MAYrathon 2.0 Day 6 - Pineapple Whip

Pineapple Whip Soda from the O-Zell Soda Company. This is another one I've had for a long time on the shelf, and there's no real cool backstory as to why I purchased it. I think the name, Pineapple Whip, caught my attention and made me wonder if it has more of a dessert taste than a traditional pineapple soda. And also the Disney-like Hawaiian character on the label seemed like a classic cartoon I enjoyed in my youth. Upon doing a little research into the company, I didn't realize how true that was!

O-Zell began in the early 1900s, financed by none other that Walt Disney's father, Elias Disney; which explains why the characters on the bottle look so Disney-esque. It                   

was his dream to produce, market and sell exotic, oriental sodas out of a factory in Chicago. Everyone, including Walt, helped out in the factory, but sadly the family ran out of money before any soda ever made it to the public market. And that was it. Until 2014 when a couple in Chicago decided to revive the company with various flavors and sell them in stores like Rocket Fizz. But what's even cooler than that is that proceeds from the sale go towards restoring Disney's 1901 home to its original condition and making it a historical landmark. http://www.thewaltdisneybirthplace.org/   So for once, I can say my terrible soda habit is for a good cause - take THAT Buddha.

So let's give it a taste - for Disney! The bottle proclaims to be all natural and is made with Hawaiian cane sugar which seems interesting. Other than that, it's the standard soda stuff. Let's crack it open. Very strong carbonation rushes to the top of the glass bottle, and the smell is certainly that of Pineapple. I've always enjoyed pineapple sodas, so this should be a good one. Let's find out...yea it's really tasty. I get where the "whip" part comes from. It's not like a Faygo or Fanta Pineapple, it has more of a carbonated pineapple jello taste. Not bad at all. I feel like I should end on a Whip It joke here, but it just seems like too low hanging fruit. Like pineapple. HA! 

The Twelve Days of POPmas Day 6: Lilt

Let's not go too far away from Scotland just yet. Today we are looking at the British soda, Lilt. This is one I have never heard of but popped on on the "you may also like..." section when I ordered Irn Bru. I'm not sure I've had a legitimate British soda yet, so I said what the heck! Also, Spice Girls. 

Let's be honest here, between Scotland and being an American, we've pretty much got Christmas covered in England. It's pretty much the same plus fog and smog. If you've read or seen The Christmas Carol, you get the gist of it. There are; however, two traditions that I think we as Americans should adopt. One is Christmas Crackers. Not the ones you eat, but the ones that are filled with surprises! If you host Christmas, you must supply each guest with a Christmas cracker, called so because it makes a popping noise when you open it. Sounds cool! Also, and this is the greatest thing ever, all pubs are open for a few hours during midday and it's tradition to go down to your local pub, take the kids, pets and hostages and have a few beers before having people over for dinner. I am all about that tradition! I'm sick of there only being gas stations and Chinese food available in the states!

On to the Lilt, which is an actual word that means: "the attractive quality of speech or music that rises and falls in a pleasing pattern." Or, as we would say, "Fred Durst has a sexy lilt to his voice." As I said, I hadn't really heard about this one, and there's a surprising lack of information about it. Lilt is a pineapple and grapefruit soda, which didn't scream Britain to me until I realized the soda originated in Brazil before being bought and produced by the Coca Cola UK company. Lilt has tried many other flavors, but this is the only one to last. It seems to make sense too. Pineapple - tasty. Grapefruit - tasty. Coca Cola - business smart. I feel like this can't go wrong. At only 55P (pence I assume) and 65 calories, let's get Britty with it. It smells of absolutely nothing. Not even a faint hint of anything. Taste? Both flavors are duking it out to establish dominance. It's also a bit sour tasting, and this is a fresh can. At first, it tastes a bit like a Squirt or a Fresca, bit then the pineapple comes dancing by. And it tastes like a real pineapple fruit, not artificial. It's unique, and on a cold and miserable day like today, it makes me think of the beach, so I'm sold. 4 out of 5 Rudolph Noses. 

GIRL POWER!