3/6/06 | Welch’s Strawberry Soda
[ Currently Eating: Toast, toast, and toast ]
In the days of yore, back when normal sized candy bars were 25 cents a piece, I used to drink a lot of soda. Generally, we didn’t get a whole lot of name brands like Coke, Pepsi, and 7-up at home. We used to get cans of “fake” soda like Shasta.
Actually, there wasn’t a whole lot of soda drinking at home. It was mostly on camping trips when we got soda.
These were usually syrupy sweet carbonated concoctions that would melt teeth outright if you kept it too long in your mouth. It was best to gulp these down. My favorites were the articifical grape, black cherry and strawberry sodas. Only kids could love this stuff.
Flash forward to the present, and we happened to pick up some Welch’s Strawberry Soda which came in the ubiquitous fridge pack. I know it’s not a generic brand soda, but it was as cheap as one: $1.99 for a fridge pack. Difficult to pass up, seeing as we needed to re-fill our soda stock.
Let me just say that this soda is so sweet that I felt like I was going to go blind or something from drinking it. I bet if you let all the carbonation escape it might make a nice strawberry topping for shave ice.
Nevertheless, it brings back some good memories of Shasta soda when I was young (I know they still have this on the market). Little kids love sweet drinks - it fuels their inexhaustable energy reserves. I remember recently trying to drink one of those “Hi-C” type box drinks and I just couldn’t believe how sweet it was.
Lately, I have been ordering a can of Welch’s Strawberry Soda whenever eating out at our local favorite Korean tofu hotpot restaurant. For some reason it seems to go really well with the spicy tofu broth.
I don’t think I’ve truly captured how bright red the color of this soda is. They must use a ton of Red no. 40, or whatever it is they’re using for artificial red coloring nowadays. I don’t think I’d recommend drinking this every day. I’ve tried to go at least 2 days between cans. I’m not sure if my system could take hits of this every day without going into shock.
As far as the carbonation goes, it was fair. There wasn’t a whole ton of bubbles left over after the initial pour, but I think that the carbonation in this Welch’s soda seemed to last a bit longer than the completely generic store brands. I could be wrong though. I wasn’t focusing on the bubbles. I was more concerned with draining the remainder of the glass.
Burp. Excuse me.
Price: $1.99 for 12 pack
Bought at: Ralph’s
Cheap Eats Score: 6/10
March 6th, 2006 at 10:01 am
Man, that stuff looks nuclear.
March 6th, 2006 at 11:43 am
Growing up in Detroit we had Faygo. Faygo was and still is the greatest cheap pop on the market. They have the standard flavors, but their flavor “Rock n’ Rye” is the best. When ever I get back to Motown I make sure to pick up some and enjoy.
March 6th, 2006 at 11:07 pm
Shasta is the shiznit!!! It comes in so many frickin’ flavors. As for Welch’s, I thought it was a soda that uses natural ingredients. Or was that Hansen’s?
March 7th, 2006 at 7:45 am
BF - Yes, it is like the green in mountain dew a bit… totally nuclear.
budderocks - I looked up Faygo, it looks pretty interesting. I don’t think they sell it here, according to their location page it’s only available in like TWO stores in california… that’s unfortunate but maybe i could get them to send me some to review…
marvo - The natural ingredient one is Hansens’s… I only know because my mom buys that brand so I have it when I go over to their house for dinner. I would stay away from the “Raspberry” Hansen’s soda which tastes gross for some reason. Like metal and pool water. But usually it is sold in variety pack so you can’t avoid it.
March 7th, 2006 at 10:37 am
I’m not a soda fan (oddly enough) but when I was a kid my uncle worked for Shasta so we would get ALL the flavors when I went to my grandmother’s.
She would always serve the soda in an anodized aluminum tumbler, color coordinated for the flavor. I was partial to grape soda in a metallic purple cup … not so much for the flavor, but it was gorgeous stuff (and who wants an orange colored cup?).
As an adult the only “soda” I drink are the Crystal Geyser grapefruit squeeze things.
March 9th, 2006 at 7:12 pm
I cant even make kool aid at the directed amount of sugar now. I love my Dr. Pepper but most other stuff seems way to sweet. I guess they pump up the sugar or I am getting older.
March 26th, 2006 at 2:17 pm
The only thing like a soft drink I drink routinely (Occasionally I’ll have Sprite or one of the “natural” soft drinks) are the “energy drinks”, or as I call them, “octane beverages,” mostly yhe sugar-free ones. Monster Lo-Carb and Tab Energy are my two favorite brands, but all those beverages are pretty much THE SHIZNIT!
May 1st, 2006 at 7:37 pm
Ahh, Shasta. That reminds me of my old Catholic schooldays. Shasta were the only cans of pop the school could afford and so that’s what they had at all the school dances.
June 28th, 2006 at 8:08 pm
Mm.. Welch’s Strawberry Soda. I ran across you while googling that very thing - any chance you can give me some specifics where you found it? I’m a fool for strawberry soda and Welch’s is my very favorite, although it disappeared from shelves here in NYC a VERY long time ago.
July 3rd, 2006 at 5:25 pm
I do remember Shasta… the many cool flavors. Later they added Strawberry-Kiwi & Pinapple-Orange. I remember the burn when you would drink Shasta & thinking that I was going to explode from all the carbonation!
But Nehi Peach was my all time favorite on family road trips. It was one you couldn’t find everywhere, but it was SO good! Mr. Pibb was good to if you like a sweeter version of Dr. Pepper (if that is possible.)
August 20th, 2006 at 9:06 am
My family has an “ice cream” recipe for strawberry soda that we call Strawberry Passion. Basically, you just use Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk and strawberry soda. Add fresh or frozen strawberry slices if you want. Freeze it with an ice cream freezer & enjoy. I don’t know the exact proportions of eagle brand to soda. I’ll have to ask mom, and I know the recipe is calibrated to their ice-cream maker. Anyway, people look at this pink stuff kind of weird, but it turns out that it’s really good. BTW, the eagle-brand plus soda thing works for basically any flavor of soda. Try grape–purple ice cream!
Personally, I’m going to try Cherry-Vanilla Dr. Pepper ice cream the next oppurtunity I get. I bet root beer would be good too.
September 6th, 2006 at 4:11 am
I prefer Safeway (Grocery related to Krogers?) brand strawberry soda over this one actually. More taste! Now I want one…