Bones Miniatures: Embrace the Rainbow

There's no color scheme this time.  I'm embracing the rainbow and loving it!

At the left, we have a large adventure group:

Viola, the Aracokra Bard (Reaper's "Kobzar Soloveiko, Nightingale Bard," Sculpted by Jason Wiebe, #30167);

Carmela, the Human Fighter (Reaper's "Finari, Female Paladin," Sculpted by Werner Klocke, #77077, in Bones 1);

Himberra, the Elf Sorceress (Reaper's "Juliette, Female Sorceress, Human Sorcerer," Sculpted by Bobby Jackson, #77057, in Bones 1);

Jam, the Wolf animal companion (Reaper's "Familiars," Sculpted by Various, #77176; in Bones 1);

Margarina, the Human Monk (Reaper's "Xiao Liu, Female Half-Elf Monk," Sculpted by James Van Schaik, #77418; Bones 3 #124);

Espressa, the Tiefling Rogue (Reaper's "Fillyjonk, Hellborn Rogue," Sculpted by Bobby Jackson, #30009); and 

Flapjackie, the Dwarf Cleric (Reaper's "Dwarf Forge Priestess, Dwarf Cleric," Sculpted by Jason Wiebe, #77571; Bones 3 #548).

I'll write more about these brave heroes later.  They're just here to clean up in case a smaller adventuring group doesn't make it...

This is the smaller adventuring group:

Bluebell the Halfling cleric (Bones 4 #144, "Enora, Iconic Arcanist, Halfling Wizard," Sculpted by Bobby Jackson, #60178");

Molotov the Wizard (Bones 4 #11; "Kelainen Darkmantle," Human Evil Wizard, Sculpted by Bobby Jackson, #03847);

Hunkendor the Ranger (Bones 4 #9; "Aravir, Elf Ranger," Sculpted by Bobby Jackson, #03763); and

Brandon the Rogue (Reaper's "Damiel, Iconic Alchemist," Sculpted by Bobby Jackson, #60044).

A fish monger (Reaper's "Dreadmere Townsfolk: Fishwife," Sculpted by Bob Ridolfi, #44033; Bones 4 #409 & #410) first spotted the this giant terrifying monster creeping around.  She told this story until finally some adventurer groups looking for action decided to investigate.  

The tentacle brain ("Hivewarden," Sculpted by C. Lewis, #44023; Bones 4 #425) is the boss monster for this scene; I don't know what the ecology of this thing is, but I decided to make it glossy, because the thought of a dry brain just makes me feel gross.  Just imagine getting eczema on your brain; EWWW!  I assume this is a relative of a monster called a "Grell", but a Grell has a beak, and this monster does NOT; so if you tell me that Grells are SUPPOSED TO BE purple, I can tell you that this is NOT a Grell, and it is supposed to be this pinky color.

And the tentacle brain has a pet Dire Skunk.  I was running Goodman Games' D&D module "Dungeon Crawl Classics #0: Legends are Made, not Born" and (SPOILER ALERT!) there's a Dire Skunk in it.  I couldn't find a decent Dire Skunk miniature anywhere at a reasonable price, so I made this one out of polymer clay (it has glow-in-the-dark eyes!). It's a Medium animal, so as a mini it's about 1" long.  Of course it has a Musk spray attack, but it can also bite, so I gave it prominent teeth.  I made all my miniatures out of polymer clay before the Bones Kickstarters gave me enough minis to paint for the rest of my life... but no Dire Skunks.  

My big plan was to paint the large adventure group at the left.  The other miniatures just kind of came along for the ride.  While painting these, the improved detail was obvious between the old "Bones white" miniatures and the new "Bones black" miniatures; I don't know if the Bones white molds were based on cruder models, or the transfer wasn't so precise, but Reaper claims the harder Bones black material holds fine detail better.

Some of these miniatures are from the ORIGINAL Reaper Bones Kickstarter, which ran back in 2012 (over 12 years ago!).  I'm ashamed to admit I still have many of these miniatures left to paint, especially because I have participated in many Bones Kickstarters since, and the miniatures are really piling up.  It's a common problem among miniatures painters, but I have been revitalized by my absence, and I plan to prioritize my Bones (2012) minis until I have painted through all of them.

Bones Miniatures: Resurrection in Red

Hey, I'm painting miniatures again!  I gave up on painting miniatures shortly after COVID-19 quarantine lockdown.    

But now I'm back.  Sadly, I gave up painting WHILE several miniatures were half-painted.  "Red" was the theme.  First step was to sponge 4 years of dust off my batch of red minis, repair any damage, and finish the paint job.  It wasn't that onerous!

Here we see a landscape with some civilians and (anti-)heroes, some thugs, and a red dragon.  All of these miniatures were rewards from Reaper's "Bones" Kickstarter campaigns.  If you want a big pile of miniatures, these Kickstarters will deliver--eventually.

A close-up on the left,  shows Reaper mascot Sophie working hard as a waitress (Bones 4 #160); yes, she has devilish wings, but unless she's tempting us with Gluttony, she doesn't seem TOO scary.  Because of the season as I write this, I can only think of her as "Oktoberfest Sophie."  

Next to Sophie is an elegant lady (Bones 4 #146).  Is she hiring our adventurers to loot a dungeon for her?

And next, we see the adventurers: a troop of somewhat comical subterranean "Bloodstone Gnomes" (Bones 4 #505~).  I don't know what the inspiration for these was, nor what their deal is.  I tried to paint their armor like green bronze with bright red ("bloodstone") insets; I MAY have been channeling my desire for pimiento-stuffed olives.  

In the dungeon, we encounter some dangerous characters, like a Gladiatrix (Bones 4 #92), a Bandit (Bones 4 #102), and Vatanis the charismatic Tiefling (Bones 4 #424).  Are they working together to defeat that evil female Efreeti (Bones 4 #735)?

Finally, plotting evil deep in the dungeon is a Red (fire-breathing) Dragon (Bones 1 "Here there be dragons" option).

You'd think I would be painting dragons all the time, for the Dungeons & DRAGONS game, but dragons are TOUGH for players to fight, and tough for game masters to play--most of them are pretty smart.  I don't know how to make them interesting or fun.  So I tend to NOT use them in the game; and because I don't need them, I don't paint them.  But this was bugging me; the dragons were piling up, so I decided to bite the bullet and paint a dragon.  And why not the classic fire-breathing red dragon?

But after finishing them, I remembered that I have a Linguist friend who is hard at work studying Welsh right now.  So I was inspired to recreate the Welsh flag with this scene.

All this is an attempt to "clear the pipeline" so I can paint OTHER miniatures in the immediate future.  

Movie Review: Battle In Outer Space (1959, Japanese)

When I was 6 months old, America managed to land men on the surface of the moon, and bring them back safely to Earth.  It was a heady period in history.  Surely, the moon was our stepping stone to the rest of the Solar System; we could build a base on the moon, and launch larger spacecraft from outside of Earth's gravity well.  We could mine asteroids in zero gravity and use their metallic contents to build more spacecraft and more habitats, and explore even further.  Concept drawings looked like architectural renderings you could almost step into.  

Tragically, much of that future was just a dream.  But science fiction remains a beloved escape for me today, and I still strive to make this world a better one.  Accordingly, I am a big fan of Star Trek.  You can hardly blame me for fantasizing about a bright, shining future while a raging global pandemic I can do little about slays (as of this writing) 384,000 Americans.  Lately, I've been binge watching "Star Trek: Voyager", about 3 episodes per night.  My familiarity with science fiction and my need for comedy only adds to my enjoyment of "Mystery Science Theater 3000."  

But I also like movies, so I still rent DVDs.  I recently watched a Japanese movie from 1959: "Battle In Outer Space." 

Battle In Outer Space is a Japanese space war movie, with a strong emphasis on 'war movie.'  The premise is simple: Earth is brutalized by space aliens in a series of bizarre surprise attacks.  But Earth has its own space ships, and some kind of new heat ray; Earth can resist!  

This movie was made by TOHO, but brought to America by Columbia Pictures.  Many people surely revere this movie for its technical achievements, but I beg you: do not resist any opportunity to joke and jeer at this movie like you're in Mystery Science Theater 3000.  The movie makers were justifiably proud of their (limited) scientific accuracy, but I've been spoiled by a lifetime of Star Trek.  

There are LOTS of miniatures which look adorably like miniatures.  You will see a train derail and crash down a ravine, and you will feel sad--not for the fictional injured passengers, but instead for the lovely toy train that got destroyed.  Even the live-action scenes with human actors running across life-size sets somehow look like minatures on miniature terrain; it would be a marvelous cinematic achievement, if they were deliberately trying to make real actors look like fakey toys on fake miniature terrain.  

Of course this 1959 Japanese movie looks dated; the moon landing we take for granted is still 10 years away, Japan is still recovering from World War 2, and the movie's budget has limits.  Having said this, the special effects are very good for the time.  In fact, the movie seems very effects-driven with paper-thin character/story development; we've seen this in lots of spectacular modern movies like "Tron Legacy" or the DC Cinematic Universe movies, or the recent Star Wars movies: there are amazing effects, but I can't really connect with the characters nor the story, so why did I waste my time watching a movie that leaves me shaken but not stirred?

In this vein, "Battle In Outer Space" has a hero, and he is handsome, and there is a pretty young lady who really, really likes him.  She tells him about her hopes and fears and she smiles at him a lot in the moonlight as they look up at the stars.  Any man would be lucky to spend the briefest moment with this lady.  Our hero never smiles at her.  He doesn't even stub out his cigarette.  He speaks with her sort of, but he doesn't look at her.  In another scene, they shake hands.  Is the hero cold and emotionally disabled?  Or is this Japanese traditional culture?  If so, "Twilight" should have been set in historical Japan, because they really nailed it.  

The aliens have the ability to compel some individual humans to obey their will, by sabotaging and fighting other humans.  Neither these posessed humans nor their victims uses a martial art; no one even throws a kick.  I can't even describe what they were doing.  One guy punches another once.  You might think it's refreshing to avoid that stereotype and see asian people who don't know kung fu, but I (somehow) managed to earn a Black Belt in Karate--I'm not a great fighter, but I know how to do it--and seeing these Japanese people struggle with each other and NOT use martial arts was just frustrating, considering that the fate of humanity was at stake.  

Earth sends an expeditionary force to the Moon, where the aliens have a foothold.  The Earth astronauts land on the Moon with rockets, then explore the Moon with a pair of Moon rovers which (get this) somehow look MORE like Oscar Meyer Wieners than the ACTUAL Oscar Meyer Wienermobile.  These red tubular buggies even have an 'accordion' section in the middle, so they bend and flex like actual sausages as they drive around the bumpy lunar landscape.  Do not resist any opportunity to laugh at them.  

These aliens have attacked Earth from spacecraft, blasting Earth with destructive rays, levitating structures and buildings until they tear themselves apart.  We hear threats and ultimatums from the aliens over radio.  We get one scene wherein we get to see the aliens, and they are wearing bulky space armor, stand about a foot shorter than humans, and they sound like squeaky doggy chew toys.  We never even get to see these aliens' faces.  We have no idea what their culture nor motivations are.  As a Star Trek fan, I'm disappointed; but of course this must mirror the Japanese experience of World War 2, getting bombed by airplanes hundreds of feet in the sky, never seeing the faces of their attackers.  How many Japanese people at that time had actually seen an American?  I suspect the average Japanese person had seen Americans in movies or photographs; but the viewers of Battle In Outer Space are not even given the opportunity to see these invaders, even after the Earth men shoot some aliens and there are bodies to examine.  Don't look at them!  Just leave them there.  

The film's climax is a seemingly endless series of space ship 'dogfight' scenes.  The space ships strafe each other again and again, and I felt--drained by the mayhem?  Ground down, perhaps.  This went on way too long in the movie for any dramatic value; I just wanted the movie to be over, at this point.  But again, these endless combat may be a reflection of the Japanese experience of World War 2, which of course went on for years; whereas we complain about this COVID-19 pandemic lasting mere months.  

Eventually, Earth repels these alien attacks, but there is little resolution; presumably the aliens will attack Earth in the future, perhaps repeatedly, perhaps forever.  Many cheer at the end of this battle, but I am drawn to the General in the center of the War Room, whose face falls, as though on the verge of tears.  Does he grieve for the many civilian casualties we don't get to see in this movie?  Does he lament the lack of resolution with a deadly enemy which is only momentarily defeated?  Does he regret the opportunity for diplomacy with a resourceful and technologically superior civilization?  Does he feel the tragic waste of resources on warfare--resources which could feed, house, clothe, and generally uplift millions during the early 1960s?  I want to know about THAT guy, not this movie's 'hero.'

Ultimately, this movie left me feeling very cold and empty.  

The hidden gem to this movie is the commentary track; most commentary tracks have stars and movie professionals clowning around, but this commentary track is packed full of information, like a series of Wikipedia articles read to you along with the movie for a visual aid.  

Exotic Soda Pops Reviews: Bitter Orange, Passion Fruit, Lime & Coconut, Cherry Sour

Cock 'n Bull Bitter Orange

By Cock 'n Bull Premium Soda, (although my sample was bottled by Spring Grove Soda Pop)

It's got a nice orange color; not too cartoony.  There are lumps visible in the bottle, but I can't seem to locate them in the glass, and they aren't obvious in the photo.

Note the "with Quinine" on the label: I can definitely taste it!  It's very nice.  I want to try this with gin or something.

The bitterness is real.  It's kind of like a bitter Orange Crush, as you might expect.  The label claims "Orange Juice Concentrate" and "Natural Orange Flavors."  Unlike Orange Crush, this is not so syrupy nor candy-like.

This is good stuff for those with mature palates.  I highly recommend it!

Waialua Lilikoi (Passion Fruit)

By Waialua Soda Works Inc.

PO Box 657

Waialua HI  96791 USA

808-371-7556

I visited Hawaii once and I was totally into POG (Passion-Orange-Guava), which is awesome.  I understand that Lilikoi is Waialua's newest flavor, so maybe it wasn't available at the time.

Nice mild scent, kind of funky.  Nice mild pink color.

The taste is mild, but GOOD.  There's a peculiar pre-taste as it hits your tongue, kind of like wintergreen, but it disappears quickly, and you have a crisp, dry taste of this fruity soda.  NOT too sweet nor syrupy.  Not too tart.  Like I said, mild, but good.

It's definitely a soda pop, and not a flavored seltzer.

The mild tast of this qualifies it for mature palates only.  

INGREDIENTS: Carbonated Water, Sugar Blend (cane sugar and Maui natural white cane sugar), natural flavor, citric acid, fruit and vegetable juice for color

Serenity Sodas Lime & Coconut

Slightly foggy, which you might expect from a coconut beverage.  Sweet lime scent, with a generous dose of something else--I guess the coconut.

Lightly carbonated, very syrupy & sweet.  The coconut flavor is prominent, but it isn't THAT amazing.  The lime flavor is very much like lime candy, as you might expect.

I can't find a cocktail which pairs lime with coconut, but it seems like there should be one by now; Harry Nilsson's song "Coconut", which originally put the lime in the coconut, has been around for almost 50 years.

Ultimately, it comes off like a lime soda with something extra.  The taste is good, but its syrupy nature kind of mars this.  It might taste better diluted with ice or soda water.

Whistler Classic Soda Cherry Sour 8 oz.

By Whistler Classic Soda

The color is a nice, bright red; almost a poppy red.  It's cloudy, but it's nice.

It's very sweet, with a syrupy texture and a tart bite.  The cherry flavor is nice, but not very complex.

Not a lot I can say about this.

Exotic Soda Pops Reviews: Cherry Cran, Peach, Ginger Ale Pomegranate, Limoncello

Sprecher Cherry Cran

By Sprecher Brewing Company, Glendale, WI 53209

"Cranberries taste like cherries who hate you."

--John Oliver

I happen to like the taste of sweetened cranberries.  Surely this taste has been a beloved national favorite since Thanksgiving was invented.  But drinking unsweetened cranberry juice is a brutal, tongue-peeling ordeal.

Let's look at the photo again: is this pale pink?  Or is it 'rose gold'?  Cherries are red, cranberries are red, but for some reason this soda is not.  Not a complaint, just an observation; I certainly don't need any more red dye in my body.

The aroma and initial taste of this beverage is all cherry.  I can't even taste the cranberry.  There is a hint of an edge on this that I can barely make out, which perhaps passes for the tartness of natural cherry juice, or a winy undertone.  

It is sweet, to be sure, but not TOO sweet.  I gave my wife a taste; "what do you taste?" I ask.  "Honey," she declares.  And sure enough, the ingredients report "RAW WI HONEY."  

Note that this is a 16-ounce bottle; you get 33% more pop for your bottle.  Even so, the taste is certainly worth any extra expense.  

I call these "Exotic Soda Pop Reviews," but Sprecher's beverages are not so 'exotic' here, more like a local favorite bottler.  Their root beer has been beloved in the area for decades.

If you're thinking of passing on this because you don't want the taste of some kind of Ocean Spray breakfast blend, you are REALLY missing out.  Sprecher's Cherry Cran is marvelous, with a complex flavor.  I highly recommend it.

Whistler Classic Soda Peach

By Whistler Bottling, LLC

The bottle says it's made in Minneapolis, MN; but now it's bottled in Spring Lake Park, MN.  Your best bet is the Blue Sun Soda Shop.

I like the appetizing orange color.  Before it touches my lips, it has a nice, mild scent.  I should point out that this bottle is only 8 ounces; my previous soda was 16 ounces, so here I pay for my previous excesses.

It's very sweet, as you might expect.  But smooth!  A very nice flavor.  Lightly carbonated.

My wife reports: "very fruity!"  Which is what you'd expect, of course.

I'm tempted to say that the flavor is multilayered somehow: when it first hits your palate, when it sits in your mouth, and after you swallow it.  All these flavors are great.

Whistler Peach is a winner!  It's got a small bottle, but a big flavor.  

The bottle says: "Return For Deposit," but I don't plan to drive for an hour or so to visit Spring Lake Park in order to get my 10-cent deposit (or however much it is) any time soon.  

Unfiltered Bruce Cost Ginger Ale Pomegranate with Hibiscus

By Bruce Cost

Maybe order it from here.

I was NOT looking forward to trying this.  I was worried it would be flowery, like herb tea or something.  My wife kept pushing me to try it; no doubt so she could try some of it.

I like the lovely magenta color.  It smells like ginger ale.  It's definitely unfiltered, and weird dark lumps form a sediment.  It's only lightly carbonated.

It tastes like ginger ale.  There is an undertone; it MIGHT be fruity.

Of course I gave some to my wife: "not as good as I thought it would be."

It has a nice combination of fruity and dry.  Not too sweet.  

As I said, I was not looking forward to this, but it's really grown on me over the course of the bottle.  Modern ginger ales tend to knock your socks off, but this is a really mellow gentle drink, suitable for your mom or other mild-mannered sorts on a balmy Summer day.  

Kiddie Cocktails Limoncello

By Blue Sun Bottling Co.

Maybe order it from here.

Very lemony yellow color.  

Powerful, sweet and tart lemon flavor.  Lemon, maybe with something else; not sure what.  It's sharp, maybe due to regular lemon flavor, maybe due to extra citric acid.  

My wife reports: "kinda like a good Mountain Dew," but to be honest, I've never had a BAD Mountain Dew.

Very candy-like and syrupy.  It could easily stand to have some crushed ice mixed in, or you could use this to make some actual cocktail, alcoholic or not.  

No regrets, but I don't need to have a bottle of this again.  

Exotic Soda Pops Reviews

North Star Craft Soda Orange Cola

By North Star Craft Soda

The Orange taste is mild, but noticeable.

Coca Cola has tried lots of different flavors with their signature beverage: cherry, lime, coffee, new, and yes, orange.  For some reason, they haven't widely marketed orange cola, but fortunately for us North Star Craft Soda has picked up the ball.

Like other North Star Craft Sodas, it's very sweet and syrupy--like liquid candy.  Simple flavor, not complex.  

I'm glad I tried it, but I won't need to try it again for a long time.  

Batch Craft Soda Snozzberry

By Batch Craft Soda

"The snozzberries taste like snozzberries."

--from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl.

The red color is nice.  It looks fruity in the bottle, but it tastes mildly sweet and spicy.  

I find the sweetness mild, but my wife finds it TOO sweet.  It does not taste like anything natural that I am familiar with; kind of like spicy cotton candy.  I can't identify which spice or spices make it taste spicy (nutmeg? allspice?).  

The spice flavor and festive red color suggests that this would make an appropriate holiday beverage.  I certainly don't need to taste it any time soon.  This is a good thing, because I can't find it available for sale on Batch Craft's website.  It could be because someone at Batch Craft found out that "snozzberry" is actually Roald Dahl's slang word for a penis.  

Empire Ginger Beer

By Empire Bottling Works, 61 Buttonwood, Bristol RI  02809, 401-253-7117

(They don't seem to have a website!  Try ordering it here.)

My wife REALLY likes Empire's Diet Root Beer, so I had high hopes for Empire Ginger Beer.  All this in spite of their unassuming label--so unassuming it's peeling off the bottle, as the photo suggests.

WOW is this Ginger Beer spicy.  It's SO GINGERY!  My wife didn't like how gingery it was, but of course she conceded: "I guess it's all right if you like ginger."

After the ginger flows off my palate, there's a flowery taste left behind.  Is this an extra flavor undertone added to the beverage by Empire's brilliant pop artisans?  Or is my tongue hallucinating?  If so, I enjoyed the break from reality.  

I want to say that there are multiple levels of flavor, but the spice of the ginger is so overwhelming that I cannot say for certain.

I enjoyed this beverage with a spicy pizza, and it definitely kept up.  I recommend pairing this with the spiciest foods you can handle: chili, hot chicken wings, szechuan stir fry, you name it.  

I can hardly wait to try this again.  

Serenity Sodas Pineapple & Cream

Blue Sun Bottling Co., Spring Lake Park MN  55432 (Maybe order it from here)

I expected to HATE this soda.  That's why it's the last review here; I kept putting it off.  I like pineapple, but I don't LOVE pineapple; and cream soda is one of my least favorite flavors.  I was wondering why I bothered to put it in my shopping cart in the first place.

I'm surprised by the dark color; dark like a nut brown ale.  I'd expect a pineapple soda to be pale yellow, and this is darker than most cream sodas.

I'm amazed by the fact that I actually like it.  It's sweet, but not TOO sweet.  A lot of these Serenity Sodas really hit hard with the sweetness, but this is soda is okay.

The pineapple flavor does not have a sharp edge to it; natural pineapple fruit has a very tart element, but this soda is smooth.  The whole experience is very mellow.

My wife doesn't like pineapple, and she refused to taste it.  She's totally missing out!

I recommend you give this a try, even if your previous ideas about pineapple and cream soda tell you not to.

Exotic Soda Pops Reviews: Marionberry, Waffles & Syrup, Pineapple Orange, Cider Ginger Beer

Check out those lumps of goo in the glass!

Hot Lips Real Fruit Soda Marionberry

By Hot Lips, a Portland pizza chain which has apparently branched into bottled soft drinks (and good on them).

I first heard of the Marionberry while watching the Oregon-centered comedy TV series Portlandia.  I assumed this "Marionberry" was a joke: a reference to the scandal-tainted former Washington DC Mayor Marion Barry, who made national news when caught in a sting operation in 1990.  Portlandia makes numerous references to the 1990s.  

But from what I can tell, the Marionberry is an actually existing blackberry-raspberry crossbreed.

I had the great pleasure of visiting Oregon once.  I had a great time, but sadly I do not recall tasting the Oregon treasure known as the Marionberry.  Whoops!  And now I might never get to visit Oregon again.  

When I learned of the Oregon love for the Marionberry, I was immediately reminded of the Niagara Frontier love for the delightful Loganberry drink, also popular with Niagara Frontier fast food restaurants.  The Loganberry is another blackberry-raspberry crossbreed.  

When I discovered Hot Lips Marionberry, I was primed for a great taste experience by my fondness for Loganberry drink.  Considering Hot Lips is a pizza chain, it is perhaps fitting that I enjoyed Hot Lips Marionberry with pizza.  

Hot Lips Marionberry is sweet, but not TOO sweet.  It has lumps of dark goo in it, presumably berry pulp or sediment.  It has a nice red-purple (puce?) color.  The label claims "14% Fruit".  It's lightly carbonated.

My wife described Hot Lips Marionberry as having notes of a honey-like taste, but honey is not listed in the ingredients.  I assume this comes from the natural berry flavors.

According to the Wikipedia article about the Marionberry:

The berry has a somewhat tart flavor, fairly earthy with traces of sweetness. It is larger, sweeter and juicier than the 'Evergreen' blackberry. The relative complexity of its flavor has led to a marketing label as the "Cabernet of Blackberries". The more powerful flavor of the marionberry has led to it dominating current blackberry production.

Sadly, I can't discern a whole lot of flavor in Hot Lips Marionberry; it was very mild.  Considering the above description of the Marionberry, I must assume that the Marionberry's great melange of flavors did not survive the Hot Lips Marionberry bottling process, or perhaps my bottle's stay on the retailer's shelf.  

Remember how I told you that I liked Loganberry drink?  In fact, the Loganberry is an ancestor on both sides of the Marionberry family tree, a great-grandparent on one side, and a grandparent on the other.  

The Loganberry was (accidentally) crossbred in 1881, by the American judge and horticulturist James Harvey Logan (1841–1928).

Marion Barry was born in 1936.

The Marionberry was initially crossbred in 1945, named for Marion County, OR.

Ingredients: Filtered sparkling water, marionberries from Sandy Farms in Boring OR, cane sugar, organic lemon.

Beige never looked so good.

W.T. Heck Sodas Waffles & Syrup

By Blue Sun Bottling Co. (You could order it from here)

Who doesn't love the great taste of fried batter with syrup?  Like "Ginger Man Soda" (reviewed previously), waffles are cooked wheat sweet treats which someone has attempted to render in soda pop.  

W.T. Heck Waffles & Syrup is a lovely beige color.  When have you ever heard something described as a lovely beige color?  But for a plate of waffles & syrup in a bottle, beige is appropriate.  The maple is immediately obvious, along with vanilla.  As you would expect, this soda is VERY SWEET.  

My wife was reminded of those orange-amber disc-shaped butterscotch hard candies.  I wouldn't be surprised if there's some butter flavor mixed in, which I didn't recognize (the image on the label features a melting pat of butter).  

In Winter, I was often comforted by the smell of toasted wheat, vanilla, and sugar as I biked past a nondescript factory.  I thought they were making cookies, but it was actually malted milk powder.

I sipped the rest of the bottle, trying to isolate that comforting taste of toasted wheat, but I couldn't pick it out.  I suspect I tasted some caramel, which you would expect.

Ultimately, W.T. Heck Waffles & Syrup comes off like a maple-y cream soda.  I don't usually like cream soda, but the maple makes for a marvelous twist.  

Looks orange, tastes like pineapple.

North Star Craft Soda Pineapple Orange

By North Star Craft Soda

I can definitely taste the pineapple; the orange flavor is a nice backup.  VERY sweet, very strong pineapple candy flavor.  Very much like their lime soda: like a pineapple-orange sucker in a bottle.  Not very complex.  

As I said, this is definitely a PINEAPPLE-orange soda.  It's not some ordinary orange soda with a hint of pineapple.

I'm not yet sure how to turn this into a Painkiller cocktail.  Maybe add some rum and scoop of coconut iced cream?  Clearly more research is needed, but I don't want to drink another bottle of pineapple-orange candy flavor any time soon.  It's REALLY sweet and strong.  

Cider Ginger Beer, with ginger cat.

Reading Draft Cider Ginger Beer

By Reading Soda Works (Purchase here)

It's gingery, but not TOO gingery.  The apple taste is sweet and candy-like, but not TOO sweet.  It's actually pleasantly mild and well-balanced.  It's still too spicy for the wife.

There's almost a wintergreen taste on my tongue.  Not sure what to make of that.

The label reports caramel color, but as the photo suggests, this soda looks colorless and clear, and this doesn't detract (distract?) from the experience.

I've been eagerly anticipating tasting this since I saw it in the store, and I hoped it would taste like apple pie in a glass.  But instead it's wholly different, and marvelously refreshing in multiple senses on this hot Summer day.

This makes me curious about their other flavors; what other surprises await me?