sometime in the past 23 or so years Smucker’s changed the recipe to this root beer. really I have no clue when it happened. I see it in my local supermarkets and such often but never thought to check the ingredients and nutritional info. but I was getting rather desperate to find new sodas so I started to check every soda I came across and realized this one was different. woo hoo!!
I think I have only had this a couple times in the intervening decades since I first reviewed this. people have purchased it for me to have at their house for parties and the like I think as it is pretty readily available. I recall it being pretty decent.
I suppose that would be a good overall evaluation of this, “decent.” at first it is kind of bad and weird tasting but that settles into a much better taste. the anise and licorice seem to make for a rather bitter start that it takes the vanilla and wintergreen a bit to catch up with and balance out. for a natural root beer it is actually better than most. it makes me a little conflicted to review as overall it is not awesome from first sip to aftertaste but the end is good so I will mainly base it upon that.
