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Red Ribbon Root Beer

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Beverages from GalcosThe first time I had root beer, I said, “Yuck!” It tasted like toothpaste despite not be minty at all. I don’t know when it happened, but eventually I started enjoying the taste. I flip-flop between creamy beers like A&W and beers with more ‘bite’ like Barq’s.

Red Ribbon Root Beer is more of a sharp root beer with bite. It has a refreshing amount of carbonation — a must with rootbeer; no one wants flat, room temperature root beer. It also has a clean, sweet aftertaste that doesn’t make your teeth feel sticky.

Despite its great taste, I can’t help but feel a little disappointed in Red Ribbon Root Beer. The label says it’s a ‘home brewed style’, which I expected to taste less generic. As it stands, it just tastes like good root beer sweetened with sugar instead of corn syrup. This may be fine for most, but for a ‘home brewed style’ root beer, I expected it to have some stand-out flavor.

3 out of 5 SAMs

Hot Lips Boysenberry Soda

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Beverages from GalcosAs a soda that boasts of local water, cane sugar, and other natural ingredients, Hot Lips Boysenberry Soda was disappointing.

I’ve never had a fresh boysenberry, but the berry flavor in the soda was strong and flavorful without being too cloying or too tart. I could believe that the soda is natural because when I looked into the bottle, the liquid was cloudy and the soda tasted thick, almost pulpy. I’d give it a point for that.

What the soda was lacking was carbonation. I don’t know if I got a dud bottle or what, but when I took my first swig of the soda, what met my tongue was not the refreshing sting of a carbonated drink. Sure, it had fizz, but not enough. If the soda had been called Boysenberry Cider, I would have let it off the hook for the lack of carbonation, but calling it a soda requires more fizz.

On the SAM scale, I give it a 2 out of 5.

Slumdog Millionaire

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I finally watched Slumdog Millionaire, a movie about an Indian boy who grew up in the slums and wins the top price in India’s Who Wants to be a Millionaire game show. Of course, no one believes that he didn’t cheat to win because how can someone who grew up with no education manage to answer all the questions correctly?

The movie is a perfect mix of suspense, romance, and comedy. I thought the movie would become too formulaic after I realized that we were going to see just how Jamal, the contestant, arrived at each answer of the game show. Luckily, it didn’t end up being to predictable at all. I liked how the movie fed us bite sized pieces of Jamal’s life till the end and showed us present day India without being too preachy.

My favorite thing about Slumdog Millionaire was the soundtrack. There’s a good mix of bhangra-influenced songs as well as catchy pop songs. The best song is at the end, when the credits roll. If you end up watching it, don’t get out of your seat until you see the credits.