Elina Shatkin
How do you go wrong with a Shirley Temple? This is and is not a rhetorical question. The Shirley Temple is the original — and still pre-eminent — non-alcoholic cocktail, sipped by generations of American children suffering in itchy formal wear through tedious adult parties. It requires only 7-Up, grenadine syrup and maraschino cherries. If someone eliminates the mixing process by creating a Shirley Temple soda, we figure it would be a hands-down winner. Somehow, Saranac manages to screw it up.
The color is appropriately reddish-pink. The design, appropriately charming. The “hand-crafted” designation, appropriately intriguing. And yet, Saranac's Shirley Temple soda tastes like an alien's version of pink bubblegum. Cloying, overly sweet and a touch under-carbonated. Perhaps that's how cotton candy tastes to an extra terrestrial, but it's not how a Shirley Temple ought to taste to a human.
Rating:
(1 star out of 5)
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