Dad’s is a brand that has been around for a while. Like, 80 years “a while”. What kind of history does Dad’s hold? How about being the first beverage company to sell a 6 pack of product? That’s pretty cool. How about being the first beverage company to market a half-gallon size of root beer? That’s probably also cool, but it feels less cool. Maybe that’s just me.

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Ownership of Dad’s Root Beer has changed hands a couple times over the past 80 years but it’s currently owned by Hedinger Brands, LLC (along with some other vintage soda brands). You can find Dad’s at several different national retailers, but more interesting to me was the bottle I found produced by Orca Beverage Company in Mukilteo. It looks old. Classic.

This root beer tasted familiar. I’m sure I had Dad’s growing up, but soda was mostly a clandestine indulgence when I was a kid. We kept mostly to generics, and I was supposed to ask before having a can (the answer was typically “no”). I don’t know if this is true of every Dad’s Root Beer you can find, but the bottles from Orca are made with cane sugar. The flavor was mostly caramel and wintergreen, or maybe just a balanced sassafras. I’d say it’s a very good “generic” root beer flavor that would be non-offensive to most reasonable people. Except Europeans. They tend to hate root beer.

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I wouldn’t mind drinking this again. Is it a craft soda? Probably not. I think that a 7.5 out of 10 on my rating scale is about right.

For reviews of other Orca Beverage bottled sodas, click here.

For reviews of other Hedinger Brand sodas, click here.

Catalog:
Sampled in March 2017, purchased at Albertson’s Grocery Store (I think??)