So it’s been a while since I’ve written, but there has been no shortage of travel and addition of pins to the map. The Empire State Building, Golden Gate Bridge, Hollywood Boulevard, Scottsdale Fashion Square, Pebble Beach … Shake Shack, McCovey’s, Lefty O’Doul’s and more, yum. But I’ll delve into that another time, for now I feel the need to plea with hipsters.

Dear trendy hipsters,

Stop it.

Best regards,

Wedge

I realize there is a very blurry line between art and “art” and being unique and “being unique,” being green and “being green,” but for those who are unaware of it let me put out a scenario that, I guess, in retrospect I should have been expecting seeing as it was L.A.

If I travel to a region, let’s call this place Scmollywood or Dos Jangeles (yeah that disguises it enough),  and everyone from the area is bragging about the oldest most awesomest farmer’s market in the area and how super awesome it is, I don’t expect to only be able to find root beers mass produced in New Jersey and Texas!? WTF!?

Look nothing wrong with Boylan and A&W root beers, they’re good, in fact Boylan is in my top 5 all time, and A&W which was founded in California but hardly local anymore, but what the heck is the point of a farmer’s market that doesn’t sell local or at least regional products?

What is more astonishing is that 2 of the more popular trendy eco root beers are from California (Natural Brew and Virgil’s). Those are even some very good brews. Though the whole “we’re natural and eco friendly” idea goes out the window when the only place I can find your products are at the Mecca of “green” Whole Foods around the nation, be it Nashville, D.C., N.Y.C., Louisiana, it never fails, you find those 2 brews shipped anywhere, just not in the California farmer’s market apparently.

This is coming off quite rant-ish, but what I’m getting at is the beauty and should be the point of travel; it is to find something new, unique or distinct to wherever, not to create safe haven bubbles that you can travel to. I’m probably a little more aware of all these idiosyncrasies when I travel because I’m a marketer by day. But, the distinction is between what is different and unique and what is a relaxing destination which is what most Americans confuse for –travel- basing it solely on whether or not a distance exists between point A and B, and usually complaining when people have accents or don’t speak English.

So back to the market, how should it be done? I don’t think there’s a definitive answer, but I’ll tell you one good place for a farmer’s market: Boise, Idaho. You can go out on the weekend and meet all the locals showing off what they’ve grown, raised, sewed, brewed etc. I got to meet the 2 founders of BuckSnort Root Beer there, who poured me a cup right out of their keg; and who I hope will begin bottling soon so I can add it to my root beer bottle collection. Kelly bought a nice handbag from a woman who (we think may have been high, but) designed and sewed them all as her job/craft; not because its was a decided non-trendy trend.

And more important, they take showers! For the love of all that is holy, all you hipsters being dirty and smelly on purpose doesn’t make you cool or non-trendy trendy, it just makes you dirty and smelly. Just like shopping at Urban Outfitters doesn’t make you homely, it just makes you support a corporation that is profiting off of you. Save money, buy at Wal-Mart and then wear clothes out yourself. But anyways, here in northern Virginia, I visit the local Buckland Farm Market where they sell their own products, or regional products from their partners, and also bring in random regional brews from time to time; always something new and unique to try, not something shipped across the world because it’s a safe marketable sell for hipsters.

I love the mentality of the Jones family brewery; include everyone and have fun. A lot of big drink companies claim to have ways to include their consumers (pick the new flavor… out of these 2 we already pre-tested), or prizes under the cap, but it doesn’t come near the great things Jones does on a regular basis.

I keep a collection of bottles for each root beer brew I’ve tried, and that task is very difficult with Jones because almost every bottle is different, literally. Jones encourages their fans to send in their own photos, of anything, and if they like it they’ll put it on their bottles and give you credit. The photos they choose don’t have a pattern: old cars, close-up of a tiger, deck at a lake, to a picture of a girl with a lamp shade on her head; they’ll use it so long as it’s interesting.

In addition to the photos, they also put something under each cap, but it’s not “Sorry try again,” instead its fortunes, and not just ones they made up, but ones that fans have submitted straight off fortune cookies. They include fans in their product so much, you’d almost think they’d let you help brew the stuff if there were a feasible way to pull that off, it truly lives its slogan: “Your photo. Your soda. Your brand.”

Jones – Root Beer – 3/5

So while Jones makes over 12 different regular sodas (plus plenty seasonal and crazy ones like ‘bacon flavor’), I’m focused on the Root Beer, and what a nice brew it is. As all Jones brews are, it’s made with pure cane sugar, and the taste shows with a nice smooth beverage with great flavor. It seems to have a bit of a vanilla to it which I’ve always liked as the kicker, but that brings me to my one complaint about Jones. I can’t be completely sure on the vanilla, because they don’t fully list all their ingredients, instead opting for: “NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVORS” which to me is a cop out in the world of root beer. Obviously some parts of recipes need to stay secret, but at least tell me what the main show is (though as a beverage I can’t dock points for that).

On the 5-point smoothness scale it’s a solid 4 with just that little bit of zip, but nothing to shock you. The other great thing is that Jones is popular enough that you can actually order 12-packs off the website, and that is a most definite worthy endeavor you should do if you can’t find this brew in a local store.

So as you may have noticed due to visits to the Abita Brewery, the Triple XXX Root Beer Drive In and other type travel visits, I have a fondness for trying out bottled brews/sodas. While I don’t advocate drinking a ton of soda the way fat America does, I do recommend trying out some natural and local brews from all around the world. Too many people in the states live on Coke and Mountain Dew, never knowing what its like to have a non-high-fructose corn syrup drink or trying variations on a flavor.

Since I’m always trying different stuff, I figured I’d start posting some reviews. Pretty simple: 1-5 scale with a 1 = spit it out and trying to burn the memory of it out of my brain; and 5 = awesome beverage you must try and worth getting a case of it shipped to yourself. So here goes the first reviews.

One thing I love doing is taking a trip down the international isle of our local Wegmans because among many things, it has sodas from Mexico; and for those not familiar with sodas outside of the U.S., there’s generally one thing consistent about them. Real Sugar. No high-fructose corn syrup or tons of other over-manufactured ingredients (and yes, I know some things need to be artificial in most sodas). Health reasons aside, my crusade against corn-syrup has a lot to do with flavor, while you can still get a decent drink with corn syrup, you get amazing drinks with real cane sugar.  So that brings us to today’s reviews, 2 soda flavors from Jarritos.

Jarritos (which in English means “Little Jars,” hence the jars in their logo ) is generally a popular brand in Mexico, started by some dude named Don Francisco “El Güero” Hill in 1950.

Jarritos – Tutifruti (Fruit Punch) – 3/5

As a fruit punch soda, its very good; (way better than say, Hawaiian Punch), but when actual fruit punch is just so good, plus the other flavors that are out there, I think its just in an assistant role in the soda world. I think its one downfall is the same as say Minute Maid Orange Juice (carbonating something that wasn’t meant to be a carbonated beverage). When chilled, a soda should go down smooth, not shock you; and while Tutifruti is maybe just a 3/5 on the shock scale, that’s still a little too much for me.

Jarritos – Fresa (Strawberry) – 5/5

The Strawberry flavor however is amazing! This is clearly the main event for Jarritos, the flavor is great and not any hint of that carbonation tang that the fruit punch has.  The strawberry is very smooth and well… it really tastes like strawberries. I also like that it is not a red-cream soda, but instead its a straight strawberry flavor, good stuff from Mexico.

Throughout 2010, many fliers have seen the large increase in backscatter body scanners at airports nationwide. Of course it turned to full controversy when TSA changed their pat-down procedure for those wanting to opt-out of the body scanner.

While the argument still wages on about the whether the new procedures are an invasion of privacy, health issues, ineffective, “security theater” or a necessary step; many of us still have to fly and deal with the fact that it IS the current procedure.

The good news, is that some fliers have taken note that not all gates/airports are utilizing the new procedures and are keeping track to help future fliers who are stressed about the procedures.

TSA STATUS is a new flier-updated site listing airport codes and 5-level color-coded system reporting their use of newer measures. It goes from Green (indicating there is no backscatter/radiation machine visible at this checkpoint.) to RED (indicating there is a backscatter/radiation machine in use for all or nearly all passengers.). The listing also shows the date of the last time that airport/checkpoint was updated; and allows any site visitor to update a status should you have an update for them.

While its not a perfect guarantee for those wanting to avoid the scanners, its at least helpful to know that for those flying through Dulles, the site reports that Terminal B is using scanners by random selection while the other Terminals have reported no use at all. Hopefully this information can help some of you fly with a little less stress about the TSA.