Tres Refrescos

I hate Summer. There, I said it. While I don’t, obviously, revile every waking moment of my life from June until September, I do loathe the hot and humid weather that blankets New England for three months of the year. To that end, I endeavor to find some of the best liquid refreshment possible and chronicle my findings. Today I bring you a trio of sodas from south-of-the-border, down Mexico way. Let’s find out which is the most refresco.

The first bottle is Malta Goya, one of the ten-quadrillion products brought to us by the friendly folks at the multinational Goya Corporation. I have seen this beverage in stores my entire life and have never given it a try, until now. It pours a very dark brown and smells of molasses. The taste is very much along the same line, molasses… and water.

As I look on the label, I notice that Malta Goya contains hops; very cool, but completely obliterated by the taste of molasses. Although not really refreshing, this soda is not remotely unpleasant, but the burnt sugar flavor and bittersweet taste of blackstrap molasses just doesn’t scream “summertime drinking” to me. I would love to marinade some pork tenderloin in it though… keep an eye out for that once the weather turns cooler.

The second bottle is Jarritos Jamaica Soda. Now I know from hanging out with Connoisseur Javier that this will taste like its namesake: hibiscus (Jamaica in Spanish). The color is red like wine with a floral cranberry scent. The taste is much the same, floral, tangy, berry notes, but also a little salty, which throws me off.

My first reaction was that this was ok, but a pure hibiscus iced tea would be worlds better (Starbucks Passion iced tea for example), but the day after the tasting I found myself craving the half-bottle that I had left after a grueling walk home through soupy humidity and found it most refreshing.

The last bottle is Goya El Dorado Golden Soda. I had no idea what to expect, but I liked the faux-Aztec art on the bottle, so pop went the cap. This soda pours a bright, toxic yellow and smells like nothing whatsoever. What it tastes like is, well, pretty much sugar water.

There’s a slight citrus flavor and a slight marshmallow flavor, but more than anything, it tastes like refined white sugar stirred into carbonated water. Goya pulled this flavor off so convincingly that I found myself checking the bottom of my glass for undissolved sugar crystals. The fact that this drink tastes of almost nothing would seem to make it a shoe-in for the most refreshing soda of the evening, but upon reading the label, I saw that El Dorado has almost 40 grams of sugar in one bottle.

Staying cool in the Summer is always a challenge, but even with all the options out there for the thirsty consumer, nothing does the trick for me like a tall glass of ice water or an ice cold glass of unsweetened peppermint iced tea.