Fresh Ginger Ginger Ale by Bruce Cost

Product Type:Carbonated Soft Drink: Regular; Container: 12 oz bottle
BevNET Review: Mixing fresh peeled ginger with jasmine tea isn’t something that exactly whets the appetite, but what’s inside this bottle is truly amazing. The product offers several flavors, including the spice of ginger, the sweetness of sugar, and the floral flavor of jasmine green tea. Each one of these hits your mouth at a different stage of the drinking experience, with the ginger hanging around a bit after the fact. Aside from tasting great, it’s one of those products that you really can’t get anywhere else – and that’s something that is really key if you’re going to compete as a super-premium CSD. On the label front, they created something that’s conceptually very appealing, playing on the drink’s handmade origins with a paper label that uses a font that looks like it was stenciled on. They’ve also put the batch number on the label, which again reinforces the fact that this isn’t some mass-produced product. However, the placement of the flavor name on the neck is something that is easy to miss. It’s clearly a move to save cost (the main label is the same across the flavors), but one that comes at the expense of being able to identify the product quickly. Fixing this would be a big help for what is otherwise an awesome product.

Product Type:Carbonated Soft Drink: Regular; Container: 12 oz bottle
BevNET Review: The “Original” variety of Fresh Ginger Ginger Ale by Bruce Cost is an impressive display of what happens when you take quality ingredients and let their natural flavor take center stage. In this case, you’ve got a four-ingredient formulation that relies heavily on the flavor of the fresh peeled ginger that goes into each bottle. Bruce Cost, who has written Asian cook books as well as a book that’s strictly on ginger, clearly knows what he’s doing with this ingredient and somehow has managed to translate that into something that can be enjoyed in a shelf-stable form. For a product that has relies on ginger alone for flavoring, it’s extremely mellow and smooth (at least relative to other spicy ginger beers), with only a moderate amount of heat making its way onto your tongue. It’s sweetened with cane sugar, which makes it sweet, but not too sweet. There’s some ginger pulp throughout and it settles, which is just another indicator of how high-quality this product is. Packaging is a standard 12 oz. longneck, which they’ve appropriately decorated with a design that looks rustic and handmade – just like the product . The Bruce Cost angle will certainly mean something to ginger aficionados, while the rest of the label should convince consumers that this product is wholesome and super high quality. Overall, an exceptional CSD that we hope to see a lot more of.

Product Type:Carbonated Soft Drink: Regular; Container: 12 oz bottle
BevNET Review: The final flavor of Ginger Ale by Bruce Cost that we sampled was this one, a mixture of their Original Ginger Ale and pomegranate puree. While it’s a nice flavor, it’s hard to pick this one over the other two, since the simplicity of the Original and the uniqueness of the Jasmine Tea variety are more appealing to us. Still, they’ve done a really nice job executing this product, with the pomegranate hiding from your tongue until the drink’s finish. There, it really only appears as an accent flavor, softening the punch that’s added by the fresh peeled ginger. On the outside, the branding definitely sends the message that there is a high quality beverage waiting on the inside. However, like the other flavored offering, putting the flavor name on the neck makes for a disjointed looking offering. Otherwise, we wouldn’t change a thing. Overall, a very enjoyable product.