Browsing supermarkets is a favourite hobby of D and mine, particularly when we’re in a different country or city, but also in unfamiliar suburbs. There’s usually a different range of products for the same brand and new brands of old favourite products. We are very much ‘supermarket tourists’. During a trip to the Blue Mountains, we popped by a local grocer and found this Tru Blu McSars Double Sarsaparilla.
The beverage uses natural flavours, although not brewed, and is lightly carbonated – to a similar degree as Bundaberg – with a typical brown-black colour. Consumed ice-cold, notes of liquorice and vanilla in the nose are present but weaker than Schweppes or Bundaberg. These notes translate to mellow liquorice and wintergreen flavours in the head with an undertone of caramel sweetness into the body before generous notes of vanilla emerge towards the finish, overwhelming the liquorice and wintergreen flavours and dominating the aftertaste.
Overall, this sarsaparilla is too sweet with pronounced caramel and vanilla notes and without sufficient sharpness from the liquorice, freshness from the wintergreen or increased carbonation to counter. That said, we still prefer the flavour of this to that by Kirks.
This Tru Blu McSars Double Sarsaparilla contained 1.25 litres. It was produced in Australia and was purchased in the Blue Mountains, Australia in 2017.