For quite a while I thought "root beer" to be a fictitious beverage, like Romulan Ale or Bloodwine.
Until I stumbled upon some comments by Americans mentioning it to be a real thing!
Only problem was that it is basically unknown and very hard to find here in Germany.
After unsuccessfully trying two special US stores as well as a couple of Asia markets (after someone mentioned that it is also a thing in some Asian countries) I basically gave up.
So imagine my excitement when accidentally coming upon this can in my local Edeka market (a type of German higher end grocery store)!
Now I and my kids are ready to try it, but this should naturally be with the right background.
So: Which Star Trek episode that references it should we watch while tasting it?
We are currently watching TNG, so this would be preferred (if it even appears in there?).
I would even be ok with a Wesley centered episode.. ;-)
Update:
First, thanks to you all for the suggestions! In the end we went with DS9's "Little green men", as other episodes would have required too much contextual knowledge (and are also much darker).
Individually perceived tastes of the Root beer varied somewhere between toothpaste and decomposed rubber.
Final verdict has been mixed:
My daughter completely hates it, my wife is not especially fond of it, I kinda like it and my son now has a new favorite soft drink :-)
This specific root beer, the Bavarian nutmeg special edition, not the regular, is genuinely one of the most delicious beverages I've ever tasted.
Root beer is strange in that it has an enormous floor to ceiling range. Some of it is genuinely disgusting, but the best of it is amazing.
As a Bavarian, I have to say I am slightly flabbergasted to learn of the existence of Bavarian nutmeg root beer... ๐
Can't pretend to know anything about it, randomly saw it at a grocery store once and bought it on a whim and it blew my mind. Was truly devastated to learn that when they meant special edition, they meant it. I haven't seen it in over a decade, but I still regularly check for it just in case they ever decided to release a new batch, that's how incredible and memorable it was even more than 10 years later.
I find the original Virgil's to be really good too
Yeah the original is also very good, a high quality root beer. It just isn't transcendent like that special edition. But OP if you can find regular Virgil's, definitely give that one a try!
Given that the can in the pic is the first root beer I have seen in my whole life (and that despite actively searching for it), the chances of finding some specific speciality brand are probably pretty slim, I guess... :-)
I figured, but in case you ever travel
There's also 'birch beer,' little known outside of Pennsylvania
You have the red birch beer. Connecticut has the white birch beer.
Here we observe two neighboring hives engaging in a ritualized threat display to assert territorial boundaries and secular pride.
To our senses, the minute and varied differences between these two colonies might not seem distinct enough, but to these groups they are essential to their identities, to their very culture.
Now, let's watch while they dismember each other in the thousands to prove their own group's collective worth.
Polar makes a white type sold throughout New England
I'll contact my sources in the Nutmeg State to study the matter.
Foxon Park, baby!
Hosmer Mountain all the way
I always had A-Treat Birch Beer and the red cream soda when I visited my grandparents in PA.
Red cream soda??
NYC here. I've had vanilla cream soda, but not this red cream of which you speak.
IDK if you cab get it outside of PA https://www.a-treat.com/flavors/cream-soda-20oz-bottle
Cream soda here is vanilla flavored. Looks a little like beer, especially if you get a long neck bottle. What does the red taste like?
I can get birch beer delivered here in NJ with pizza orders.
I prefer ginger ale but the birch is fine.
We occasionally see birch beer down here in VA, usually at festivals. Absolutely love the stuff!
A'ha! I suspected there must be an old legit good original root beer, not just the corporate commercial chemical syrup water crap.