Inspired by the success (or jealous of it) of Judge Wapner Root Beer, Gene Autry, or his foundation or fans or someone (since Gene’s dead), decided that they wanted to get a piece of that action and hence Gene Autry Root Beer. And why not? Root beer is the all American drink and Gene Autry was arguably one of the most all Americans that has ever been produced. A singing cowboy actor who wrote famous Christmas songs, owned rodeo stocks and part of a baseball team, and flew dangerous missions as a pilot in WWII. With a resume like that the biggest question is why it took so long for him to get his own root beer, especially when you consider his TV show’s appeal among children? Interestingly, both Gene Autry and Judge Wapner root beers are produced by Rocket Fizz so it seems that they’re competing against themselves for market share in the celebrity root beer market. I’m not sure if I hope that the trend of celebrity root beers ends here or not. On the one hand some people are so epic that there is no question they deserve a brew named after them, on the other hand, this could get way out of control where you could get a Kardashian family six pack with each being a different flavor of root beer. More root beers for me to review I suppose.
The Body is very light and mild. Vanilla and wintergreen surface after a few seconds and add some much needed flavor to it. It has a very harsh Bite from the carbonation and citric acid that gives way to a prickly burn. I’m not a fan. The Head is nice; medium height and pretty frothy, it lingers for awhile. The Aftertaste is yummy vanilla and wintergreen that lasts a long time so if you drink the whole bottle pretty fast, those flavors build and the whole thing gets much better. If you just sip it slowly however, it stays pretty weak at the beginning of each drink.
That’s disappointing. On the whole it’s not bad but it needs a lot more to move to the next level. It is all natural (if citric acid is natural) so it’s got that going for it at least, but honestly, Gene deserves better than this. See how it rates against other root beers.
Anyone who lived through the ’80’s is familiar with Judge Wapner. He was iconic. The movie Rain Man even more cemented him into TV immortality with the autistic genius fixated on getting his daily Wapner. I must confess, however, I never once watched The People’s Court. I would wait until it was over everyday and the after school cartoons would come on followed by the original Star Trek. Nevertheless, I got very excited when I saw this, and all I could think about before I reviewed it was Dustin Hoffman counting down the minutes to Wapner. Also, the bottle is a cool smoky color instead of the normal clear or brown which is a nice change for my root beer bottle collection.
