Two new beverages this week. One was a vintage sodie pop I had been saving for some time. My boyfriend purchased it while on a road trip over a year ago, knowing I love to try new drinks, but I only got around to drinking it recently.

I had been saving it for a float, but I’m glad I didn’t. The ice cream would not have been good enough for it.

The bottle recommends “no ice” but I did not listen.

Virgil’s was a flavourful cherry cream soda with a subtle vanilla taste, and very very creamy in the mouth. It wasn’t overly syrupy or sweet, either, maybe because they use cane sugar. I’ve heard good things about Virgil’s other sodas, namely the Root Beer, and after trying the Black Cherry Cream Soda, I can tell you I will be searching it out. Apparently their parent company, Reed’s, makes SIX types of ginger beer.

Although I’m not sure it’s available in Edmonton yet, there are two bottles of Virgil’s Root Beer sitting in the fridge at work. I don’t know where they came from, but I will have to sleuth out the answer.

The other soda was a completely different story. I found myself at Sunterra one day, craving a soda as good as the Virgil’s Black Cherry Cream Soda, but faced with the same old soda selections. I saw the busy, eye-catching label for Jones’ “Jones Jumble” mixed flavour soda and decided to give it a shot. Jones are the people famous for oddly flavoured drinks like “Turkey & Gravy” and “Antacid”. I should have known better is all I can say.

The crazy label (one of three limited edition ones) serves as a wrap hiding the horror within: a grey/green/blue colour that is similar to that seen at sewage outlets on Thai beaches. The sewage blends into the gorgeous turquoise water making a colour distinctly recreated in the Jones bottle.

I did sample it before I saw the colour, so one cannot imply I let it put me off. The flavour is a “secret” blend of four different kinds taken from the stock of Jones Soda flavours. The overwhelming first grape flavour hid a later zazzy lemon lime, melonesque middle and FuFu berry finish. Of course, these are only my guesses. I’m not sure what the real flavours are.

I did not like this. I dumped it down the drain at work, but not before taking these photos at our copy photography set up area and attracting attention from nearby copy editors. “Looks like swamp water,” one said. Another stated, simply: “You kids will drink anything.”

The flavour was created as a novelty, obviously, and the makers challenged consumers to put their tastebuds to the test and identify the flavours hiding within. Are you brave enough to be a soda sommelier? The contest ended on July 15, but the flavour lives on, just like the lingering grape flavour my burps have.