Sarsaparilla
Bickford's Sarsaparilla
Bickford's · Australian-style herbal sarsaparilla (anise/licorice-forward)
Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
This is the Australian school of sarsaparilla rather than the American one: where most US bottlings lean creamy and vanilla-rounded, Bickford's drives hard on root, sassafras, and a big swing of anise and licorice, all wrapped in brisk, almost champagne-fine carbonation. The sugar sits in the background, leaving a piquant, faintly earthy and tart middle and a long licorice-laced finish that keeps evolving in the glass. It reads as a serious botanical soda with real herbal grip and a touch of cinnamon spice, not a soft nostalgia drink. The anise dominance polarizes drinkers, so it rewards confirmed sarsaparilla and licorice fans more than newcomers to the category.
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The maker
Bickford's is a long-running Australian beverage company tracing back to A.M. Bickford & Sons, a 19th-century Adelaide pharmaceutical chemist that began producing cordials and aerated waters in the 1870s. Today the firm bottles a range of traditional cordials and Old Style sodas, including this sarsaparilla, in South Australia. In the US market the bottles are sold as an imported specialty soda rather than being domestically bottled.
Ingredients & nutrition
Carbonated water, Cane sugar, Caramel colour, Citric acid, Artificial flavours, Sodium benzoate (preservative).