Milligan’s Island Awesome Root Beer

 Bottled Root Beers  5 Responses »
May 042016
 

Bottle of Milligan's Island Awesome Root Beer This was the 10th root beer that I ever reviewed. After I had had my wonderful Hank’s experience I still had that $15 in my pocket earmarked for exotic root beers. So I hit the 1998 internet again in hopes to find a root beer that I could mail order with such limited funds. Since this was in the days before Google, I’m not sure how exactly I stumbled upon this, but it looked awesome and they’d sell me a 4-pack that was only about $15 with shipping (all the way from Connecticut). I’m glad I chose it since it’s now discontinued. This has a rather confusing label. The whole tropical island seems rather out of place for Connecticut and the whole “Fooling the Public since 1492” also befuddles me. The only thing I know of that happened in 1492 was Columbus’ first voyage to the Americas and I fail to see any connection to him in this root beer. Oh well, I’m fooled I suppose.

This was good. It had a wonderful Body. The Bite was good. The Aftertaste was pleasurable but the Head was awful. It would was not only small, but it would go flat in about a minute.

What a shame about the Head. That alone was enough to stop it from getting the Seal of Approval. It was the first root beer of many to suffer that fate. I even got an email from the company several years later apologizing for the poor Head and saying that normally it isn’t like that. I told them that I’d be glad to review it again if they sent me some more, but the root beer never came. And now the company is gone. I feel somewhat responsible for their demise. It’s a shame because it was pretty good. See how it rates against other root beers.

Three and a half kegs




RootJack Orange Flavored Root Beer

 Bottled Root Beers  No Responses »
Aug 212013
 

Root Jack Orange Flavored Root Beer Bottle Another pirate themed energy drink root beer. But this adds the twist of orange flavor and vitamin C to fight scurvy. Their website tells the tale of a one Astrea Valentine who through ruthless cunning and good looks, was able to seize control of a pirate vessel. She kept her crew scurvy free by giving them RootJack because root beer was evidently something that existed in the 17th century Caribbean. Maybe Columbus brought it there from Milligan’s Island. The bottle is pretty sick, sporting a pirate queen with cannon and sword and jagged letters. I must say I’ve not had very good experiences with energy drink root beers, nor pirate root beers for that matter (though Jack Black’s is the noted exception to both), and only once had orange peel in a brew so my expectations were not high. Perhaps it would surprise me like Cherry Root Bear…

First thing to noticed is that the Head is impressive, most impressive. Dare I say, perfect! It’s super tall, frothy, and lasts about forever. It rivals the best root beer Heads I’ve ever seen. So far so good. The Body has a strong and sour orange flavor that quickly masks out all others. As that fades, guarana and more standard root beer flavors begin to surface, mixed with some gross herbal notes. The Bite is solid but wrong. It burns with acid and herbs and isn’t pleasant. The Aftertaste is a super sour orange with a nasty medicinal herb flavor. Gross.

And then they lost it, big time. This root beer is just so wrong. Way too much sour orange, the gross herbal mix, the acid burn, the weak root beer flavors. Sadly it exceeded my gross expectations, which were not high to start with. But the bottle is really cool and that impressive Head earns it another half a keg to be sure. See how it rates against other root beers.

keg1n5