Darren’s New Favorite Texas Soft Drink Could Inspire a New Web Series

For most of my life, I have suffered with allergies and irritated sinuses. I'm not complaining about it; if this is my cross to bear then God has gifted me with a charmed life indeed.

Still, a side effect which I always seem to be medicating is a parched throat and dry mouth. For the latter I use Biotene.  (That's another column for another time.) For the former, I am constantly drinking some sort of liquid libation.  I am frequently not without water or tea or some sort of nonalcoholic fluid during the daytime hours.  The fact that I belong to a profession which is always using the vocal cords, it's not unusual to lubricate the inside of my mouth with a lovely beverage.

Over the years, with as much liquid as I've ingested, I've become something of an enthusiast when it comes to soft drinks.  My own home selections tell the tale: I have the somewhat esoteric Diet Cheerwine (in glass bottles no less, bought by the case at Spec's ), Big Red Zero, Canfield's and Diet Dr. Brown's in my fridge right next to Tab, Fresca, Fanta, RC, Dr Pepper, 7Up, Hawaiian Punch, Nestle Splash Lemon-flavored bottled water, and, of course, Coke. All diet versions, I'm watching my calories (I don't buy into the hype that somehow diet sodas screw up your system so badly  that one starts putting on the pounds. It is scientifically dubious. But I digress.) I won't get into the beer, wine and fruit juices I also have alongside protein shakes which are a part of my daily diet. That's what I call a fluid situation.

Being an obsessive, I've noticed the dearth of decent beverage reviews on the Internet.  There are a couple of sites which do an OK job, namely thesodajerks.net and Bevreview.com. Both of those sites have decent written reviews.  One site I really enjoyed was sodatasting.com which featured video reviews of carbonated beverages. The videos were posted concurrently on YouTube and I followed the channel and the reviews of Patrick O'Keefe often.  Unfortunately, he called it quits about three years ago for reasons unknown (how hard is it to sip soda and talk about it on camera?)

Like the other sites, O"Keefe specialized almost exclusively in carbonated beverages.  Quite frankly, I find that limiting. I also find it kind of strange that when he sampled a soda, he would almost immediately spit it out into a bucket. As someone who believes in getting the whole taste of the beverage, I'm not afraid to consume it.  He posted a whole video explaining why he did that, but I'm telling you it's not for me.  Not that it really matters since he stopped making original reviews three years ago, but spitting is kinda gross.

So I've been trying around with the idea of doing a YouTube series once a week where I review beverages. What I don't want to do is taste on camera. I mean seriously, who wants to watch someone drinking the soda unless it's a beautiful girl...

Anyhow, I'm going to chat with webmaster Jason on how to do this. Maybe I'll do the video thing, maybe I won't. This much I do know: I have a new favorite soft drink and I want to write about it!

The soda jerks have raved about H-E-B's storebrand soft drinks. Until recently, I would not have believed that a storebrand could give the big boys a run for their money, as many store brands are just pitiful.

Then again, nothing surprises me about H-E-B. They know Texas has a glorious soft drink history led by Central Texas' own Dr Pepper, an international brand of great renown and my personal favorite soft drink of all time. If Texas' official supermarket chain - recently named one of the best in the country - is going to make soft drinks and put an image of the state of Texas on it, it better damn well be something Texans can be proud of.

Honestly, we need not have worried. H-E-B's consistent quality has shown through in their fizzy beverages. One way is by staying true to the original ingredients which made colas and soft drinks great, most importantly pure cane sugar. Like the Mexican firms who manufacture Coca-Cola, HEB uses cane sugar in its products as it always has.

Ah, but how does this jive with someone who is trying to limit the caloric and carbohydrate intake as I am? Thankfully, that's an easy answer: presenting my new favorite soft drink!

Again, you'd be forgiven if you underestimated H-E-B's store version of 7-Up/sprite. You'd also be forgiven if you didn't notice this version features only 20 calories! And you'd be correct if you asserted that H-E-B's twist comes in a 0 cal formulation called diet twist. If you simply can't abide any calories at all, then you won't want to try this version with 20 cal because I guarantee you after you sample it, you want the whole can and a fridge pack to take home with you.

We've heard of Dr Pepper Ten and the 10 cal formulations from the Plano-based Dr. Pepper Snapple group. That seems to open the door for a lower calorie soda which isn't completely diet. Sounds great on paper.

I've tried the 10 cal version of 7-Up. I find H-E-B Twist 20 Cal leaps and bounds better. And I'm a 7-Up fan from way back. The difference: less Alka-Seltzer-like fizz, more lemon-lime flavor. The fizz is is not overpowering; a lot of drinks suffer from excess carbonation. It goes down smooth with a nice lemon lime profile. I've blown through the fridge pack in a little over a week, it's that good. If the additional 10 calories makes that big of a difference, I'll find a way to save calories from other places.

So where do the extra 10 come from that apparently make this concoction so tasty? The scientists at H-E-B decided to put back in a touch of pure cane sugar. Absolutely brilliant. When combined with two other artificial sweeteners, namely Sucralose (Splenda) and Acesulfame potassium (Ace K for short), it creates a smooth sweetness profile with very little aftertaste.

You will have to decide whether the presence of cane sugar and artificial sweeteners is for you. Again, this is purely my unscientific opinion but I don't buy into the panic over diet sodas and artificial sweeteners. Inconclusive data helped kill off cyclamate in USA in the late 60s (it's still in use in other parts of the world including Canada and 130 countries) and cripple saccharin (Sweet & Low AKA "the pink stuff") with its dubious warning labels long since removed. The latest words of suspicion could be the same old same old from the same quarters, though it must be pointed out Sucralose is modified sugar, Splenda being the artificial sweetener the cane farmers love: it takes 2 tablespoons of sugar to make one comparably sweet tablespoon of Splenda. Now that's a two-for-one deal if I ever heard one. At the end of the day, I would rather a couple of cans of a 20 cal drink than 300 calories powered by nasty old high fructose corn syrup.

Taste and nutritional information are the two main reasons HEB Twist 20 cal version is my new favorite soft drink. It also costs less and has the "Go Texan" seal on the side. Fizz with pride. And if you want to see more reviews, let me know if you like this one!