the pop shoppe

Now, this is how you do retro.

The Pop Shoppe hails from our neighbor up north, Canada. With a crazy-looking bottle, and a retro looking logo, The Pop Shoppe just LOOKS like fun, and you know you're going to enjoy the beverage you're about to drink.

The Lime Rickey I drank was purchased from good ol' Old 52 from that shipment I received about a month ago (can you tell that I'm a little backlogged? Crowncap Kidd, I have some of yours on the roster coming up!).  Thinking back to when I ordered the soda, I realize that I picked the lime rickey because I had never had one before. Upon reflection, I realize that I probably should have gotten the root beer or the black cherry.  The Lime Rickey was delicious, though. I think that if the Pop Shoppe made a cherry cola, I would be madly in love. And they might even give Sprechers a run for that special place in my heart.  Pop Shoppe: Get on that!

Check out the bottle cap. Red and white, upper and lower case PoP (which looks way better on the bottle cap than when I type it) and the great twist design and white stripes. Foxon Park could take a lesson from The Pop Shoppe on how to do old timey.

And I highly recommend that you check out the website. It has some crazy animation and sound fx. Enjoy!

sparky's and frostop

I love a good root beer.  There are some days (few, admittedly) when I don't want a beer, I don't want wine, I don't want a mixed drink -- I just want a crisp, refreshing, and delicious root beer. After a shipment arrived from Old52 full of sodas with awesome crowns (I hope the folks in my office didn't hear me screaming with delight when that box arrived!), I figured I'd take home two bottles at a time and do a few taste-tests.

Sparky's (reviewed here at rootbeerreviews) had a lot of bite and not a lot of honey flavor, which I appreciate (that Sprecher's Creme Soda with the honey was all wrong!).

The bottle cap is a lot of fun.  Sparky's gives off an old-fashioned-but-hip vibe, with upper and lowercase letters and a funky red and white swirl design in the background, which doesn't take away from the name, but offers a kind of pharmacist feel. I know it hasn't been around that long, but it has a fun, old-timey feel.

The other root beer that I brought home was Frostop. This one is a diet root beer, and was sweeter (but not too sweet) and less bitter than the Sparky's. I know I shouldn't really be putting a diet up against a regular, but surprisingly, I liked the diet better. (I always like regular... )

The Frostop crown is also fun. Loopy fonts dominate the crown, which also boasts the brew year (in this case, 1926).  It also reminds us that more often than not, root beer is caffeine free -- which is quite nice for someone who can really drink caffeine only in the morning...

Over the next few weeks, I'll be reviewing a few more of the crowns gotten from Old52, and I'll be sure to note it in the tags.

lost opportunities

I spend a lot of time on this blog discussing the general awesomeness of bottle caps/crowns.  Even though last week garnered two new Hall of Fame entries, I want to bring to your attention, dear readers, to a rather sad reality in the land of bottle caps.  There are many lost opportunities for bottle cap designs.

I'm looking right at you, companies that make "fair trade" bottle caps or "twist off" bottle caps or *gasp* entirely plain bottle caps.

A few months ago, on a trip to Chicago, I had a chance to try Green River Soda. Fluorescent green and overly sweet, this soda has just a plain, green bottle cap. Why not snazz it up a bit with...I don't know, maybe a graphic of a river? Does it really cost that much to stamp 2 squiggly lines on there?

Another example was when I was at the delicious Luke's Lobster restaurant. They serve Maine Root Soda. Also delicious! But what kind of bottle cap do they have? A boring fair trade crown. How on earth do you expect me to remember what your soda is? Honestly, I had to look up Luke's Lobster and check the menu to remind myself what I had to drink there! And I can't even tell you how disappointing it is to go into a bodega, see a new soda I've never tried before, check the cap, and discover that it's a fair trade crown or, even worse, blank.

While ordering some sodas from Old52.com, I had a great DM conversation on Twitter about what to order, but quite a few of the sodas that had a) great names and b) fun labels were scant to offer amazing bottle caps. Dog & Suds, Pig Iron and Bulldog -- you have awesome names. Get awesome bottle caps, please.  Do you realize that you lost sales because of this?

Have you ever not purchased a beverage because of the bottle cap?