5/20/05 | Generic Brand Soda
[ Currently Eating: Toast ]
So the situation is that Memorial Day is rolling around and you’re inviting a bunch of so-called friends and family over for some BBQ grub. Getting your grocery list ready, you decide to pick up some soda for the masses. Oh sure, it’d be much cheaper to just mix up a big batch of lemonade or fruit punch. But there’s always some naysayer in the bunch who wants a dose of real carbonated, teeth melting sodypop. You don’t want to spend a lot of money, so what should you buy to please that party pooper?
If you know me, I’m always up for a little “generic brand” experimentation. At the supermarket this past week, lured by the cheap prices and the nostalgia factor (I have good memories of drinking Shasta black cherry soda when I was a kid), I picked up this $0.69 two liter bottle of Albertson’s Black Cherry Soda.
I’ve tried generic brand soda before (I think Ralph’s is called “Max”?) but mostly the lemon-lime variety which isn’t so bad, and cola which IS very bad. I usually don’t get the “strange” flavors like this time. Interestingly, I think Albertson’s has a “knockoff” of Mountain Dew called “Mountain Wave” or something that I was also tempted to buy. Just for grins.
So anyway, the major problem that I have with the fakey generic sodas is that the sweetness is inversely proportional to the price. This goes doubly for fruit flavors like strawberry, pineapple-orange and black cherry soda. The kid in me says hooray, but in reality it’s like drinking berry pie filling.
I guess this is exacerbated by the fact that generic soda seems to go flat extremely fast. And if you’ve ever had flat fruit soda you’ll notice that it’s like drinking cotton candy syrup. Weird how it’s not as noticeable when fizzy. In a side by side test with a two liter bottle of Coke, the Albertson bottle’s carbonation died almost a whole day sooner. There actually doesn’t seem to be that much carbonation to start with or something. Fewer bubbles when poured.
The taste of the soda was artificial, to say the least. I don’t expect Black Cherry soda to taste like black cherries, but this tasted like Dimetapp mixed with Dr. Pepper. Ugh. I actually had to toss about 1/2 the bottle because it went flat before I could drink it all, which is a rarity for me.
I wouldn’t try to save the extra 10 to 25 cents on supermarket generic brand soda. There’s a point at which pure Cheap Eats theory becomes not worth it, and this is especially true of generic brands. Sometimes you win, sometimes you don’t. In this case, you’re better off waiting for the sales that inevitably crop up near the summer holidays to satisfy your soda fix. I think 2 liter bottles of name brand soda drop to near 80 cents or even 75 when the summer specials are running.
Cheap Eats Score: 5/10
May 23rd, 2005 at 2:14 pm
This is too funny…mostly because it’s ridiculously true. I’ve had my fair share of the “generic” soda and I can’t agree more that within a day of it being open the taste is worse than a 2 day soda left open and outside. Bleck! Even cold you have to wonder if it was shaken up for 6 hours opened and closed just so that when you do open it for the first time the soda fizz is on it’s last leg. But then again there’s just something about “generic” soda (like Shasta) gone wrong that just brings you back.
May 23rd, 2005 at 2:48 pm
Belinda - Yeah. I wasn’t sure if it was just my imagination or something I actually did that made the soda go flat. I thought maybe I left it open for too long on the counter or something. I don’t remember generic brand soda going flat THAT fast.. weird.
Incidently, I keep hearing this tip about capping 2 liter bottles of soda… something about if you cap it loosely (with the bottle upright in the fridge of course!) that it will lose its carbonation slower than if the cap is screwed on super tightly. But I always chalked that up to an urban legend. I know crap about chemistry, so I don’t know how that could be possible….
May 23rd, 2005 at 5:51 pm
And regular Mountain Dew isn’t sickly sweet? Actually, a cheaper and better way than generic soda is too make your own out of a simple syrup, yeast, and a small amount of flavor concentrate . There are plenty of recipes on the internet. Course you’ll have to buy some of the generic soda in two or three liter plastic bottles and pour the soda out so you have something to make the home made soda in. You can get carbonation that makes regular soda look flat.
May 23rd, 2005 at 10:22 pm
Aardvarknav - You are right, Mountain Dew IS sickly sweet. I am not sure why I drink it from time to time. It also looks radioactive. It must be all their skateboarding commercials that make it more palatable. =)
I shall have to investigate that homemade soda angle… have you heard of the mineral springs such as the one near Mammoth (in California)? I went their once, and they just have soda water bubbling out of the ground. Free. I took along some snow cone syrup and made some homemade soda that way. However, you get a good shot of Iron in your soda as well because the water is an orange red color from all the minerals and also the soda had hardly any carbonation in it. Well, back to the drawin board…
May 24th, 2005 at 8:43 am
I followed the recipe exactly for my first attempt at home made root beer. It came out a little yeasty tasting. I liked it, but my wife didnt. It takes a little experimentation to get the right mix of sugar and yeast for the flavor you want.
I have found the best way to drink Mountain Dew is to dilute it. My wife’s uncle in the Ozarks taught me to cut the sweetness of Mountain Dew with the medicinal taste of Southern Comfort.
May 24th, 2005 at 9:57 am
Aardvarknav - I don’t think the yeasty taste would bother me too much… I might give it a shot.
Mountain Dew plus S. Comfort… that sounds like a recipe for some down home cookin’ =)
May 24th, 2005 at 10:07 am
Hmm… interesting! I have to admit I’m not an avid soda drinker but I’ll have to give that one a whirl (the whole cap on loosely trick). Although I’m willing to bet when I do have a bottle of soda in the house it’s probably on “loosely” already…. and the mystery continue’s.
May 24th, 2005 at 10:39 am
I’ve always been okay with generic brand Root Beer, too, believe it or not. Though IBC is still the best. A float, of course, you can make with any brand at all.
May 24th, 2005 at 10:40 am
Belinda - I forgot who told me about the capped soda trick. I don’t see how it could be true… then again I am none too bright. =) But I do notice that if you cap it tight and then open it, you get a loud hiss of escaping carbon dioxide. But if you cap it loose and open it, there’s less of a hiss. I wonder if it’s a balance of the slow leakage from loose cap and the quick short burst of leakage from opening a tightly capped bottle? Like, over the long term you’d want to cap tightly, but over the short term loosely?
My head hurts from thinking about this… i think I’ll drink some more soda now.
May 24th, 2005 at 10:48 am
Bottom Feeder - yeah, I have to agree. Funny thing about the generic root beer is that it’s ok if it’s sweet as hell, because its what I expect from root beer…
January 9th, 2006 at 9:10 pm
Here’s another trick my wife and I just tried. We had read some place that if; after opening a 2lt soda you cap it tightly and turn it up side down it will stay fizzy longer. I did this with a pepsi and a pepsi-one soda. Neither kept their carbonation for more than two and a half days. Although the pepsi one lasted the longest. By the way squeezing the sides doesn’t work on the name-brand nor the store brands tried it. I don’t believe turningthe store brands upside down will work either.
April 12th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
I saw an infomercial on TV that said if you turn a 2 liter bottle of soda up-side-down for storage after opening, it will stay fizzy longer because the carbonation can’t escape, so I tried it. It’s next to impossible to get the bottle to stay up-side-down in my fridge, maybe it would be easier if I had a pocket in the door or something. It didn’t help the fuzziness at all from what I can tell. Plus, if this myth was true, I think the soda companies would have developed a bottle with a spot on the bottom or something like that already.
So is there anything that can make a 2 liter of soda fizzy again once it has lost its’ fizz? Sprinkling in a little baking soda perhaps?
June 9th, 2007 at 6:59 am
I’m looking for answers myself.
To me soda is TERRIBLY FLAT without ‘fizz’.
The grocery labels seem to have the least fizz.
By the way…I think Shasta is a ‘national brand’. It just could not compete with COKE/PEPSI so it gets elusive. See allot of Royal Crown Cola around anymore ??
Besides fizz the ‘private label brands’ ‘grocery brands’ are OK but the flavor is not up to any PEPSI/COKE product.
Try Wal-Mart Dr. Thunder HOT. burb…tastes horrible….
To me most all is better than any water out of the tap here. I think most soda makers use filtered water.
FIZZ ?? My mystery is also DO NOT OPEN IT. SAVE IT FOR 6 MONTHS OR A YEAR. WHY IS FIZZ DEAD ??
August 22nd, 2007 at 9:45 am
“Plus, if this myth was true, I think the soda companies would have developed a bottle with a spot on the bottom or something like that already.”
The soda companies would want your soda to go flat because it forces you to go buy more.
January 10th, 2009 at 1:59 am
Am i a minority out in the world who actually likes soda a bit flat. It seems that some brands flavor tastes better like Albertsons Cream Soda, the artificial vanila flavor is heightened after the fizz is gone but there is such an after taste, I really dont know why I continue to drink it. Also on sweet drinks or heavily carbonated drinks I also mix water to cut the sweetness down but also to make the drink last longer. So many people I know think I am sick in the head to drink soda like that but I dont care. I just wonder sometimes if the minority gets quieted because of that perception?