Good news for all you shoppers that enjoy a sweet, refreshing beverage but find the all-natural options unsatisfying. There’s no need to give up soda or feel slightly guilty about drinking it. I mean, let’s face it, on a hot summer day it’s a wonderful feeling to come home and crack open a nice cold soda, but constantly drinking products like Coke and Pepsi means consuming a lot of corn syrup or artificial sweeteners. So what to do? There’s another option now.

Esteban Anson, Owner of a small town natural foods restaurant in downtown Denver, has come up with a solution for keeping sodas sweet without sugar or man-made sweeteners. He developed “Oogave,” a refreshing soda that uses Oogave nectar as its primary ingredient. (Those of you who are interested in the nutritional components of Oogave nectar have Google at your disposal.)

Up until now most sodas have used high-fructose corn syrup as their base ingredient, which basically has no benefit to the body. Despite what producers say, the process of making corn syrup isn’t a natural one. Oogave sodas have moved beyond it. With all-natural Oogave nectar as its primary ingredient, the sodas taste like flavored natural spring water, which allows the sodas to walk a very fine line between flavor and refreshment. Each flavor seemed to be so carefully woven together you would think that Esteban was a 7th generation alchemist. It really is a pleasurable experience and when you enjoy a bottle, you don’t have to worry about all the corn syrup most other sodas have.

 

Realizing that people have varying tastes, Anson knew he had to provide options. So he created eight flavors: Grapefruit, Root Beer, Cola, Key Lime, Vanilla Cream, Ginger Ale, Rhubarb, and Watermelon Cream.  Most of them are quite good.

The grapefruit flavor felt like the literal experience of drinking a sweetened grapefruit. It gave all the flavor and smell one would have while eating a grapefruit and the bitter aftertaste once it’s swallowed.  

Oogave’s Ginger ale flavor was especially refreshing. It has the feel of a citrus flavored beer,and the taste of carbonated fresh ginger, which was very pleasing. Not to mention the Vanilla Cream flavor that was so unique and tasty, to give it any kind of description would fail to do it justice.

The Root Beer flavor reminded me of a homemade version I love at my favorite little micro-brewery in downtown Santa Rosa. Now that I have discovered that experience can be bottled and taken home, I felt as if the whole world was beginning to open up.

What Anson has done is kind of inspiring. Offering such enjoyable beverages without sugar or corn syrup is really a wonderful thing. It’s easy to see how people everywhere would enjoy Oogave sodas. They are well worth a try, so go ahead and see just what nectar can do.

By Arthur Walsh