13 - Triple XXX Root Beer
Triple XXX Root Beer is from the Chicago area and traces its roots to the Prohibition era. When beer was banned, Triple XXX continued to thrive. You can purchase Triple XXX in bottles, cans, or as a jelly.
I got mine from a local Hy-Vee store, but you can also purchase Triple XXX online. According to their website, the three X’s mean that they are a top-tier product. We will see when we taste test this drink!
Branding
From a branding perspective, they mostly went with red and yellow. I do feel like it is glaring enough to sort of shout out to the casual browser.
Triple XXX also went with a brown bottle rather than a clear one, which is interesting.
Taste and Ingredients
When you first take a swig of Triple XXX Root Beer, you will get a strong flavor profile. While the ingredients don’t mention licorice or wintergreen, I feel like there is a taste of both in this root beer.
Personally, I don’t like licorice much, so this isn’t my favorite root beer right off the bat. On the other hand, if you keep sipping the drink, that flavor seems to mellow a bit. I don’t really enjoy the aftertaste, though. It reminds me a lot of a diet drink aftertaste.
The other thing to note about this drink is how flat it is. In fact, I would say it is one of the flattest root beers I’ve ever had. It’s also quite smooth.
As usual with these smaller root brews, this one is caffeine-free and made with pure sugar cane.
The Wrap Up
While I didn’t care much for the taste or the name of the root beer, it was still fun to try something different. It’s also neat that there are so many different craft root beers from the Chicago area.
Let me know what you think if you try it!
Other Chicago Root Beers
Triple XXX isn’t the only Chicago root beer. Here are a couple of others:
Cicero Salted Caramel Root Beer
Filbert’s Old Time Root Beer