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A&W 10 Root Beer: I can't pinpoint exactly when it started, but sometime in undergrad (when I was severely overworked as most MIT undergrads are), I chose diet soda as my caffeinated-beverage-of-choice. I wasn't reliant on it the same way my classmates depended on coffee, but I knew it was an effective way to keep myself alert, and I was scared of the unnecessarily high sugar content of non-diet soda. It took me a while to acclimate to the off-taste of aspartame, but once I did, I started to try different diet soda options from LaVerdes (which purportedly had the most diverse selection of beverages in MA at the time). I quickly discovered that diet root beer tasted the most like its non-diet counterpart, the blend of spices somehow masking the harsh aftertaste of sugar substitutes. It wasn't until later that I realized it had no caffeine. Was it the placebo effect that kept me awake nonetheless? Probably. Anyway, this can of A&W 10 was purchased much more recently, and it has 10 calories instead of zero. Those calories are presumably there to afford flavors that make this low-calorie drink more desirable. To be honest, it's really not all that different than 0-calorie diet soda. The vanilla flavor is a bit too dominant, without the sharp taste of sarsaparilla root that characterizes better quality root beer. 2.5/5.0

drinks soda rootbeer aw 10 root beer 2.5
10/2/2017