Yesterday my boys and I were "up north" (it's their spring break), and I brought this along: 

On the counter in our tiny motel kitchen.

Close-up of the "marble" after breaking the seal.

Brand: Japanese Ramuné Naruto Raspberry Soda.

Origin: Japan.

Purchase Place: Blue Sun Soda, Spring Lake Park, MN.

Sweetener: High Fructose Corn Syrup and Sugar.

Review: This is the second Japanese soda like this I've had in this strange bottle - if you want to see more about how to open it by forcing a marble down into the bottle, check out my review of their grape soda. It's still not a bottle that's easy to drink from as the marble tries to wash back and stop the flow of soda. It's a bit annoying.

But this flavor was pretty spot on! I opened the bottle with my boys, and we had enjoyed that process so much that I took a sip before remembering what flavor it was supposed to be. But my sip told me "raspberry... 100% raspberry." It had a nice little tartness to it, and it was decently sweet. It reminded me a bit of a liquid and carbonated blue raspberry Icee. Check it out if you're a fan of raspberry flavored drinks!

Score: 7 out of 10.

My boys and I cracked into a wacky looking Japanese soda last night:

A unique (small!) bottle.

"For even more delicious this drink chill before drinking." Yes. I love stuff like this.

 

Directions (also written on the right) for "popping" the marble seal into the bottle.

 

See the carbonation-covered marble right in the middle? Now it's just rolling around in there!

So yes... there was a plastic "opener" that got snapped out of the plastic cover, and then that got used to force the marble seal into the bottle. And note in that last photo that the glass bottle has a little "pocket" in it where the marble can rest. It's a very unique and heavy bottle - lots of glass "angles" in there. (VERY heavy considering it holds only 6.6 oz of soda!)

Brand: Japanese Ramuné Grape Soda.

Origin: Japan. 

Purchase Place: Blue Sun Soda, Spring Lake Park, MN.

Sweetener: High Fructose Corn Syrup and Sugar (one of the few sodas that I've had that has BOTH of those on the label).

Review: The bottle was the funnest part. My boys loved watching me open it, and kids would LOVE this bottle. Kids shouldn't open it (as it takes a lot of palm down-force to open it), but otherwise this is great for kids as it's fun and it's not much soda. The grape flavor is just OK. Truly, opening the bottle was the best part. There's a slight bite to this that isn't super. I'm ranking this 1 point higher than I should (if I were basing it ONLY on flavor) because of the "funness" of the bottle.

Score: 6 out of 10.

I have ONE soda left in my stash! Well, I should say "had" one soda left. My wife had a day off mid-week a few days ago, so I snuck away for an hour to restock my "soda box" in the basement. I hit up Blue Sun Soda:

I have *not* enjoyed a few of these, but I grabbed some that I hadn't tried before.

A BIG stock of their bottled-in-store Whistler sodas!

I had Kiss Army Root Beer a few years ago, but I hadn't tried the other 2. So I bought them.

Some "fancy" 22 oz $7 bottles. Just out of frame to the right is Indian Wells which we liked.

In the "all natural" section, here's a brand I haven't cared for (2 bottles rated 3.5 and 2).

Blue Sun now has a bigger "Japanese" section, so I grabbed 2! It didn't seem right to have Elvis and John Wayne in the background...

I left with a case of 24 sodas, but I only had 2 root beers in there. After drinking those, I think I'll have had EVERY kind of root beer at Blue Sun except for 2 of the "big bottle" brands! I saved those for another time.

Thanks for refreshing my stash Blue Sun! I hope to check out your new location sometime soon as well!