Rapscallion Soda automatically wins. A supercool name. They stand for something great. They are a Scottish company & their product is delicious.
The homepage of their website should tell you everything you need to know. They started producing hand made soft drinks in 2016. Their only goal was to “make the best tasting drinks we could, without using artificial ingredients”. Honestly speaking they are really refreshing, clean tasting, not toooo sweet (which I really like) and their branding is just the absolute coolest.
They get all their ingredients from the Glasgow Fruit Market. They are always trying new and exciting things on social media & they’ve been super helpful with providing information/photos for this little taste test. of course everyone who shops with us will be the final determining factor for the success of Rapscallion Soda in our shop but… a little gem of a company, making great products is a pretty good start.
My Favourite Flavour:
Rapscallion Soda C_01 Ginga Ninja 250ml
I am a big Ginger Beer fan, my dog is even named after a Ginger Beer (Bundaberg). I was quite excited to try the Ginga Ninja flavour from these guys. They started with removing 80% of the sugar you find in most Ginger Beer and start rebuilding flavour from the ground up. Smart move!
The Rapscallion team bring ginger home from the fruit market and soak it until it is soft. They’ll chop it and then cold press the root. Cold Pressing retains all the healthy antioxidants, flavours and oils… that is probably where the delicious intense flavour comes from. At this point they do a bit of magic learned from champagne production to intensify the flavour, this process also removes any unwanted texture (literally science). They put a few additional natural ingredients including lemon zest, cardamom, cassia & pimento, vitamin C, organic raw cane sugar.
So what does this mean for the flavour? well… it is pretty delicious. So fresh & exactly what you expect from a healthy ginger product. It has a kick to it but it isn’t overwhelming compared with let’s say an overbrewed fresh ginger tea. I think that I’ll be drinking more of this as we head in to winter and tickly throat season.
Least Favourite Flavour:
Rapscallion Soda C_03 Cranachan 250ml
I want to premise this by saying I still really enjoyed the Cranachan flavour. I am more than a fraction biased because I really dislike star anise (a flavour in this drink). Compared with the Ginger and Lime flavours I just felt like the Cranachan flavour wasn’t quite at the same level. Rapscallion describe it as “Bright, light and buttery. Supercharged Scottish dessert without the need to toast a haggis.” which is pretty accurate. I was hoping for a bit more sourness after tasting the other drinks in the range. Still it is amazing to think that the drink only has the following ingredients though Scottish Raspberries, Scottish toasted oats, star anise, vitamin C, organic raw cane sugar.
Conclusion
Would I drink all of the drinks again? yes, no question about it. If you are looking for a small company drink, made in scotland that is healthy this is one of the few companies that are REALLY doing it right. I love the flavour of the drinks especially considering they are low calorie. I really like the branding and I really like that they are small batch. Ticks all around for me. Rapscallion Soda is available in the shop and on our website.
Rapscallion Links
