Sarsaparilla
Hosmer Mountain Sarsaparilla Root Beer
Hosmer Mountain Soda · Sarsaparilla-forward root beer (cane and brown sugar)
Willimantic, Connecticut, USA
A Connecticut heritage pour from a family bottler that has been working since 1912, this sits at the crossroads of sarsaparilla and root beer rather than committing to either. Brown sugar and vanilla give it a notably rich, creamy body with a frothy head, while a forward sarsaparilla-root character leans over the usual sassafras-and-spice backbone and a cool wintergreen lift. It drinks soft and nostalgic, more old-soda-fountain than aggressive craft brew. The use of artificial flavoring alongside the real root extract keeps it from full top-shelf marks, but it lands as an easygoing, well-balanced classic.
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The maker
Hosmer Mountain Soda is an independent eastern-Connecticut bottler founded in 1912 in Willimantic, originally as a spring-water delivery operation before moving into soft drinks. The business was bought by Arthur J. Potvin in 1958 and remains family-owned, today run by Bill Potvin and his brothers, and still uses returnable glass bottles. In the 1990s it launched its cane-sugar "Antique" line, which includes its sarsaparilla alongside root beer, birch beer, and cream soda.