Serenity Sodas Root Beer & Vanilla Bean

I’m not a fashionable guy. I’ve known this for decades at this point. I have had my brief dalliances of wearing clothes that one might consider fashionable but I am typically a jeans and t-shirt kinda guy. My wife is very interested in clothes and fashion, but she has a style all her own. It’s a lot less typical than what I would consider most mainstream choices for women to wear. And I don’t dislike the way my wife dresses, but I’m often left scratching my head seeing what she puts together. It’s not that it looks bad, I just would never have looked at what she had on and considered that she is on the cutting edge of fashion. But she gets compliments all the time on her clothing choices so I just chalk it up to me having zero taste when it comes to clothes. Well that all went out the window when my wife told me recently that she would dress like a “bag lady” if she could pull it off. So what she is saying is that she wants to look homeless. I get that she is ultimately going for comfort, but I would hope that could be achieved without culturally appropriating the homeless look. Would she take it the whole 9 yards and start rubbing dirt all over herself? I don’t know, but I don’t really care to go down that road. I can just imagine showing up to a work picnic or something like that and saying, “Honey, this is my manager Patrick. Patrick, this is my bag lady wife. What’s that? Oh no, she doesn’t work.” For the record, my wife can choose to dress however she deems fits the occasion. But man… I really hope she doesn’t go full bag lady on me. This falls along the same lines of when she told me she wants a pet goat. I was trying to humor her and entertain the idea, but mostly I was highlighting the obvious challenges of owning a pet goat (i.e. smell, attitude, poop, etc.) when she said, “but he could sit here on the couch with me while I watch TV.” To which I responded, “wait, you want a house goat?!” That’s a hard pass from me dawg. If it’s a choice between bag lady and house goat… I guess bring on the bag lady.

OK, well let's get to this root beer. Serenity Sodas is bottled by Blue Sun Bottling in Spring Lake Park, MN. The website boasts that their shop is the largest craft soda and candy shop in all of Minnesota. I would believe that from the home of the Mall of America, but i get the feeling it's probably just as unimpressive. Pictures show that it shares many themes with the way Rocket Fizz is laid out and what kinds of candy and sodas are offered. It's the same as a place in Ocala, FL my wife and i just visited recently right on the square called Grandpa Joe's. Most of these shops follow the same type of business plan but Blue Sun still claims it has thousands of soda flavorss to choose from and the largest offering in the entire world. I get the sense of awe i am supposed to feel and i do acknowledge it is impressive, but again... i feel like I've seen it before and i'm not gonna go out of my way to pay a visit. 

The label has a cosmic affectation to it that is pleasing. There is what i am assuming is a Japanese symbol behind the name of the soda likely owing to the Asian idea of the concept of the notion of the state of serenity, which from my limited understanding is the ability to be in a sense of calm and well being even in turbulent situations. The font of Serenity Sodas makes me think of the 2005 movie by the same name, which was done as a follow up to the cult classic TV series Firefly that ended after just one season. It was a novel idea to have what is essentially a western set in space and it found quite a rabid fanbase, but for whatever reason the network did not renew the series for a second season. The fans demanded more of the story and the movie Serenity is what came out of it. I gotta think the two are related based on the name and font of the root beer compared to the movie poster and the space theme/background on the label, but that could just be a wild assumption on my part. 

But of course, what really happens when i think of "serenity" is that my mind immediately jumps to this. 

I like the flavor of this one. It's quite sweet from the cane sugar and it has a nice vanilla undertone and finish to it. I am a little underwhelmed by the actual root beer flavor of it because it's quite thin. But i would say its a good drink overall. It doesn't classify itself as a cream soda but that's certainly what it tastes like to me. That's not necessarily a bad thing, i just don't want to have to open myself up to reviewing a bunch of cream sodas now. But who knows, when i get to the end of all the root beers out there maybe i will need to start checking out cream sodas and sarsaparillas. For now though, we are gonna stick to root beers, and if this one calls itself a root beer then it's a pretty good root beer at that. 

My official review is that Serenity Sodas Root Beer & Vanilla Bean gets 6 (six) IBCs. I liked this one overall and would lean more toward a 7 (or even and 8) if it had more of a strong, traditional root beer flavor to it. Regardless, this thing is a winner for sure. Like the TV series and the subsequent movie to which i made mention above, this probably won't find a wide audience. However, i bet the audience it attracts will be just as appreciative as the sci-fi fans who demanded more of something they loved that was taken away from them, all while keeping a calm head. If that's not serenity i don't know what is.