Trader Joe's Vintage Root Beer

Presentation: Splash circle. Orange and Brown. "Vintage" in script, "Root Beer" is big and bold. They let you know what you are drinking.

Ingredients straight from the bottle: Triple Filtered Carbonated Water, Cane Sugar, Caramel Color, Wintergreen, Birch, Anise, Sassafras, Tahitian Vanilla Extract and Citric Acid.

Calories: 170

Sodium 0mg (0% DV)

Sugars 43 g

Bought From: Trader Joe's (Duh!), in Columbia, MD

Cost: $3.99 for four bottles.

Initial Uncapping: Nice popping sound. Smokey mist escapes a little bit but then sits on the liquid until you blow it out. Kind of cool! It's got the typical root beer smell.

Carbonation: Very Light

The rundown: If you have never been to a Trader Joe's, you should find one near you, even if it is 5 hours away and check it out. They have got some pretty awesome food. Well anyways, about the drink! It's got ALL natural ingredients, which is a plus! I do like knowing exactly what I am putting in my mouth (TWSS). The sugar cane comes through while the root beer is swirling around and you can definitely taste the wintergreen on the way down, which may be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your tastes. At first, I didn't like it too much, but the more I have been drinking TJ's Vintage Root Beer, the more I've been liking that wintergreen. However... and this is a big one, after a couple of sips, I did notice that it started to taste a little watered down and I confirmed this on my second bottle. Probably the light carbonation added to the wateriness. I like it fizzy.

Summary: Overall, a pretty decent, all natural, root beer.

TK Rating: 7 out of 10

P.S. There are two small labels on the side "(g+) No Gluten Ingredients Used" and "(V) Vegan". So I drank this while eating a meatball sandwich. I like to keep the world balanced.