In what's become a growing trend among soda manufacturers, Thomas Kemper [1] has recently reformulated their soda recipes and updated packaging. Instead of using high-fructose corn syrup [2], the new beverages are naturally sweetened with pure cane sugar.

I tasted three — Black Cherry, Root Beer, and Ginger Ale — of the company's five sodas and was pleasantly surprised by the results. All of the sodas were refreshing with typical flavors that one would expect from a craft, bottled soda company. To find out how each one tasted, .


The root beer, with its vanilla-marshmallow smell and clear, classic taste, was my favorite. It was everything you want from a root beer — sweet and comforting. My least favorite was the black cherry. It had a strong artificial smell with a too-syrupy taste that reminded me of cough medicine. The fresh, clean, crisp ginger ale was my co-tester's favorite. They described it as a quality ginger ale that was "really good" with strong ginger flavor.

How about you? Have you tried the new Thomas Kemper formula? Did you notice a difference? Are you excited soda companies are eliminated the high-fructose corn syrup?