I have a friend who’s a wonderful person, but is absolutely horrible at sending me root beer. She moved to Ithaca, and didn’t send me the Ithaca Soda Company Root Beer despite my always asking. Then she moved to Minneapolis, where this is made, and didn’t send me any of it. But that’s okay, because she’s still awesome and I was able to find another fine fellow by the name of Caleb traded with me and got me some. I like the name, as I always wanted a tree fort. But I grew up in a desolate wasteland where trees were hard to come by. My parents planted a maple tree when I was eight or so, but I think only now has it reached climbing size. So no tree fort for me. This brew is one of those all natural types with lots of botanicals ingredients like chicory, spearmint, peppermint, and marigold. I’ve never had marigold in a root beer before. They have traditional spices flavorings as well, but really, marigold? It pours out an orange color. Makes me wonder if it’s one of those rare and strange herb tea root beers.
The Body is very herbal with ginger and honey and dominant flavors. There’s sarsaparilla as well as some slightly bitter flavors. It has a spicy Bite from clove and ginger and cinnamon, but it isn’t too strong. The Head is decent. The Aftertaste is honey and ginger.
Yup, another sweet carbonated herb tea. It makes sense considering if you Google “chicory herb tea” or “marigold herb tea” you’ll get a lot of hits but far fewer if you search “marigold root beer”. It’s one of the better ones of this genre, with the honey and ginger and cinnamon really shining, but when I want a root beer, I don’t want an herb tea. See how it rates against other root beers.
A few years back Polar changed their recipe slightly. No doubt it was in response to my 
The color scheme of this root beer’s label makes for a difficult photo. Mostly black, then brown and glossy gold to reflect the flash. I’m sure some expert or even amateur photographers reading this right now know exactly what to do, but I don’t study photography, I study root beer. And I just use my wife’s digital camera with it’s “Intelligent Auto Adjust” setting. It usually works well enough. Twig’s is a brand with a long, and continuous history. It was started by a fellow named Hartwig, who decided his last name was just a bit too long for a soda label. His company had humble beginnings up in Shawano, Wisconsin in the 1950s. According to their website he’d sell a case of soda and use the money made to buy a loaf of bread for his family. Bread must have been a lot more expensive back then or a case of soda cost a lot less. Either way, he somehow was able to both grow the business and not starve, though he was forced to mix ingredients with an ax handle. He probably used that same ax to slice his bread. And so today you can still buy Twig’s. I don’t know if they use the ax handle in the plant, but they should, then they could write “Ax Crafted” on the label. That’d be so metal…
