9/18/16

The Soda Jerk Unbound Part 5 of 6

So his fingers won't grip.  He'll still be next to you when you wake up tomorrow morning.

SWAMP POP PRALINE CREAM SODA

Swamp pop is a musical genre.  It gurgled out of the Louisiana sphagnum bogs ("Sphagnum?  I nearly fucked him!  Uh.") in the 1950's, and when it came time to name their product, cousins Collin Cormier and John Petersen saw an opportunity to be clever.  I see those opportunities all of the time.  It's not so easy being brilliant, is it?  Guys?  I'm sure they will get back to me in due course.  More about their product, a soda (!) based out of New Orleans.  I was eager to try this stuff because I tend to dig raw materials processed from this part of the country.  Acid Bath, Goatwhore, Down (duh), Crowbar, Graveyard Rodeo, Exhorder, girls who flash strangers on floats...it's a nice place.  Plus, I'm an unabashed fan of cream soda. So what is my ruling?  Hand me a bottle opener!

That was stupid.  I started writing in past tense.  Hand me a bottle opener?  If you are reading this column, the bottle has clearly been opened.  Christ, have I chosen the wrong path in life?  Here's an idea.  Why don't you hand me a bottle of vodka and a fucking handgun?  That way, I can HEEEY!  And we're back!  Sorry, folks!  If you're not familiar with praline candies, they are described on Wikipedia as "confections made from nuts and sugar syrup."  They can have different ingredients depending on which continent you live on.  I live on Antarctica where pralines usually consist of seal blubber and an ice mountain.  My original joke was a Gorgoroth reference.

The aroma?  Notes of maple and brown sugar.  I was a bit surprised. I've never had pralines before, so I was expecting a basic cream soda bouquet.  The color - much like Flying Cauldron - is a beer amber.  Whoa, you might say that amber is the color of your energy (I'm sorry; I mean, I can't apologize enough).  The flavor!  Should I discuss the flavor?  Fine.  You win.  There is a lot going on here. Maple syrup, brown sugar, pecans, almonds, vanilla and finally, cream soda hit your tongue in a cannonry of holiday bursts.  For what it's worth, this would make a damn fine Christmas beverage for a family of white churchgoers.  I enjoy it, but I don't love it.  It certainly doesn't hold a candle to Flying Cauldron, which also revolved around nuts and cream.

Fact is, I have a spotty relationship with maple-imbued...anything. When I was 13 or 14 (give or take fifty years), I was eating maple sausage one morning when my body decided to open the chapters of my stomach and read them aloud onto the living room carpet. Ever since that fateful day, the shit has made me nauseous.  Simple as.  Ingesting Swamp Pop, maple was the first thing I tasted.  But that's my hang-up.  Most ladies and gentlemen don't have a problem with The Tree That Should Not Be that is grown for sap or timber (I totally ripped that part from a dictionary).  Ironically, my mother didn't care for this carbonated cola water.  She loves maple in all of its devious forms!  I don't know what that means other than the obvious - tastebuds are weird.

As a cream soda, Swamp Pop Praline Cream Soda rates as average.  It's heavy.  There are so many (almost too many) competing flavors, that lovely cream gets lost in the shuffle.  Again, I did enjoy it.  It's ridiculously smooth.  I will advocate for the Swamp Pop brand.  They have five other flavors, and some of them sound intergalactic.  Ponchatoula Pop Rouge is drenched in strawberry reverb.  Jean Lafitte Ginger Ale furthers the use of cucumbers and the marketability of WWF legend Jean Lafitte-Pierre.  Satsuma Fizz appears to be orange soda, but they don't come right out and say it. I appreciate that.  Click HERE to check out their website.  This was not a sponsored review.  Here is a giant clown in Hell.

The only visible DVDs are Hellraiser and Bill Maher's Religulous?  How perfect is this picture?

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