The First Taste of Summer....

For me the first taste of summer usually comes in two forms, watermelon and my first root beer float. I have already been through a couple of watermelon and they have been good, but not as good as my beloved Hermiston watermelons from back in Oregon. Today while at the grocery store, I decided that it was time to have the first root beer float. We now live and Texas, so this even comes a good month and a half before I would even think about it in Oregon since summer doesn't really start there until about mid July, if your lucky.

My normal root beer of choice for many years has been Henry Weinhard's. It is a good root beer and is considered one of the premium products. My local grocery store was out. It is memorial day, so I guess this is to be expected and the weather here is a nice crisp 95 degrees. I suppose I might not be the only person thinking root beer float this weekend.... So desperate for an alternative, I began scanning the shelves. I wasn't thrilled with the prospect of coming home with A&W. They may have made good root beer back in the day, but now in an era of high fructose corn syrup and artificial everything, I wasn't feeling it.  Then my luck was about to change... on an upper shelf,  pushed back a bit were a few four packs of Virgil's Micro Brewed Root Beer... Eureka! I had read about Virgil's before, I had even picked it up at the store once, but didn't buy it because of the price. But today, because no other quality root beer alternative was available, in the cart it went.

I knew I was taking my chances here. Not because I thought this was going to be a big waste of money, but more likely that I was going to be trying something that was going to be far superior to the brand I was very happy with that was much less expensive..My suspicions were right! This root beer is amazing! I mean OMG good! It is made with real sugar, try finding that on the shelf at your local store these days. You can actually taste all of the delicious spices used in this brew. This is REAL root beer. Not overly sweet, nicely spiced.. flat out fabulous! My root beer float is a thing of beauty! It would only be better if I had been able to get a pint of my beloved Haggen Daz Vanilla frozen yogurt.. they were out of that too. I had to settle for a big tub of some other brand of frozen yogurt. YES... I am a food snob.. I will own that! I love food! I like putting good food made from quality ingredients in my body. I'd rather pay more for the stuff that is made like food should be. As I have raised my Daughter, while shopping, when she wanted something at the store, I made her read the label, The rule was if the ingredients sounded like food we could buy it, if she couldn't read the words or it sounded like chemistry class, it stays at the store... pretty simple I think!

Time to finish my root beer float! I think I am now ruined for life! I may still buy some Henry's for penny pinching purposes, but I will live for a Virgil's!!!