Craft Soda: What is this? Why is it a thing?
When we heard about a new 'craft soda' being made in Edinburgh, we had two thoughts: 'What the hell is that?' and 'Let's try it then ask its creators some questions.' Here are the results
Some things in life take time, effort, and a special artisan’s touch. Italian sports cars, action films with decent characters, and your craft beers and small-batch spirits. But soda? Really? Craft soda? Is that a thing?
Well now it is, thanks to Roots Soda. The Edinburgh team have just launched two flavours of unconventional pop - Hoodoo (citrus, hibiscus and chilli) and Kaleidoscope (strawberry, orange, balsamic and basil). It has all the craft trappings - handwritten batch numbers, minimalist packaging, poetry. Yep, poetry, right there on the back of the bottle. What’s going on? Why is this a thing?
Mark Pool from Roots explains: “We loved fizzy drinks as kids. Now though, we find them unnerving. It seemed to us that fizzy drinks should have been a treat. Like apple crumble, or the sticky toffee puddings our mums used to make now and then for us as kids. And just like those apple crumbles, they should have been made on the kitchen stove with real wholesome ingredients. Not pharmacists’ percolators, extracts and technicians in white coats.”
Right, that... that hasn’t really cleared things up has it? Let’s move on. In terms of flavour, Hoodoo brings the most to the table. Pomegranate, grapefruit, orange and chilli - we'll put up with all kinds of haikus and Instagram-production photos for that stuff. Tasty. Kaleidoscope, on the other hand, tastes like Fanta. Admittedly, a posh take on Fanta, but Fanta nonetheless. Therein lies the rub - if its a choice between a can of factory-produced sugary juice and a bottle of craft-made sugary juice that tastes the same but costs four times as much, then why pick the crafty stuff?
Well, according to Mark, the factory stuff is bad. He says: “Fizzy drinks and their ingredients are difficult to understand, although we understand enough to know they are not good for us. It seemed to us that they were crying out for someone to take them back to their roots, to make their ingredients easier to understand, to be imaginative and creative, to make them with love and care.”
OK... So in conclusion, craft soda is a bit pricey, but each bottle comes with a free poem. It is like hypothetical apple crumble from the past. The red version is quite nice, and the orange one makes no sense. It’s no Irn-Bru, but Irn-Bru is bad for you for some reason. It’s all very confusing, but we do know one fact for sure - craft soda, it is a thing.