Monday, April 2, 2012

Bruce Cost Unfiltered Ginger Ale


Those of you who have been paying fairly careful attention to this blog for the past couple of years may have witnessed my gradual change in attitude towards strong ginger ales. When I first started the site, I really did not like "hard" ginger ales very much, but over time I have actually come to prefer them. So when I found Bruce Cost's unfiltered ginger ale in World Market, I was very excited to try it.

Although I have had a lot of natural and organic ginger ales (and even a few very powerful unsweetened ginger drinks) in the past, I have never had one with quite as much sedimentary material as Bruce Cost's take on the drink. But this makes a lot of sense, as I think that this is also the first unfiltered ginger ale that I have ever had. I've had plenty of ginger ales that contain ginger solids, but this one has about half an inch of finely ground ginger in the bottom of the bottle. I assumed that because of this, Bruce Cost's Ginger Ale would be extra gingery, but I was somewhat disappointed to find out that it really isn't.

This ginger ale was actually surprisingly sweet for something that contains the destroyed remnants of what appears to have once been a fairly sizable chunk of ginger root. Rather than the olfactory-shattering intensity of truly fresh ginger that I was expecting, I was met instead with a gentle, wafting flavor and a somewhat syrupy sweetness and consistency. This is not to say that it's bad; it's just not the drink that I was anticipating. As far as sweet ginger ales go, this one is pretty good. The sweetness is definitely noticeable, but still non-intrusive enough to be pleasant and easy to drink. It also has the general flavor of fresh ginger, but absolutely none of the bite, so if you like ginger but have a hard time drinking the harsher natural offerings, this may be the ginger ale for you. I much prefer ginger ales with a lot of bite, so I don't know that I would buy this one again, but I definitely think that it's worth a shot.

Verdict: Worth a try

Purchased: World Market [Greenville, SC]
Size: 12 fl oz [355mL]
Price: $1.99

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