As I’ve mentioned before, Waialua Soda Works is based out of Oahu (Hawaii) and makes a few varieties of tropical fruit sodas as well as a root beer and a vanilla cream. I’m currently in the process of finishing reviews of their entire line of sodas, all of which you’ll be able to find by clicking on this link. While they’re a Hawaiian company, they have distribution across the US. Maybe beyond, I don’t know. I’ve seen bottles at high-end grocery stores as well as Rocket Fizz locations.
There was a period in my life when I ate a lot of mangoes. Not surprisingly, I eventually had an experience that altered my view of the fruit. In Honduras you can buy mangoes that are roughly the size of a football. Maybe an under-inflated football (looking at you, Brady). Anyway, the massive mangoes were a complete disaster to eat, but I’d eat them anyway. If you’re away from home you can employ a technique of biting a strip of mango peel off with your teeth to expose a couple inches of flesh. I found out the hard way that the worst case scenario to eating a mango with the “Daryl” technique is taking a giant bite only to see a worm pop out of the hole you just created with your teeth. I couldn’t eat mangoes for months after that.
Enough of my mango stories, on to the soda! I was hoping for a bright, sweet, and bubbly “mango” soda. This was that…but less. The mango flavor was there, but not as pronounced as I had hoped. Once again, it was more like a spritzer than other strong sodas. That’s not a bad thing, especially since this is made with natural ingredients. It was very drinkable, nicely carbonated, and not overwhelmingly sweet. I’ll give it a 6.5 out of 10 on my rating scale.
To read reviews of other Hawaiian products, click here.
Catalog:
Sampled May 2017
The Sodafry 