I discovered this brew when the Capos-Capone Pasta Sauce ‘liked’ my page on Facebook. I looked at who they were and discovered that they made this root beer. But wait, why would they ‘like’ me if I hadn’t even tried their product? So I shot them an email, apologizing profusely for not having tried their esteemed brew and asking them how I could acquire it (you don’t want to anger Mr. Capone’s ‘family’ after all). They were very understanding and offered to send me some to review. Maybe they were a little too friendly. Great, now I’ve given them my address, I hope they weren’t mad about my ignorance of the Capone Family Secret, I mean, it was a secret after all. But a few days later, instead of receiving a hail of 0.45 calibers delivered from a Tommy gun and a quickly passing 1928 Cadillac Town Sedan, or a pair of cement shoes and a new apartment at the bottom of Lake Washington, I received two bottles of root beer each in it’s own burlap sack. That’s pretty cool. I’ve never gotten root beer shipped like that before. I would expect nothing less from the Family. It says on the bottle that this is soda was the only thing ever found in Al Capone’s warehouses during the many times they were raided (along with pasta sauces it seems). So how did Mr. Capone like his root beer?
This is one of those brews with a nice, creamy, full Body. It has a nice spicy caramel type flavor that surfaces after the initial contact. The Bite is good. It grabs you with those spices and a carbonation tingle but then lets you go slowly and smoothly for an excellent finish. The Aftertaste is lovely vanilla and a hint of spicy caramel that you could just swim in (you’ve never swum in vanilla?). The Head is a bit perplexing. The first bottle I had didn’t have much of a Head, but it was very frothy and lingered long enough to not be fatal to the rating. The second bottle had a huge Head that was medium frothy and fizzed down until the last centimeter. That last centimeter stuck around awhile. So either way the Head was good enough, though, I prefer a Head I can count on.
So this is quality stuff. Clearly Mr. Capone would settle for nothing but the best. Dare I say it, if he had focused on selling this, he wouldn’t have needed any other of his ‘businesses’. Or, I’m sure he could have had his sentence commuted if he had sent this stuff to the Governor or the President. Perhaps his greatest crime was keeping this under wraps for so long. Either way, I’m glad it’s been released now so we can all enjoy it and I am proud to award it my Seal of Approval. See how it rates against other root beers.
