8 - Jackson Hole Soda Snake River Sarsaparilla
Jackson Hole Soda Snake River Sarsaparilla is quite the mouthful for a product name. Jackson Hole Soda has around ten sodas in total, including Buckin’ Rootbeer.
As with many of these lesser known soda manufacturers, it is really difficult to learn anything about them. For some reason, most of these companies do not share how long they have been in business or even which state they are located in. However, the bottle I found was filled in Washington state anyway.
Branding
The branding that Jackson Hole Soda uses for their Snake River Sarsaparilla is pretty muted. It has a kind of four-color look and feel to it using a photograph that is either from antiquity or made to look that way.
You can see the olde fashioned photo below:
This look is reminiscent of Filbert’s old time root beer, although I would say that Filbert’s was more colorful than this example.
You could argue that by using this black-and-white photo, the soda may be more distinctive than its colorful brethren on the shelf. However, when you have a lot of brown bottles of root beer and sarsaparilla all lined up, I’m not sure that this helps.
Taste and Ingredients
The sarsaparilla has a more complex taste than many mainstream root beers. While there is definitely the rootsy flavor you would expect from a root beer, there is a mix of additional flavors too. I wouldn’t call it licorice or even caramel, though there is definitely a smooth flavor profile.
Snake River sarsaparilla has a bit of bite, like Barq’s. Snake River also has more carbonation than A&W or Mug seems to, but doesn’t seem to be foamy.
The smell is sweet, with a hint of root beer, but I don’t think I would necessarily characterize it as a root beer smell.
If you take a gander at the ingredients for the Sarsaparilla, you will see that it is caffiene free and uses cane sugar. Perhaps the complex taste comes from the quillaia extract? I have never seen that ingredient mentioned in a root beer before anyway.
The Wrap Up
In general, this is one of the better-tasting sarsaparillas or root beers I have had, and I would be happy to buy a 4- or 6-pack to share with friends.
You should certainly give them a try if you can find them.