Last month I went to New York City for the first time ever. Well technically I’ve flown into JFK Airport for stuff in Long Island but I that doesn’t really count, driving through Queens to outside the city limits, but I digress. I was there for, can you guess? Did you guess DERMS? Well you’re wrong, I was taking my teenage daughter to a concert for her favorite JPop artist, LiSA. Aren’t I a great father or something? Since we got there the day before we were able to see some of the iconic Manhattan sites like Wall Street, Brooklyn Bridge, Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and eat some great food. I also had learned from correspondence with anthony that a place called Bubby’s makes their own root beer. So after dinner we went walking to it and found ourselves walking past the Ghost Buster’s building so that was a cool bonus. Categorizing this was a bit difficult for me, but ultimately they make all of their house sodas Old Fashioned Fountain style, using their homemade syrups to mix to order at the bar. I have that category for such root beers after all.
The Bite is the first thing you notice when you drink this. It’s spicy with clove and some other spices mixed in. The carbonation gives it good fizz for an all around excellent Bite. The Body comes in afterwards, sweet and complex with an aged sarsaparilla flavor and hints of vanilla and wintergreen complementing the spices. The Aftertaste is that sarsaparilla with a bitter finish from the wintergreen, I wish it weren’t quite so bitter. The Head is the biggest drawback, it doesn’t really foam much at all despite their attempts and what is made goes quickly.
This is actually quite good. It’s unique and complex while hitting the right notes. It does end a little too bitter and it’s foaminess is a little too weak, but it’s definitely worth trying if you’re in the area, especially since there are some iconic landmarks nearby. Bubby’s also makes their own ice cream for some of their other desserts and I bet their food would be great too, so this place won’t disappoint.
This past week I was back in Sacramento doing DERMS things cause that’s what I do, but I was also looking for some root beer cause that’s the other thing I do. My sites were set on 
You know what I haven’t done in awhile? An Old Fashioned Soda Fountain review. Why? Turns out those are significantly more rare than I initially thought when I accepted the category into gourmet root beer-dom. Even rarer is the fountain that uses their own home recipe for their root beer. So I was extra excited when my favorite store around these parts, Blue Sun Soda, announced they were adding an old fashioned soda fountain, while keeping all of the other goodness like $0.25 arcade games (hint hint Northern…) Anyways, so they have this awesome new soda fountain, with tons of flavors using the Whistler syrups which they make. You can mix and match them too, giving you near infinite flavor combinations. However, that doesn’t seem right from a review standpoint, so I’m going to stick with a classic soda fountain concoction, the phosphate. If you don’t know what a phosphate is, you have lived an incomplete life thus far, but it’s something that the jerks would put in the drink to add acidity and saltiness that would enhance the flavor. All of the old soda fountains would have it. I’m not sure how common root beer phosphates actually were, but I wanted to try theirs as it’s both a unique take on the Whistler while being a base flavor. One final note, I didn’t ask them for no ice, and while I regret doing so, if the jerk was competent, and added the correct syrup ratio for the amount of liquid to be added while accounting for initial ice melt, the ice shouldn’t mess up the flavor like it would if the root beer were coming from a bottle or a keg. Nevertheless, it is a mistake I shan’t make again, I assure you. 
