger ale! Ginger beer! Ginger from Gilligan's Island!
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I'm looking forward to the ginger beer tasting. The Moscow Mule is my favorite cocktail so finding decent ginger beer in KC is somewhat of a quest for me. My favorite is Stewart's, but Cock and Bull is the only one available at my local market. I'm interested in seeing what you're able to find.
Don't forget Stewart's Birch Beer and their excellent Ginger Beer. Stewart's Ginger beer + Old Overholt Rye is one of my favorite old skool highballs.
A giraffe walks into a bar and says 'Drink up kids - the highballs are on me!'
Should be able to find these at local grocery stores
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