In September is circumnavigated the globe for work trips. DERMS Around the World I called it. Flew East through Amsterdam where I had a few hours to meet with my cousin, then on to Bangkok, then Melbourne, then Auckland, then back home. I Melbourne my secondary goal, after working, was to get this root beer. Do you remember Jolt Cola? It had an interesting run in the 80s and 90s before being discontinued in the 2000s. As a child of the 80s and 90s. I remember it well but never really had it. It was the “crazy” cola for people needed more caffeine than Mountain Dew, for some reason. Anyways, while it died off in the USA, it continued to be produced in Australia, under license. Where it still is to this day. In addition to the cola, they also make other flavors, (flavours?), including this root beer. This is not the same as the Jolt Energy Root Beer sold in cans in the US. The ingredients are different, the company is different, and this has full sugar, plus 80 mg of caffeine. It’s made in Adelaide but I was able to find a place near Melbourne, so on my off day I took a tram, train, and then bus to the USA Foods store that sold American products. They had lots of root beers actually, in addition to this one. I waited till I got back home and tried this in the morning so the caffeine jolt wouldn’t mess up my sleep.
The Body is sweet with a traditional root beer flavor with some wintergreen and aged sarsaparilla accented by a slight bitterness of the caffeine. There’s a nice spicy Bite that hits you immediately upon drinking. It finishes decently but not silky smooth. The Head is exceptional! Very tall and foamy. The Aftertaste is a bit of wintergreen and sarsaparilla ending with slight bitterness.
This is by far the best Australian root beer I’ve had so far. You can tell they’d actually drank root beer before. Now I must say, I don’t usually drink caffeine. If I do, it’s usually because of work travel and jet lag. In severe cases of international travel, I’ll have a Red Bull that I sip slowly over the course of a few hours. This root beer has the same caffeine as the normal sized Red Bulls, and reviewing a root beer generally takes about 5 minutes. I felt like I was having a heart attack about half an hour after drinking this. It wasn’t pleasant, so I’ll likely skip on this in the future, unless I find myself Down Under, in which case it’s a tastier alternative to slowly sip while fighting jet lag. See how it rates against other root beers.
Aussie brew number 2! It’s made by Slade’s Soft Drinks which is located in Victoria Australia and was started over a hundred years ago by the O’Neil brothers. This drink supposedly dates back to the founding and it uses a “secret recipe”. Angus was the son of one of the two brothers. The company was originally called O’Neil Brother’s Soft Drinks but they changed to Slade’s because they deemed it “appropriate” whatever that’s supposed to mean. This one took me forever to get a hold of. It was always frustrating because it was just out of reach. First Slade’s Soft Drinks ‘liked’ my Facebook page, but never responded to any messages about me getting any of their root beer. Then I found a case on Ebay and asked the seller if they’d ship to the US. They said they would but it would be over $100. If they only shipped two bottles, shipping would be only $50 but they’d still charge me for the full case of root beer. I balked and the item expired. I searched high and low and found markets in India that sold it but nobody shipped to the US. Throughout this time I’d tried to contact the company directly but they never responded. Then one day, out of the blue, they did. After a month of negotiations I finally got it shipped to me. It wasn’t cheap. And then they didn’t even bubble wrap the bottles and so one leaked due to damage (is it just me or does the post like to damage fragile packages?). At least I had one pristine bottle to review. It comes in a 375 ml bottle like Bundaberg, though it’s a screw cap. 
“G’day Mate, I ‘ear you been lookin’ for some root beer Down Under. Well Bundaberg’s all we got, it’s Australian for root beer.” I suppose that would be how the conversation would go if I went to Australia and was looking for a root beer. It has a pretty cool short bottle that is actually 0.7 fl oz larger than the standard root beer bottle. It is also brewed so that got my hopes up. On the label is says “Invert bottle before opening” I found this rather curious. I wasn’t sure if they were saying that because ingredients would settle, or if they were implying that right-side up for them down there, would be upside down for us up here which would then require us to invert the bottle before we opened it to avoid spilling it everywhere. Not to ruin my root beer though, I dutifully inverted the bottle and made sure it was then right-side up before opening. When I poured it into the glass I noticed particles in suspension. So it seems that the reason to invert it is the former and not the latter.
