Avery's Kitty Piddle and Dog Drool

Okay, so I wasn't quite right about being "done". I forgot that a very good friend of mine had sent me some interesting sodas from Los Gatos, and I would be a pretty cruddy friend not to review tham after that, wouldn't I?*

I don't actually have a good alias for this fine man, but I'm guessing he wouldn't mind if I referred to him as "Bryozoan". That combined with the fact that he was my freshman-year roommate at UC Santa Cruz should make it easy for him to identify himself**, and to know that it's him I'm thanking right now.

He sent me a couple of sodas I truly hadn't seen before, and which fall without question into the "Weird" category.

I'm glad they put the intended flavor in the upper left side of the label.

There was a time when one of my readers suggested that he would find me a camel pee soda. I never saw that--I'm choosing to believe it doesn't exist, because if it did and someone sent it to me, I would be obliged to actually try it--but this seems like a spiritual attempt at the same thing.

I don't think I'm familiar with "Avery's", but they seem to be bottled in Connecticut***, so at least they're far from the Lab. I feel safer now.

First, we'll try Kitty Piddle. An interesting observation: this is the only bottled soda I've ever had which was filled to the very top of the bottle (you can see this in the photo). I know I'm not supposed to eat food from swollen cans lest I ingest botulinium toxin and die****, but the same thing shouldn't happen here. I can only imagine that, when it was being bottled, some kind soul didn't want me to miss out on that last swallow of kitty piddle.

Where and when: Purchased sometime in spring 2012 at Powell's Sweet Shoppe, Los Gatos, CA
Color: Translucent straw yellow. The bottom of the bottle has a bit of precipitated whitish stuff.
Scent: Sharp, tart. I'm quite familiar with the scents of human and dog urine*****, but not cat, so I suppose this could smell like kitty piddle.
Taste: Kind of reminiscent of Orangina, but with a bit of added mellowness. This is consistent with the label's proclamation of "Pineapple Orange". Pleasant, except that my mind (being the suggestible thing that it is) keeps trying to imagine cat pee. If I manage to ignore that, it's actually decent. Not a lot of aftertaste.

Quaff rating: 3.5. Surprisingly good.
Cough rating: 1.0. I can't quite shake the mental image.


Okay, on to the Dog Drool.

Where and when: Purchased sometime in spring 2012 at Powell's Sweet Shoppe, Los Gatos, CA
Color: Pale pink. Perhaps not too far from the color of living brain tissue.
Scent: Different. Tart, with a slight bitter undertone. Grape?
Nazgul: "Cherryish, with a little bit of watermelon".
Well, that's pretty different from mine. However, given that Nazgul did twice as well as I did on the Coke/Pepsi identification test, I really should give his opinion some weight.
Taste: Okay, I have to make a confession here. I'm more afraid to try this than most of them. And I can tell you exactly why--it's because of a joke RoTalMomska told me when I was a kid. It was triggered by the "drool" in the soda name. I'll include the joke at the end of this review...but consider yourself fairly warned by the fact that I still bear the scars of it more than twenty years later.

But I am--at least for this moment--still the Quaffmaster, and I cannot shirk my duty.

*not thinking of the joke* Not too bad. Pretty nice, actually. *not thinking of the joke* Grape-ish, with a substantial citrus, but more like lime. *not thinking of the joke* The label says "Orange Lemon", but I'd call it "grape lime." *not thinking of the joke* I think I like the Kitty Piddle a bit more, but I'd happily have this too, as long as I can avoid *thinking of the joke*.

Oh, crud. Now I may actually be sick. But it's not the soda's fault. It's RoTalMomska's.

Quaff rating: 3.0. Pleasantly mellow.
Cough rating: For the soda itself, probably 0.5. With the joke, 2.5.



* The review being 13 months late only makes me a somewhat cruddy friend.
** Unless my housekeeping habits that year have caused him to attempt to expunge me from his memory, for which I really couldn't blame him.
*** State motto: "Secretiones animalis esse bonos potiones"
**** But without *any* facial wrinkles
***** Flitwick, the Lab's Amazing Obnoxo-Dog, responds to the presence****** of most material objects by peeing on them, or the nearest convenient alternative object.
****** Or absence.




Oh, you want to hear the joke? Okay.

A guy walks into a saloon in the old west. He's obviously drunk, and the bartender doesn't want any trouble, so when he asks for a whiskey, the bartender refuses him.
Swaying, he addresses the bartender: "If you don' give me a whiskey, I'm a-gonna go get that thar spittoon and drink it instead."
The bartender doesn't believe that for a second. "Well, you just go ahead then, partner," he says.
The drunk man stumbles over and seizes the spittoon. He lifts it to his lips and tilts it up. The bartender is shocked and horrified to see his Adam's apple moving up and down.
"Okay, okay. I'm convinced. Come have yer whiskey," he says.
The man doesn't stop. He just keeps swallowing.
"Stop! I'll give you a whiskey, just stop!" the bartender cries, sickened.
The man doesn't stop. He keeps swallowing.
"STOP! Please, stop! I can't stand seeing this!" the bartender shouts.

The man puts down the spittoon and stumbles back to the bar. The bartender, awed and disgusted, brings out a shot glass and pours the man a shot.

"Mister, that's gotta be one of the worst things I ever saw. Why didn't you stop when I first asked you to?"
The drunk man looks blearily at the bartender and says...

"Well, I tried to, but I couldn't; it was all in one string."

Completely Normal Soda Review, and a Goodbye Song

It's been rather quiet in the lab. I think...we may have accomplished much of our mission. We have quaffed--if not all that is quaffable, then at least a whole variety of things. There's been joy. There's been pain. And I might--just might--be ready to go back to finding and actually drinking Weird sodas for a while.

When I started this journey, I had one thing I knew I had to do before it was done. I had to come full circle. Return to my roots. Come back and rejoin the masses. Yes...we must now review some completely normal sodas.

But being who we are here at the Lab, we'll do it with proper respect for science. Surely somewhere Galileo Galilei, Albert Einstein, Rosalind Franklin, Marie Curie, and Aristotle P. Mitzenheimer* will raise a glass of carbonated ambrosia** to us as we hold fast to our integrity, even now.

I've recruited the Kibbitzer-in-Chief to prepare a sample of four sodas:
Regular Coca-Cola Classic from a plastic bottle
Regular Pepsi from a plastic bottle
Mexican Coca-Cola from a glass bottle
Mexican Pepsi from a glass bottle

Each will be poured into a numbered cup, and she will keep the record of which is which. She will lay them out for me, and then ignore me entirely so she can't influence my judgment (it's the closest I can get to a double blind). I'll sample and review each, and try to identify them.

Soda Number One
Color: Brown, with a slightly yellow-green tint. Not promising.
Scent: Sharp, with a bit of chocolate and citrus.
Taste: Kind of thin, actually. A cool beginning without a great deal of flavor. Then a fairly sharp bite, followed by a moderately sour aftereffect. Just a bit of bitter in the aftertaste. Not especially sweet. Note of coffee?
(Later comments from Nazgul and Olorin)
Nazgul: Sweet, kind of creamy. It doesn't taste like Coca-Cola.
Olorin:Tastes smoother than a lot of sodas.

Soda Number Two
Color: Slightly lighter brown, same yellowish tint, maybe a touch less green.
Scent: Distinctly sweet, a bit sharp, smell of orange blossoms.
Taste: A bit more flavorful than #1. Similar cool bland beginning, but a sweeter and more mellow aftereffect with less tartness. Similar bitter tone at the upper back.
Nazgul: This one is more like Pepsi. More citrusy.
Olorin: It's colder than #1. It's more smooth than #1.

Soda Number Three 
Color: Almost identical to #1. Brown, slight yellow-green tint.
Scent: Cool, sweet, not so much floral. More like #1 than #2. Icy?
Taste: relatively quick impact of an orangey flavor, with cola tones. Aftertaste mild, not much bitter. Slightly sticky feel, lingers.
Nazgul: This one could quite possibly be Coca-Cola. Cherry-ish!
Olorin: Tastes a little bit more root-beery.

Soda Number Four 
Color: Same as the others. I think these guys all use the same tailor.
Scent: Fairly sharp, slightly acrid, very cool. Mintier.
Taste: Relatively quick attack with cool, slightly minty and bitter, but quite sweet. Moves fairly quickly to a moderately strong bittersweet high in the back of the mouth. Feels volatile.
Nazgul: Probably the most bubbles.
Olorin: Smooth and bubbly. Oh my. Bubblier than #1, but smoother as well. My favorite.


Honestly, all of these taste pretty similar. I don't have a lot of confidence, but here's my guess:

1. Mexican Pepsi
2. Mexican Coca-Cola
3. Regular Coca-Cola
4. Regular Pepsi

Nazgul's guess:
1. Mexican Coca-Cola
2. Mexican Pepsi
3. Regular Coca-Cola
4. Regular Pepsi

Olorin's guess:
1. Mexican Coca-Cola
2. Regular Coca-Cola
3. Regular Pepsi
4. Mexican Pepsi

 And here's what they really were:

1. Regular Coca-Cola
2. Mexican Pepsi
3. Mexican Coca-Cola
4. Regular Pepsi

Wow. Olorin gets a 0%, I get a 25%, and Nazgul gets 50%. In my defense, I will say that #4 was the one I was most sure of.

From this, I can reach several possible conclusions:
1. It is possible that I suck at this.
2. It is possible that there is actually very little difference between them
3. Pepsi seems to be easier to identify than Coca-Cola.

We all know plenty of people who swear upon anything they hold dear that they have a strong preference for one over the other. When I have run similar experiences with my science students, most of them assure me that they can easily tell the difference...and most of them are wrong.

I don't think I'd give any of them a quaff rating above 2.5 or a cough rating above 0.5. From that, I can conclude that this odyssey has allowed me to experience a fantastic variety of sodas which rise to greater heights (and fall to deeper depths) than those we usually quaff.

As I encounter more wonderful or terrible things, I will be sure to share them with you. Until then, I remain your Quaffmaster, forever willing to quaff it so you don't have to.


"Back to the Lab"
*to the tune of "Into the West", from the Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack*

Lay down your sweet and bubbly drink
Night is falling, you can step back from the brink
Rest now, and dream of beverages of yore
They are waiting, just inside the fridge's door

Why do you weep? Is that Abali in your mug?
No wonder then. That stuff would choke a slug!
Try this cream soda. It's quite appealing.

What can you see, within the bottle?
Why do you cringe in fear?
If it's got chunks, or smells like offal
Quaffmaster's come to quaff it right here.

And as he turns a shade of puce
You can hear him whisper "Get this juice
Back to the lab!"


* All the others had two names.
** "A bit glutinous, but with a nice cherry-pear balance and a bit of divine wrath."

Joia Lime, Hibiscus, and Clove

There are many examples of excellent three-flavor combinations. Bacon, eggs, and orange juice. Brown sugar, vanilla, and lemon. Pineapple, orange, and guava. Garlic, mushrooms, and butter. Larry, Moe, and Curly. Barbecue sauce, chicken, and red onion.

It may be worth noting that none of these would make good Weird sodas. Whether this is due to some inherent mathematical incompatibility between Weird soda and the three-ness of such flavor combinations is unclear. Pairs of flavors seem to work well; Weird soda is inherently quadratic, rather than cubic?

Those people with normal senses of aesthetics learn to pay attention to such laws. Indeed, a sense of aethetics might be argued to be inherently dependent on their observance--or carefully balanced violation. But the world of Weirdness must not be held back by such constraints. It must stride boldly forward, unhesitatingly violating such quaint concepts as balance, proportion, and good taste. And that brings us to tonight's review: Joia Lime, Hibiscus, and Clove soda.

There are, as we have discussed before, multiple schools of Weirdness. When I can, I prefer to dip my toes in the sweet streams of fruit and cream sodas. However, a growing subsector seems to consist of sodas whose sole purpose in existence is to combine odd fruit, herbal, and other flavors* in novel and ill-advised combinations. Usually in threes.

Where and when: Purchased April 2013 at Frazier Farms, Vista, CA
Color: Transparent, ever so slightly yellowish-greenish. The color of pale, sun-dried hay.
Scent: Faint, cool, a bit of citrus, and a hint of floor cleaner. I'm not sure what that last is; volatile and spicy.
Nazgul: "I know I've smelled it before." Given the state of the Lab floors, this is unlikely.
Taste: Hmmm...mmm...blech. Let's see--the first taste is citrus, strong and a bit lemony. The hibiscus comes through clearly. However, what happens next is less than ideal.
My mouth becomes slightly dry, and an odd taste spreads through it--a bit like alcohol, a bit spicy. Maybe a bit reminiscent of dry champagne. Not good.

Kibbitzer in Chief: "Nice. It's clean, bright, and textured."

I swear that this woman and I have a great deal in common.

K-i-C: "It tastes like it should be alcoholic, though."
Nazgul: "Very sour, but with a weird sweetness, too."

So the Kibbitzer-in-Chief, whose aesthetic sense is generally considered a squillion times better than my own, likes this one. Let's consult Olorin; he also has a finely developed sense of balance, proportion, and beauty in all things.

Olorin: "Mmmmm! That's really good!"

Well, crud. Okay, I'm a buffoon.

Quaff rating: I must be true to myself. 2.5.
Cough rating: 1. The floor-cleaner part is icky.

*The term is loosely defined here; it's only a matter of time before Weird sodas come in "coal", "breath-of-a-mermaid", and "esprit de corps" varieties.

DRY Soda: Wild Lime and Cucumber

That's not "Wild Lime and Cucumber", by the way...it's two sodas, "Wild Lime" and "Cucumber". Although Wild Lime and Cucumber would probably be pretty good.

Hello, all. We've been gone for some time. There are a variety of reasons, involving switching domain registrars, defending the Lab from alien attack, and the Great Soda Kablooie of 2013*.

But we're back! I don't know how much longer the Lab will be in business, but for now we're still going. And a good thing too, because we recently found some new offerings from DRY soda company which simply must be quaffed, and without delay. Specifically, we'll be reviewing their Wild Lime flavor, followed by Cucumber.

We've reviewed several DRY Soda flavors in the past, including Kumquat, Juniper Berry, Rhubarb, Vanilla Bean, Lemongrass, and Lavender. They've been intriguing, and sometimes good. Vanilla Bean and Kumquat both made our "Quaffiest" list. Interestingly, so did Mr. Q Cumber, which might indicate that tonight's flavor convergence will produce a mutant beverage of unspeakable savoriness.

We'll start with Wild Lime.

DRY tends to go for "just barely sweet", unusual flavors. Lime isn't particularly unusual, but "Wild Lime" is an unknown quantity. What, we wonder, makes it Wild? Will we be treated to "Fruits Gone Wild 3: Tropical Titillation"?*** Or is this the unknown character from Maurice Sendak's lesser-known sequel book "Where the Wild Things Are Making Pies"?

There's only one way to find out.

Where and when: Purchased at Frazier Farms, Vista, CA, in April 2013.
Color: Clear, no color at all. Well, Nazgul and Olorin both assure me it's faintly green, but they're nuts.
Scent: Distinctly lime, not a lot of sweetness, but some. A little reminiscent of lime jelly candy, but less sweet.
Nazgul: "Smells like the lime juice you put on Dutch babies."****
Taste: Wet. The company name is still misleading.
Olorin: "Kind of like Sprite, but less sweet. Maybe." Olorin is as decisive in his commentary as usual.
It's kind of reminiscent of the unsweetened but citrus-oil-infused sparkling waters you can get. Just a bit sweeter than that. Pleasant.
Olorin: "I like it. It tastes like kryptonite."
Nazgul: "[It] doesn't really taste like much."

I can imagine this being sipped leisurely on a shady porch on a hot day, but "wild" it is not.

Quaff rating: 4. Pretty nice, actually.
Cough rating: 0. Nothing offensive here.


Okay, so that was...pretty good actually. I have high hopes for the Cucumber.
Where and when: Purchased at Frazier Farms, Vista, CA, in April 2013.
Color: Also clear. No obvious color. Nazgul agrees in this case.
Olorin: "It's practically completely opaque!"

This is worth a moment of explanation. Olorin feels it to be his sacred duty to disagree with Nazgul at every conceivable opportunity, even if such disagreement flies in the face of obvious evidence, logic, or physical laws. I envision future conversations along these lines:

Nazgul: "Hey, look. I had one orange, and Granny gave me another orange. I have two oranges."
Olorin: "No you don't. You have forty-eight pineapples."

Olorin has actually invented--on the fly--alternative and clearly incorrect mathematical systems for the sole purpose of annoying Nazgul (and, not coincidentally, me) by claiming to have proven assertions like the one above.

Scent:Hmm. That's really odd. I guess it does kind of smell like cucumber. Vegetal, a bit sweet. Kind of fascinating, actually. Ever so slightly peppery in the top of the nose.

Nazgul: "I've never liked cucumber."
Olorin: "It smells like platypus bladder."
Nazgul: *gives him an incredulous look*
Olorin: "What? You don't know what platypus bladder smells like?"
Nazgul: *continues incredulous look*
Olorin: *smacks Nazgul on the head*

Taste:I have to hand it to DRY Soda--that actually tastes a lot like cucumber. Remarkably accurate--just the tiniest bit sweeter, but barely perceptibly so.

Olorin: "It tastes like WOOOOOOOO cucumber! Kind of like with a cross with centipede Bertie Botts."
Kibbitzer: "Tastes like cucumber, but not in that good farmer's-market-cucumber-agua-fresca way. You know how when you buy cucumber seeds, you can buy burpless cucumber seeds? That's not this."

Honestly, I enjoyed the lime more, although this has to get points for accuracy. Whether that's a good thing, I don't know, but it's Weird, so yay!

Quaff rating: 2.5. Drinking a liquidated carbonated cucumber is not entirely a good thing.
Cough rating: 0.5. While it's not actually offensive, any vegetable-flavored soda has to get something here.

* One of these is, in technical terms, strictly speaking, not entirely true.**
** This statement is a slight understatement.
*** No comment.
**** For those who don't know, and are thus preparing to report us to the authorities: a Dutch baby is a sort of popover, yummy with powdered sugar and citrus juice.