Boots Beverages was created by a man whose name was Boots (and no, he wasn’t a monkey that went exploring). Mr. Boots is not the man the label. His name is Ambrose and he came from Germany and purchased the Bellville Bottling Works in Texas. I think he’s Boots’ father, but I’m not sure. The text on the bottle doesn’t say, neither does their website. Anyhow, they had a bottling works so they made some sodas. Except this came from the Crown Valley Winery in Missouri, like the Fizzy Izzy Root Beer. Same shipping box and everything. I’m not sure if Boots does the bottling for Crown Valley or the other way around. I would like to point out that this is a root beer, not a sarsaparilla. The name clearly says Sarsaparilla Root Beer. I don’t review sarsaparillas, I review root beers. A sarsaparilla root beer is a subset of root beer. I’ve mentioned this before with Hosmer, but just in case you forgot.
The Body has a full fruity sarsaparilla flavor with some vanilla as well. It isn’t overly complex. The Bite has some nice spice but it overall smooth, as I prefer. The Head is tall and foamy and all around excellent. The Aftertaste is vanilla with sarsaparilla hints.
Well, flavor wise this is definitely more sarsaparilla than root beer. But since semantics must rule the day I’ll review it as a root beer. It’s a decent root beer. I mean, good enough to drink if I really need a root beer but want it to be sarsaparilla tasting but not be a sarsaparilla. I’ll admit, that isn’t very often. I think Hosmer pulled it off much better. See how it rates against other root beers.
I like a diverse brand. Any brand that feels they need to make more than one root beer flavor makes the world a better place in my opinion (except for Journey but that’s another story). So I was pleased to find that Hosmer Mountain makes a sarsaparilla root beer as well as their regular. Note that isn’t a sarsaparilla. I don’t review sarsaparillas. They’re not root beers. This is a sarsaparilla root beer, much like Dang! That’s Good makes a butterscotch root beer, and Frostie makes a vanilla root beer. Though, my most recent experience with a sarsaparilla flavored root beer (Hartridge’s) didn’t turn out so well so I wasn’t sure what to expect for this one. Though this one is “bottled in the land of swift moving waters” so has to be good right?
