I’ve
been told on more than one occasion that I have an angry resting face. This
means I naturally look angry when internally I am simply at my equilibrium; not
happy, sad, angry, anxious, anything, etc.
I’m just in my default mode and not thinking about it. I would say
“emotionless”, but that’s probably not accurate and is just what my wife calls
me. I’ve been told it’s off-putting, meaning people don’t want to approach me.
This I find works in my favor as I generally don’t care to engage with
strangers, being an introvert by nature. But I never really grasped the full
weight of this until I met a woman who bears the same affliction. In general,
she looks like the weight of everything in the world has taken its toll on her
for 30+ years, and most of the time it didn’t go the way she wanted. This woman
is my niece’s mother-in-law, and when I met her was at the wedding of her son
to my niece. I’m telling you I’ve never seen someone look more miserable, and
it was at her son’s wedding no less. You would have thought she was completely
against the union of her son and my niece but decided to keep it to herself,
sitting and sulking while the couple read their vows. It was only during this
moment I really understood what has been said to me for most of my adult life.
“Is everything ok with you?” “You seem upset.” “You should smile more.” I never
took any real offence to these comments, but they were annoying. I’m just being
me. Why do I care if you think I’m upset or not? Well, now I understand that in
social situations (like at a wedding) there is a general demeanor that is expected,
and my unintentional broadcasting of faux personal distress or perceived lack
of approval turns out to be a real downer for everyone else. So I’m trying to
be more conscious of it, but old habits die hard and I find it’s too much
effort to appear pleasant and happy all the time with little to no payoff.
We’re all just doing the best we can out here.
And speaking of doing the best we can, i am almost done with all the root beers i have had backlogged in my fridge for at least the last 5 years or so. I am closing in on the last few. This one is really just an extension of my last review, which was related to a review i wrote back in 2016. I'm taking of course about the Ramblin' Root Beer family with a line of flavors both common and uncommon to root beers. As discussed in my last post, it appears that Ramblin' has gone out of business but has licensed the right to brew and distribute their root beer flavors to Rocket Fizz, which is where i found this root beer. You can go back and look at my last review of Ramblin' Maple Root Beer or the original Ramblin' post if you so care to learn more about the company, or more-so, how i came to first find these root beers. It's not a thrilling read and holds little to no value to anything, so i wouldn't recommend it. But it's there if you want it.
As i've already stated regarding the label, i'm a fan. It's fun, professional, colorful and conveys a sense of adventure in a bottle. But the reality is that this root beer is anything but an adventure. It's a very, very, very watered-down butter beer. I don't mind the butterscotch flavor that is the keynote finish to this elixir. But i wouldn't call it the dominant flavor because the dominant flavor is nothing. This tastes like nothing. It barely tastes like real cane sugar, which it is sweetened with. It just tastes like nothing, or maybe just water. The carbonation is so slight that it's not really even there. The root beer flavor does not exist. And the only other flavors are unpleasant and artificial at best. Indeed, the butterscotch is the star here because it swoops in at the end to save you from the terrible things this has done to your palette. But don't give it too much credit. The butterscotch flavor, which is still the most pleasant part of this drink, is also so weak and thin that it's barely noticeable. You really only taste it after it has sat on your tongue for a bit. Overall it seems like a waste of a drink.
My official review is that Ramblin' Butterscotch Root Beer gets 2 (two) IBCs. The other flavors of Ramblin' i tried both got a score of 4, so i didn't have high hopes for this one. But i wasn't expecting it to be as big of a letdown as it was. Man is this a disappointing drink. I'd advise you to stay clear of this one as it really has no merit to it, not even as a novelty. There are plenty of other butter beers or butterscotch flavored root beers out there that put on much more of a show than this garbage.
