On Saturday morning, my boys had a cross country race at Como Park. After that, we headed north to Blue Sun Soda for their free root beer tasting party.

The 10 sodas (and tiny sipping cups on either end) ready for sampling.

My 1st grader got in on the action. We tried all of them and kept track of what one we liked best.

You were supposed to grab a bottle cap and vote for your favorite by putting it in the corresponding bucket.

Henry liked Dang! the best.

Dorothy won for me. Dang! and Zuberfizz weren't far behind.

Their selection of their made-in-house Whistler soda.

My pre-schooler played some pinball.

Playing an old bowling game.

"Springtime Sodas."

The boys on a noisy elephant with games and the root beer tasting in the background.

Enjoying some small sugary treats on the way home.

 I left with 10 bottles of new soda. I had just a few more from my old stash to drink first, but then I'll start in on these new sodas. I bought 2 Whistler sodas that I'll need to have soon because as I've noted recently, their caps don't seem to hold their seal for very long.

UPDATE: Blue Sun Soda added on Facebook the ranking of the top 4 of the taste test: "#1 Zuberfizz, #2 Dang, #3 Red Arrow, #4 Dorothy's." So Henry's and my picks were #2 and #4 out of 10. They also noted that they go through about a case of each soda at these "tasting" events, so they went through about 240 bottles total!

About 9 months ago, I reviewed Boylan Root Beer and Virgil's Root Beer. I wasn't impressed by either of them, but felt I needed to try them both again. So I cracked them open head-to-head:



Originally, I'd given them both an "average" rating: 5 out of 10. (Click here for the Boylan review, and click here for the Virgil's review.)

One of the things I said about Virgil's last year was that "it was SUPER creamy, but it was just missing a little something."  And I said that Boylans was "fine, but it wasn't great."  Well, after a few tastes of each the other night, I have to say that...

Virgil's tasted like anise water (too thin)

... and that...

Boylans just tasted a little burnt.

I think I was a little generous with a "5" rating for each last time. I would re-rank them as:

Virgil's: 4.5 out of 10.
Boylan: 4 out of 10.