Guest Review: Country Club Merengue Soda

One of our non-hypothetical readers (The Doc, who previously reviewed Inca Cola for us) has submitted a guest review of what sounds like a fascinating offering popular in the Dominican Republic. He seems quite taken with it, although not without any reservations. In addition, he has included input from The Doc Sr. and his wife (who we will refer to, in as confusing a mishmash of articles, honorifics, and suffixes* as possible) as "Mrs. The Doc Sr."

I'm especially fond of his reference to this as a "beverage d'hubris". Thanks so much for the guest review, The Doc!

--BEGIN GUEST REVIEW--

Living as I do near a golf course, I find it highly appropriate to drink
Country Club soda as it neatly befits my pretentious lifestyle, because I
really am that great. And it befits it further because this flavour of
Country Club soda, at least, is as pretentious as I am. Not merely content
to call itself a cream soda as significantly more humble beverage brands
would do, it calls itself a MERENGUE soda. Because, at its home in the
Dominican Republic, as the natural beverage of the country (pretentious),
it would not do to simply be a cream soda and roll about in the carbonated
muck with those other inferior, hoi-polloi, beverages.

The history is a little weird, which works as well. Apocryphally there was
a Country Club Soda Company during the first half or so of the 20th century
primarily in Massachusetts (pretentious also). Around 1985 Seven-Up bought
them out and the brand faded in America. However, Country Club is sold by the
cartload in the Dominican Republic and pretty much anywhere they live,
including many specialty shops (pretentious encore) in the USA. The Country
Club you will get the USA comes in the classic (pretentious times infinity)
glass bottle that you need a bottle opener for (I'm too pretentious for
this shirt), but is sold in regular plastic bottles in its home country (not
pretentious) and now is a mark of the Coca-Cola Company (extreme megaloss of
pretentiousitosity).

Where and when: I've been enjoying this beverage d'hubris for a good two
months now, but I requested additional snooty opinions earlier this month
and brought samples to The Doc, Sr., and The Doc, Sr.'s Wife. The bottles in
question were purchased from BevMo (pretentiousness under review).

Color: A rich, golden amber draught, in a bottle that looks like it travelled
forward in time from 1955 with Marty McFly and a DeLorean, if he were
actually Marco McFeli and the DeLorean was really a Chevrolet truck with a
ridiculous big rusted chrome bumper and solid axles.

Smell: Fruity, but not strong, and I really don't have a joke about
pretentiousness to go with that except if this were the national beverage
of West Hollywood.

Taste: There is a common thread with Caribbean/meso-American beverages that
they want them to have a bit of a kick. Despite the pretension, it's a rough
merengue and it's strong. However, there's only a minimal amount of aftertaste
and the cream flavour is really rich with a superb vanilla base layered on
top with a selection of mild and delightfully intermingling fruit notes.
It is, truly, like eating a merengue pie, except this enables you to belch
in a much more satisfying manner afterwards (whereupon I was given a
disapproving look from The Doc Sr's Wife). Doc Sr. agreed that it was a very
nice cream soda and rated it favourably compared to more mass market brands.
Doc Sr.'s Wife had a few sips and said it was nice, and also that I should say
excuse me after I burp. This is high praise.

Quaff rating: 4.5. Dad's is probably the smoothest cream soda I can think of
(particularly the Red Cream Soda), and this is not nearly that smooth. That
said, it is much more luxurious and complex-flavoured than Dad's, let alone
many other simplistic and, yes, less-pretentious beverages. This beverage has
its beautiful Dominican nose in the air from the beginning, and yet, it really
does deserve the name "merengue."

Cough rating: Let's say 1.5. The kickback is there, but not nearly enough to
merit a full two. However, don't belch in front of your mother like I did.
Coughing may be more polite in the long run. Not to mention pretentious.

I wonder if the other flavours are this egotistical.

--END GUEST REVIEW--


*Shouldn't the plural of "suffix" be "suffices"? More than one matrix or dominatrix are, respectively, "matrices" and "dominatrices"...maybe it's the "-trix" which pluralizes to "-trices"...