Cooking Club -- Rootbeer Tasting Party

Cooking Club

We go back and forth on what to call ourselves--cooking club?  Supper club?

We are just people who like to make food, eat and talk.

In December, we didn't cook--we tasted!

We had pizza and a root-beer tasting party.

December (and I know I am extremely  late in posting) is usually so busy that planning a cooking party just doesn't seem to fit in any of our lifestyles, but getting together more informally does, so I threw together a little tasting party .

I had been planning and stock-piling root beer for a while as I knew I wanted to do this--I just wasn't sure of the logistics. 

I was thinking maybe a backyard BBQ with root beer floats? Root Beer is a summer thing, right?

But all of the sudden it was  December and I thought we just needed a little get together and some downtime. 

It worked. 

We ate pizza and we laughed a lot, telling our root beer memories.

We had  a very formal judging form..... 

A scale from 1 to 5.

 #1 being a mild root-beer flavor and #5 being HOLY SASPARILLA! 

Somewhere in the middle would be "man that's some good root beer".

While we understand that there are 100's of root-beer brands out there, both regional and national, the Handyman and I only chose five to go with.  Five brands that were familiar to us here in the west... and those were:

Dad's Root Beer was developed in the 1930s by partners Barney Berns and Ely Klapman in the basement of Klapman's Chicago-area home. The first trademark registration was filed on September 24, 1938, granted on February 14, 1939, to the Dad's Root Beer Company of Chicago, with the product name allegedly in use since February 1937. Dad's earned a loyal following. Dad's Root Beer brand was famous throughout the Midwest and by the late 1940s, was one of the most consumed brands of root beer throughout the United States. Jules Klapman, son of co-founder Ely, successfully took the Dad's brand international. The name Dad's Old Fashioned Root Beer was selected in honor of Ely Klapman's father, and other fathers, who used to make root beer at home for their families

MUG Root Beer, A PepsiCo Subsidiary/Root Beer Corporation is a brand name of root beer made by the New Century Beverage Company of San Francisco, California, a subsidiary of PepsiCo.

It was originally produced by the Belfast Beverage Company in San Francisco, California, during the 1940s as Belfast Root Beer. An advertisement for Belfast Root Beer appears as early as 1947. The product name was later changed to Mug Old Fashioned Root Beer

Barq's is an American soft drink. Its brand of root beer is notable for having caffeine. Barq's, created by Edward Barq and bottled since the turn of the 20th century, is owned by the Barq family but bottled by the Coca-Cola Company. It was known as Barq's Famous Olde Tyme Root Beer until 2012.

A&W Root Beer is a root beer brand primarily available in the United States and Canada, started in 1919 by Roy W. Allen.^[1] In 1922, Allen partnered with Frank Wright. They combined their initials to create the brand "A&W" and inspired a restaurant chain, founded in 1922. Originally, A&W root beer drinks sold for five cents

On June 20, 1919, Roy W. Allen opened a roadside root beer stand in Lodi, California, using a formula he had purchased from a pharmacist.^[4] He soon opened stands in Stockton, California, and five stands in nearby Sacramento, home of the country's first drive-in featuring "tray-boys" for curbside service. In 1920, Allen became partners with Frank Wright and the two combined their initials and called their product A&W Root Beer.

Hires Root Beer is a root beer marketed by Dr Pepper Snapple Group. Introduced in 1876, it is considered the second longest continuously made soft drink in the United States. Only Vernors ginger ale , dating to 1866, is older.

Hires Root Beer was created by Philadelphia pharmacist Charles Elmer Hires. The official story is that Hires first tasted root beer, a traditional American beverage dating back to the colonial era, while on his honeymoon in 1875.^[1] However, historical accounts vary and the actual time and place of the discovery may never be known.

There was some serious tasting going on!

And some serious judging!

The Handyman and I preferred Hires Root Beer  (and A & W is kind of a Western staple, so that one almost didn't count).

Hires Root Beer!  It's what we grew up with in the Pacific Northwest!

It's so good!  The best!

Wouldn't the rest of you agree...… 

WAIT!???

What's with all those thumbs down?

Okay, it ended up being half and half for Hires Root Beer.

But no one beat that record-- the rest were a couple votes each, so

HIRES WON!!

So what do we do now?

Dessert? Sure!

Shelly is not so sure about Root Beer flavored Pop Tarts!

But... CHEERS!!

I have known Debbie E longer than any my other Cooking Club Friends--29 years--but I didn't know this about her:  she hates root beer!

Who the heck hates root beer?

Whatever-- she was a good sport and tasted right along!

The Handyman didn't want a selfie!  He also didn't want a Root Beer Poptart!

Not sure if Mark tasted the pop tart or not, BUT, we did all agree that our next "tasting" party, we're going to do Pop Tarts!
We'll let you know how that goes.

And since it was Christmas time, we got presents!

Everyone got a mug with cookbook spines on it -- from the 

Ideal Book Shelf.

And homemade vanilla and orange extract.

And best of all -- we were all together!  It doesn't happen very often anymore.

Cooking Club #13 was the best one yet!

And these cooking club meals were all good too... just click on the link to see.

Cooking Club #1 -Meals your mom used to make

Cooking Club #2- Cajun Cooking

Cooking Club #3 - Let's all go to Hawaii

Cooking Club #4 - American Regional Cooking --Great Lakes Region, featuring: SUPPER CLUBS!

Cooking Club #5 - Famous Chefs  (long post with other stuff mixed in, but just trust me)

Cooking Club #6 -Meatball Madness -- or something round  (long post combined with Famous Chef's.  Scroll thru some stuff to get there)

Cooking Club #7 - Breakfast for dinner

Cooking Club #8 - Slow Cooking

Cooking Club #9 - Mexican Street Food

Cooking Club #10- Your Christmas Cookie Heritage

Cooking Club #11 - Cooking from labels/back of box, can, or carton

Cooking Club #12 - It's all Greek to Me!

Cooking Club #13 - A Root Beer Tasting Holiday

Coming Soon -- Thai Food

Happy Eating Everybody!

See you next time.