# 1: Q "Spectacular" Ginger Beer
A spicy start to the series. Seriously, it has chili pepper in it.
an autobiography of soda
I was a mostly Sprite person growing up. Whenever my parents would let me have soda, that is, which was maybe twice a month on our trips to Costco because it’d be a waste to toss the cup that came with the $1.50 hot dog. This was before Costco switched to Pepsi products, and also before Costco stopped serving soda with sugar in it. I only get the hot dog about half the time now, partially because diet Pepsi is awful and partially because the coronavirus pandemic made them stop serving unlimited diced onion with the dog, which is the real shame.
In addition to Sprite I had a Coke phase, and then a root beer phase, and then a super short cream soda phase. I don’t know if you can really call them “phases” if I only had a can once 1-2 weeks, but all of the “phases” lasted about a year. Of course I had ginger ale from time to time - mostly Canada Dry or this super generic “Polar Beverages” version that supplied my dad’s office. But all of it was generically sweet, sappy stuff that looked and tasted like a Sprite knockoff made with brown sugar or something. I just kept coming back to ice-cold Sprite since I really liked the bite of the cold carbonation, and my parents didn’t like it when I had caffeine.
At some point I started playing soccer seriously and realized that all of my coaches said that soda would make me horribly ineffective at being athletic. This was also about the time that my middle school made us watch Supersize Me in health class, so I kind of backed off the soda scene for a while.
When soda came back into my life after that it was as chaser for various types of hard liquor near the tail end of college. Sadly I will always associate Diet Dr. Pepper with the smell of $10 vodka - a horribly-saccharine drink that starts off with fake notes of vanilla and finishes with that bitter alcoholic burn. Bleh.
It was only until after college, when I started working, that I finally got a taste of the promised land. My new office stocked these tiny 8-oz cans of ginger ale that were so different from any soda I had had previously. They were small, spicy, and ridiculously carbonated - after one sip you could feel the tingle in the back of your throat for 30 seconds. But I guess not that many people liked them, because after a month of seeing them in the fridge they were replaced by mini martinellis (adorable, btw) for the holidays and didn’t come back after new years.
A few years passed, coronavirus happened, I started working from home (no more free office drinks!). My beverage rotation became monotonous: coffee-OJ-water. Until a few weeks ago, when I was over at a friend’s place and stumbled upon a few of the cans I’d had at the office a while back, except these were purple to denote the fact that there were ginger beer and not ginger ale. I bought a 24 pack on Amazon as soon as I got home and my girlfriend and I have pretty much had one each per day. (They’re only 80 calories each, so that makes me feel slightly better).
Anyway, I started this newsletter (blog?) for two reasons:
I originally wanted to start a career advice blog, but there are thousands of those and the people that write them are far more insightful than myself. “But all these folks need to drink something,” I thought, “and coffee is cliche, and alcohol is expensive, so I’ll just write about classy soda instead.”
I need a reason to go out and buy a dozen different types of ginger beer. So thank you for reading.
Review: Q "Spectacular" Ginger Beer
Taste:
It’s spicy. Like “will make you cough and possibly spill the first time you take a sip if you’re not ready” spicy. Which is actually great, because it makes you take tiny sips, which makes the 8oz can last much longer than it looks. The ingredients include chili pepper, which was presumably added because whoever made this enjoyed watching making the eyes of those who expected a sip of bubbly high-fructose corn syrup water in astonishment.
Carbonation:
Very carbonated. The spiciness of the ginger and pepper also trick your tongue into thinking there are more bubbles. It’s so bubbly I feel like I eat less when I have one of these because I feel more full. If you’re like me you’ll probably burp incessantly for the next hour.
Where to buy:
I got mine as a 24-pack from amazon for $20.94, which works out to 12 cents an ounce. For those fearing commitment, you can buy a 4-pack for like $4 at certain supermarkets - my local Whole Foods has them.
One-liner
Spicy, bubbly can with a kick that was so different from normal soda that it inspired me to write this blog 😎