My father died 23 years ago, his voice is now an NFT

Twelve days before my 13th birthday my father lost his battle with cancer, that was twenty-three years ago. This was hands down the most difficult event that I’ve ever experienced in my life. Losing my father at such a young age is something I didn’t handle well, and it had negative impacts on my life starting with me largely dismissing school and not applying myself to anything for roughly the next decade.

My father welcomes me into the world

Sadly, my father died before there was the ease of recording moments in high definition video via these nifty little things we call smartphones. A couple of dozen photos of my father exist and, until very recently, it was all I thought I had to remember him by. While I did find the audio of his funeral recently and digitize it to publish to YouTube, I didn’t have any audio or video of him.

Then I found a microcassette tape with my name written in my father’s handwriting on the label. I went to eBay and bought the cheapest microcassette record I could find. My father worked for the Indiana State Police and, at the time of his passing, was a detective so he frequently used microcassette tapes for notes and interviews, would this be a personal message to me that I’d somehow not discovered until now? Sadly, no. It was one of the tapes from our answering machine in 1998.

Did my father leave me a message?

Jackpot.

My father’s voice. MY FATHER’S VOICE! Dad, through almost 23 years of time you’ve reached out and spoken to me. I cried. At first, I listened in shock, rewind, play, rewind, play, rewind, play. Then I cried. I’d heard my father’s voice for the first time in decades. But it’s so brief, ever so brief, just him saying our phone number at the time and to leave a message. I listened to both sides of the tape and sadly, this was the only capture of his voice. The rest of the tape was filled with me rambling to the machine that so and so would be bringing me home after basketball practice, people calling to leave messages to mom that they were so sorry to hear of his passing, but alas only these few words of my father’s voice. Even now I have tears freely flowing as I write this.

Wow, dad, you sounded a lot more country than I remember. What have I forgotten about you?

My father has been dead for almost two thirds of my life now, aside from a few memories that grow fuzzier each year, I don’t have much to remember him by. I write a yearly letter to tell him of what has happened in my life, you can find the most recent one here, I find it a therapeutic process and it lets me feel for a brief few moments that I still have my father here and that he’s part of my life still. This letter gives me some way of keeping him alive, digitally, by treating him like he’s still there.

Enter NFTs. NFT stands for non-fungible token, they are these blockchain creations that allow you to carry out transactions involving the ownership of a specific digital thing. Recently NFTs have made headlines as people have begun selling digital art. Then I joked to someone about the only known recording of my father’s voice as an NFT to someone.

Well… why not? If I make my father an NFT, I could give him some extension to his digital mortality by getting another person involved in the stewardship of this digital artifact that captures a brief moment of his time on earth. Maybe he’ll go on to be sampled in a song or used by some electronic music artist to be the next “the system is down, the system is down, doo doo doo”, used in a film, catch a news cycle, or maybe someone will become his champion like me and work to keep some fragment of his existence preserved for as long as practically possible.

Mark Mercer, born on January 24th, 1953. Died March 11th, 1998. Rebirthed (sorta) as an NFT on March 17th, 2021.

Dad, you are now a unique digital asset. Your voice now exists as a non-fungible digital property. You could barely operate an electric typewriter and now you 'live' on the internet in the latest in blockchain developments.

The NFT listing can be found here on Rarible.

https://rarible.com/token/0x60f80121c31a0d46b5279700f9df786054aa5ee5:492427?tab=overview

23AD (After Dad), letter to my father 2021

In 8 days you'll have been dead 23 yeas.

It’s been an interesting year. A pandemic has become an ever-present part of our lives since last year… that virus really took hold. I noticed in my records yesterday that on that day last year 5 citizens of the United States had died to the virus, today the confirmed death toll for the United States stands at 531,456 people with the official worldwide reported total at 2,570,265, but likely higher. 29 million confirmed cases in the United States, almost 116 million confirmed cases worldwide. It’s… been an interesting year.

I got married. April 10th, in a church parking lot because of this COVID-19 virus causing everything to be closed with quarantines and people beginning to shelter in place. Married in a parking lot with mom, my wife Amanda’s 2 parents, Trent Cameron performing the ceremony, and a random fox that trotted by while we stood in visual range of rush hour traffic on 267. We had a more sacred religious ceremony in November as pandemic restrictions relaxed just the tiniest amount. My wife is a teacher, one of 12 children, and comes from Missouri. Her father is a retired builder and effectively a lifelong farmer, her mother is a retired teacher, one of her brothers is a medical doctor and another an eye doctor, the rest are all equally intelligent and driven. She’s got dozens of nieces and nephews too and I’ve met some of them.

It seems I was cursed to live in interesting times. 3 years after you died we saw terrorists slam planes into 2 skyscrapers and the Pentagon, we then entered a large-scale military conflict, then another large-scale military conflict, 20 years later and we’ve spent the past year with everyone wearing masks in public, restaurants largely closed to dine-in eating, limits on toilet paper and paper towels at the grocery, for a while last year it was even hard to get a lot of food at the grocery - especially staple foods like beans, rice, flour.

My wife and I drove out to Brazil last summer, I was going stir crazy being stuck in a small apartment during the lockdown really ramping up, I just got on 40 and headed west. When we started to get close to Brazil I looked up where your dad was buried and went and saw the grave. It was a nice and quiet little cemetery there in Brazil. Dick isn’t buried there, but Rhonda has a plot right next to your dad.

In November we moved into a house we bought in Stilesville, it’s about 20 minutes west of Plainfield off of 40, about 30 minutes east of Brazil. It’s a red brick ranch, with a basement, it’s probably about the size of the house you grew up in and roughly the same age. We do not get residential mail delivery, have to go pick stuff up at the post office, that kinda stinks. We’re also on a well which… yeah it’s pretty stinky water, but we are on town sewer. The house has a little over a half-acre of land with maybe a dozen mature trees and a little clear space in the backyard. I actually spent the past 2 days of my vacation tilling and planting, got 100 onions in and 34 potatoes in. I also got about 80 or 90 seeds started and need to start another 40ish tomorrow plus direct-sow some greens. I’m so sore. Hopefully, there is a decent yield but I’m not sure… our soil is pretty dense silty clay loam. I think it would do corn well, and I do plan to plant a little grinding corn as a test, but next year the plan is to build raised garden beds and fill them with soil much better for the types of things we want to grow, I would have this year but we had to put about 5,000 dollars into the well and water purification right after moving in.

I’m still inactive in the Lodge but I am an active dues payer. There’s a Lodge here in town a couple of blocks over, once the virus calms down and we start to see some sort of return to pre-pandemic life I’m going to go visit it. I’m hesitant to now as I’ve found these small towns out here have a lot of covid-deniers that won’t wear masks despite it being the law in some areas and are generally just flippant about even the simplest measures to protect others from them if they happen to be infected. They did a few EAs last week or the week before but it was a hard pass for me given the virus situation.

Oh, remember the mushroom you gave your dad? I still have it, it sits in my office. But one of the first things I bought when we bought the house was a new one that is virtually identical. I was actually going to start painting it today but wore myself out working on the garden. Sometime this spring I’m going to paint it to be somewhat close to the original and then place it outside in our yard, probably under some of the evergreens not unlike how the original was at your dad’s house. The original will remain in my office until I die. I still have your horse and dog statue from your office too, they’re in the basement and I see them every day when I go down to empty the dehumidifier. An old photo of you and your flag sit in my office too.

I’m 1 year, 7 months, 11 days sober on my current stretch as I write this. Hopefully, I can continue that indefinitely.

Mom is doing ok. She’s still got a lot of health issues but she’s recovering well from her most recent surgery a few weeks ago. She moved in with a friend earlier this year in Avon to be closer to her doctors, and stuff in general. It’s a 20ish minute drive just for us to get to a grocery store.

Bun is well too. These days he spends his time in a cabinet, just sitting there greeting me with a smile when I open the door to get my razor or any number of other things. I love that little dude, he’s always there for me.

I heard your voice for the first time in 2 decades last year, just the quickest of words on the answering machine tape. I wish there was more. You sounded far more country than I remembered. I also listened to your funeral for the first time since it happened this year, I even put the audio of it up on the internet with a slideshow of images of you https://youtu.be/0o-OeM8qRVc

You know, I’ve lived almost 64% of my life without you. That kinda sucks. I wonder what you’d be doing if you were still here. I wonder what you’re doing now. I wonder what you’d think of me as a wildly bearded, balding, GED toting, overweight, stuck in a dead-end job in an entry-level position 15 years after hiring in.

Anyway, I’d better wrap this up. I’ll talk to you next year.

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave bereft
I am not there. I have not left.

Past letters.

Trying Sigi's Blueberry Whole Milk Drinkable Yogurt

Video subtitles:

Hey, YouTube what's going on um today we're here with Siggy's probiotic whole milk drinkable yogurt blueberry flavor. Sorry, uh, 10 billion probiotics per serving. I've never had a whole milk drinkable yogurt before and I may interchange between yogurt and yogurt because I have a lot of British friends and uh one of them would eat her yogurt every day at work and it's just worked its way into my vocabulary because she very frequently said yogurt and first let me explain the suit here, I don't know if I'm mourning my taste buds because I'm trying, uh, yogurt I'm not a big fan of yogurt, so drinkable yogurt, I don't know if I'm channeling you know, the, my Rod Sterling here with the black-tie black jacket all I need is the cigarette and the, you know, or if I'm channeling review brah which is report of the week on youtube - I'm your host the report of the week - he's actually, I guess, somewhat responsible for me doing these videos. Um he'll try fast food and stuff and talk about it and he always wears a suit and he's, uh, he's an interesting guy. Real big shortwave radio fan, has his own radio program and stuff, check him out. Review brah, uh sorry, no he goes, by review braj in the comments and stuff, he's report of the week. I'll have him linked in the doobly-doo, um, but yeah, let's uh, let's, let's get into this thing.

Here the ingredients are pasteurized whole milk, blueberries, cane sugar,r what is with adding cane sugar to everything, uh, fruit pectin, and live active cultures so the fruit pectin may get me a little snotty. Stuff like apples if I eat them raw, and it's not heated and something like apple butter or just baked or something, they'll get me a little snotty so that fruit pectin might do that to me. I've noticed that.

One bottle is 240 milliliters and is one serving, it's 180 calories per bottle, eight grams of fat, five grams of saturated fat, zero grams of trans fat, 25 milligrams of cholesterol, 105 milligrams of sodium, uh 20 total carbohydrates, zero grams of fiber, the total sugars are at 17 grams including eight grams of added suga, so there's that cane sugar you know people got to have their sweet although i imagine to some extent it helps with the bacteria helps them stay alive. I wonder if some of that actually changes as this sits on the shelf. Um, 8 grams of protein because it's you know milk and yogurt basically, 20 of your daily value of calcium, zero percent of your iron, and eight percent of your potassium - again that's from the milk ingredients. I've already done that. Live active cultures s thermophilus l del bruce delbrucky subspecies of bulgaricus el pericacie and then a bifida bacterium, and l-acidophilus, and then there's 10 billion probiotic cultures per serving of biffo bifido bacterium. It's distributed by the Icelandic mill in skier corporation New York, New York. Keep refrigerated best by, see the bottle, I bought this bottle yesterday and it has 10 days remaining, a lot of the ones in the cooler and Fresh Thyme had a day or two remaining so I went with the, uh farthest date out I could find so we could try it. I was actually going to try this next weekend, and record it then, but I decided let's do it while it's really fresh and not close to the date for the, you know, best experience, and then here on the bottom it says "When I moved from Iceland to the US I found the yogurts on the shelves in the US too sweet" which is weird because they add a bunch of sugar "I wanted yogurt with few ingredients and less sugar so I started siggy's dairy. Our products are based on Nordic dairy traditions and made with simple ingredients so our drinkable yogurt doesn't contain any of those dreadful artificial sweeteners flavors or colorings. I hope you enjoy siggy"

Al-natural five ingredients, no high fructose corn syrup, no aspartame, no sucralose, no stevia, no artificial coloring, no preservatives, and then uh no rbst so it's not from you know cattle that have been treated with rbst.

Uh, certified gluten-free, sorry it's a really tiny logo, and then I don't know what those other two logos are, it's a u and a circle and then a d. I imagine that has something to do with dariy regulations or something. It does not say to shake or anything so, yeah, let's get Mr. Moose here, and uh, since I am not a fan of yogurt, in general, um I used to eat it a lot and then without looking at the expiration date I put some in a bowl and didn't really pay attention and had it and it had very much gone off and that kind of just gave me an aversion to it, so I've got my water handy but it's been years since I've had yogurt.

Yes, it definitely smells like yogurt and you can see, um, I guess what are blueberry chunks. We're going to pretend they're blueberry chunks.

I, uh, I don't know about this. Oh, that's very thick.

I'm not going to put a lot in there because I know I'm probably not going to drink it all Well I got some more I thought I would taste it.

That's not bad, it's a little sour, it's, I can definitely see where they're saying that it's not very sweet again it just smells like yogurt, um, it's a little runny it's it's not like the yogurt you would get in, a, you know, one of those little plastic containers at the grocery. The like, the oh, what's the one that Jamie Curtis did the commercials for, you know what I'm talking about probably, it's, it's more liquid than that, I mean it's meant to be drinkable so yeah let's drink some.

That's actually not bad. Um, it definitely has the sour of the yogurt, this is something I may actually get occasionally. Uh, it's only 100 calories in a bottle, it's not a lot, you're going to leave a lot of the container too because it is very thick as you can tell. It's just clinging to the side of Mr. Moose and I don't know if you can see it from the camera but, maybe you can see the little, uh, little bits of blue. I don't particularly taste a blueberry taste. It definitely doesn't taste like plain or vanilla yogurt, but I can maybe smell a little bit of blueberry there and I will say it is, I can feel, uh, my sinuses getting a little puffy, I'm not lactose intolerant but I think that might be the pectin like I said, like, if I try to eat even a half of an apple, oh I'll be like, and then it's, uh, it's just the pectin and the apples I think because once you cook them cook them or process them into something like apple butter, which I will eat a ton of, and I had some this morning on, uh with breakfast, oh I can literally just eat apple butter out of the jar with a spoon. It's just so amazing but yeah, focus.

We're talking about this, um yeah, if, if you have ziggy's drinkable probiotic or siggy's probiotic whole milk drinkable yogurt near you, um, yeah, try some. It's, as someone that's not a fan of yogurt anymore this is surprisingly not bad. Um, I don't necessarily think I'd have it every day but, you know, once a week, maybe even once a month, just to add some, some probiotic to my system from something else, you know, presumably they do something for us, and yeah. I would definitely buy this again. Uh, I'm gonna finish this off-camera and then, uh, probably have the rest of that. I just hope I can get it all out of his, uh, little, I'm gonna call it a booger. I just noticed that Mr. Moose has this little, uh, thing under his nose, but yeah.

Thanks for stopping by, uh check out the doobly-doo I'll have a link to review bra or report of the week, um my Patreon - I would appreciate any help you can give you do have to um my wife and I make enough money but it would be nice to be able to get a little bit better of equipment and to keep trying these things it's gonna be harder and harder to find things that I haven't tried so I'm gonna start ordering more and more online, so it would be nice to have a little money coming in just to support those. Not trying to get rich off you guys, uh, I love ya, come back again, see you guys soon. Thanks for stopping by!

Trying Steve's Pure Goodness Probiotic Gut Shot

Hey YouTube, what's going on today we have another one of these Steve's Paleo, uh, probiotic gut power pure goodness greens, um, you may have seen the video where I tried one of these previously it was very potent um that one was beet-based this one is distilled water, cabbage, chard, kale, fennel, ginger, spinach, lemon, I don't like lemon, dandelion, parsley, watercress, chlorella, which is like pond scum basically, spirulina which is basically pond scum, Celtic sea salt, and a live active culture. If you did catch the last video when I had that last one I looked like I was possessed by a demon, uh, it was uh you'll pardon the sinuses it's winter and it's very dry, um, I look like I was possessed by demons

So you know it was pretty horrific, hopefully, this one's a little better because it's not beet-based, I'm not really a fan of beets, uh the lemon as long as it's, it's, subdued it shouldn't be too bad, the rest of the stuff's just gonna taste green, is the best way to describe it so yeah, you're supposed to keep these refrigerated once you get them. The serving size is one bottle, of course, the uh bottle has 10 calories, zero grams of fat, 70 milligrams of sodium, zero milligrams cholesterol, three grams of carbohydrates, zero sugars, one gram of protein that's probably from the chlorella, chlorella and the spirulina they're actually pretty high in protein for a for what are basically single-cell organisms, um vitamin a is 30 percent of your daily value, vitamin c is 25, calcium's at 2 percent, iron is it two percent again that iron's probably coming from the like spirulina, not a significant source of calories from fat, saturated fat, trans fat, daily value based on a 2000 calorie diet like it always is. Raw, never pasteurized, uh paleo, keto, vegan, and gluten-free, traditionally fermented, um, proudly handcrafted by Steve's Paleo Goods in Pensacon, New Jersey. Um, certified organic by PCO. I, I've said this in the other video if you watched it, that I like Steve's Paleo because they have a really good buffalo, uh, chicken jerky. He also uses a significant percentage, to me anyway, percentage of his, uh, income to support a youth program that he's developed and I've always thought that was kind of cool. I've been buying from them on and off for oh, I don't know, five, ten years, somewhere in there I'm not sure exactly and you know for jerky it's, it's, fairly priced but jerky is expensive, but I like to get some once in a while for a treat, and they had these and some other things and as I said in previous videos I've had a pretty lousy diet so I'm trying to heal my gut microbiome if you will, and I thought I'd give these a try. They're a little pricey but just having one a week just to try the different flavors so yeah, let's give this thing a couple of shakes because it does settle not, as bad as the last one I did but it had settled appreciably, go ahead and get this plastic off here. I hope you guys are doing well, it is what February, it's the day before Valentine's day as I record this video, um it's a Saturday and on Monday we're expecting five to ten inches of snow. Fun I guess. That's the benefit of being work from home right now, I'm sorry to tell you that have to actually still go to work during this past year, but I've been fortunate enough to be able to work from home and I'm very happy about it come Monday, when we get all that snow. So since the last one was pretty nasty I've got my handy dandy Nalgene bottle here, go ahead and unscrew the cap in case it's so horrific that I have to guzzle the entirety of the contents. Uh, we're not going to use Mr. Moose since it's just a little tiny shot in a glass bottle.

You can go on the website and see the pictures or you know at the beginning of the video I got a photo of it it's just green bile looking water yeah.

Oh.

I'm gonna try not to wretch and gag but from the smell of this is not going to be pleasant,t so uh, bottoms up. Oh I don't want to do this I'm doing this for you people I hope you appreciate this, this is going to be horrible, I um, hold on just the smell of it's turning my stomach. All right oh it's not going to drink itself, I do this for you people, I'm gonna double fist it here because I'm probably gonna need this water, uh yeah, bottoms up.

That's horrible.

You can definitely taste the culture.

The like, caustic vinegary, um the aftertaste isn't as bad as the last one you can definitely taste that it's got you know fermentedness in it. Ugh, oh, I only drink half of it. Good grief, it is making me snot up a little, um I found that just pretty much anything that's fermented does that to me, ugh oh, all right I'll finish it just for you guys, as you can see there's maybe uh, you know we're about halfway left, I don't know if you can see that the camera's pretty far away and it's just my phone so it's not the best but.

Oh, the burps for it are...

I'm gonna have to cheat and have a little bit of diet coke after this, okay let's get it done.

No, you know what it tastes like.

Oh, I need a minute.

Serenity now, serenity now, yeah it's got this whole nostril stopped up. Okay, what it kind of reminds me of is, um, I used to drink heavily, I've said this in other videos, I am sober now, um personal choice, that's I think sobriety has its benefits. I'm not going to harp on that but, it reminds me of some just like really horrid, uh, horrible, horrible beers I have had in the past, that probably weren't fit for human consumption at like brew fests and stuff because people were trying to be you know, uh, novel. It actually reminds me of one, I forget the name that had, uh, cayenne or something in it and it had just this caustic, it's definitely a lot better than the last one I had, I forget the name of it but I'll make sure I link the video either, you know, in a box, or a title card thing, or in the, in the comments. It's not as bad as that one, I feel like my reaction might have been worse because it's just the taste, there are things in here that I just don't like. I'm not fond of the taste of kale, I will eat it in a smoothie with a lot of oats or something. I'm not a fan of lemon actually, I think the lemon might be what's making me get a little snotty here, and I don't like parsley, and parsley in it but the fennel was real subdued in it even though it's towards the top of the ingredients. It's definitely not as strong as you would get fennel in something like absinthe when they have fennel in them. It's, see, it's, it's making my sinuses. Uh yeah, not bad if, if this was something I had to do once a week, and it had like appreciable health benefits, I'd probably consider it. Um, you know the taste is already mostly gone, I can taste it a little on my tongue but it's mostly just that fermented taste, so like you had pickled onions, or, or something it's just got that without the really salty overtones. So yeah, maybe try these out if you're interested, um, they're four or five dollars a bottle or something you get a little sampler pack I, I don't know that I'd buy them regularly, but it was interesting to experience it. Um, I still have one more left, I tasted one off-camera when they first came, and uh, it was kind of like the one I did on video, the next one is a recovery whereas this one is greens and I think the one I did on camera was immune.

The one in the refrigerator that I'll try in another video looks a lot like the one I had last time. Yeah, that was Steve's Paleo, uh, probiotic gut power pure goodness greens. Thanks for stopping by, I'll have more videos coming soon go check out some old videos. Like, comment, subscribe, Patreon in the doobly-doo, um you know, I know I'm getting a little bit of glare sometimes off my lights, I'm working on it. I gotta figure out where to position them, microphone's not the best, I'm gonna get a little lapel mic eventually, we're using that rode mic, gonna upgrade the camera when I can afford to - using my iPhone 2020 SE so not the greatest camera, um yeah, I'm gonna wash this down with a little more water and I'll see you guys next time!

Trying Hansen's Original Cola

Video subtitles:

Hey YouTube, we're back here today in the drink series, um, in another video I tried, uh, a Hansen's Soda or, well, not their soda but one of the Hansen's drinks. This is Hansen's cane soda original cola made with real cane sugar caffeine-free, gluten-free, sodium-free, 160 calories per can, zero grams of total fat, zero milligrams of sodium, 41 grams of carbohydrates which includes 40 grams of added sugar, good night that's a lot of sugar, that's a lot added sugar so we know it's going to be sweet, not a significant source of yada yada, carbonated filtered water, cane sugar, caramel color, citric acid, natural flavors, and tartaric acid. That almost sounds like, uh, some science fiction name, oh Tatarik come here, come hither Tartark we must defeat the evil Growbonds. Anyway, let's read here for more information they got a QR code because I don't think anyone actually scans QR codes but everyone puts them on things whatever "at Hansen's we're all about crafting remarkable flavors from simple ingredients real cane sugar, of course," that's what it says that's not me "hey we began in California so for us nothing is too bold or unconventional always free from artificial flavors sodium caffeine this is what original tastes like", non-GMO project verified, naturally flavored, and other natural flavors.

So yeah, let's get Mr. Moose over here, and get our little can crack, just like a normal cam get some in the Moose3

That's good, I'm gonna slurp the can sorry, it just bothers me when there's like a bead of liquid on a can. So it, it looks like most colas, um, I know you guys can't see this very well but you know just your normal weird brown that you get with Pepsi or Coke or RC Cola or whatever.

It smells like a soda, it smells like just a generic store brand soda. Let's try it.

Yeah, oh yeah, you can taste the sweetness in that wow wow woooowww you know who is that, Owen Wilson? Wowwww.

So aside from being extremely sweet, I don't really have a lot of added sugar so these sweet sodas might skew my perception a little, it, uh yeah, it just tastes like a generic cola. Doesn't taste like Pepsi, doesn't taste like Coke, it doesn't really taste like RC maybe, like uh, I've had generic soda and so on, I know there's like Sam's Cola or something and then like K's Cola whatever, I think Kroger had a house brand, it kind of tastes like those but uh I am tasting like a cheap vitamin C tablet kind of flavor and no, no, no, no I know, it reminds me of, I was going to say that it's probably the citric acid but what it reminds me of, is uh, they're candies they're called Bottle Caps they, they kind of changed over the years but they used to just be like chalky looking wafer discs that looked like a bottle cap and now, I think like Nestle bought Wonka or whatever years ago, and they're kind of like these little domed, I don't know they still taste the same but they look different, but that's what it tastes like. It has that, that flavor, and I'm betting that they're using citric acid in that candy or something as a binder just as a cheap, cheap binder and there's definitely that citric acid taste there like cheap vitamin C.

Yeah, yeah, that's way too much sugar for my liking. Um, but no, I, I would drink that if, if I wasn't too worried about consuming sugar. You know, I'm not the optimum specimen of human health. I do have a gut as I'm sure you can see with my shirt all folded up, and I dress in layers to hide this, and you know I've got male side-bosom so you know, I am trying to be mindful of the sugar and stuff so I can lose some weight and not die before I turn 40. If they made a diet version of this which, I know I did see diet versions of their sodas at Fresh Thyme when I purchased this a little six-pack or whatever, I would probably give it a try, I might try to find some when I go to the grocery later today

I would be interested to see if they had a diet cola and if it did taste like anything remotely in the universe of Diet Coke. I'm a hardcore fan of Diet Coke. Last year I was drinking two or three of them a day, the not the 20-ounce bottles but the other plastic bottles, I think they're 16 ounces maybe 14, 16, something like that, and then I've, I've mostly quit aside from this drink review series. I've had I think three diet cokes and it's February 13th as I record this so yeah, trying to cut those out just like of course sugar soda, but I, I would be curious if they had a diet version of this and I would love to try it. Um, I'll keep an eye out for that and you may see that in the channel soon. Again, we just talked about Hansen's cane soda original cola, um, I'm gonna have another little drink of it here.

It really does have like a, it reminds me of the bottle caps, of the just cola flavored bottle caps. I mean they had other flavors in there but that's that's, that's what it reminds me of, and now I kind of really want some of those, those candies, but the, the old ones and not the weird little domed ones. Yeah, yeah check it out, um, it seems like they're in a lot of groceries. I got this one Fresh Thyme, as I said, you might have a Fresh Thyme where you are, you might not just look about Hansen's cane soda. Yeah, I'm gonna wrap it up there. Like, comment, subscribe, check out some other videos, I believe there's another one of these somewhere in the channel, I'll try to remember to link it when I'm editing this. Patreon down below too. You know, have fun, try some sodas, try some foods, uh enjoy life a little bit, do it in moderation. I'll see you guys next time!

Trying New York Seltzer Original Root Beer Soda

Video subtitles:

Hey YouTube, what's going on? Uh, we're back today with another Original New York Seltzer, this time we have the root beer um if you heard me remember last time there's the little mint marks in amusement. So, I wasn't a fan of when I tried the vanilla, you can find that video, it smelled nice in the bottle when I poured it out it changed and it was, it was like nabisco wafers or those vanilla grandma's cookies it was, it was alright. It wasn't my favorite. Uh, you know, I'm, I'm pretty particular about root beer and this is clear so that's gonna psychologically throw me but yeah let's uh, let's try this out.

We got Mr. Moose here, you'll pardon the water spots, we are on a well we do use a water softener because it's very much needed we have a lot of iron and sulfur in our water and as such you get spots from you know the salts you're putting into the water and the mineral content.

So again, this is Original New York Seltzer naturally flavored root beer, the choice is clear, it's their motto, it's 10 fluid ounces or 296 milliliters, there are 100 calories per bottle, zero grams of fat, five milligrams of sodium, 25 grams of carbohydrates which is 25 grams of sugar, that's total added sugars is 25 grams, no protein, not a significant source of other nutrients, bottled under the authority of the original New York Seltzer LLC Los Angeles, California. Again, I think that's a little weird New York Seltzer water bottled in LA or under the authority of some LA company. The ingredients are carbonated water, cane sugar, citric acid, and natural flavors. It's a glass bottle, it's recyclable, it's got these nice little twist cap.

So yeah, let's check this out um if I remember right the cap says something, yes it does. This one is different than the last one, "drink up we'll make more", I always like Snapple and Sobe, and I don't know if Sobe still does it, but in the late 90s early 2000s they would do this on their lids just, just amusing kind of like the, um, is it dove chocolates that have the words?

So it smells like root beer, it smells a lot like root beer, go ahead and get some here in Mr. Moose. Nice carbonation

Just get into his nose a little there, I don't know how well you guys can see this, uh, I need to get a second camera, there's a lot of carbonation again now. It kind of, now that it's out of the glass or out of the bottle into the glass, it has the same kind of smell that the last one did but it still does have a decidedly root beer scent.

I'm going to get a quick sip of water here to make sure my mouth is nice and cleared out, I filmed a gut shot right before this and it was rather potent don't want it to adulterate the flavor of this. So we'll get Mr. Moose here, again smells like a traditional root beer with just a hint of something else and, I mean that could be the carbonation having some kind of effect on the, you know, the receptors in your nose.

Yeah, all right, bottoms up! See, now it doesn't taste like what it smells like again. I don't know if that's because of the level of carbonation or if there's maybe some sort of mineral content to the water, what did they say it was just water, carbonated water yeah. It could be the amount of sugar so it kind of takes away that little bit of bite that the root beer has. And we know it's not actual root beer, it's just flavored natural flavors, whatever that is, it's not bad there's not a lot of taste there though.

It does have that slightly weird tail to the taste like the last one did, um, I'm not too familiar with seltzer water so it's probably just a trait of seltzer water. It's not something I would buy again, um, if you served it to me I would drink it if it was the only option. I'd totally drink it just like the vanilla one. Um, I think I had said that the vanilla one would go well with, uh, dessert if you had something bitter but I don't think this would. It's not very sweet, you can definitely taste the cane sugar, but the natural flavors don't make it pop as much as it did in the vanilla.

Yeah, I'm just going to wrap it up there. There's not a lot to say about this, there's a pretty pretty light flavor there, so yeah that was Original New York Seltzer naturally flavored root beer soda, thanks for stopping by. See you guys next time, like, comment subscribe, Patreon in the doobly-doo, check out some other videos. See you guys!

Trying Olipop Classic Root Beer

Video subtitles:

Hey YouTube, what's going on? We're back in the drink series today, um, we've done Olipop before. I really liked that orange thing they have, I said it tasted like Sprite, it really does taste like Sprite to me. Um, so today we have Olipop Classic root beer tonic water. It's a sparkling tonic, supports digestive health, prebiotics, botanicals, and plant fiber, plant-powered, microbiome approved, two grams of sugar per can, non-GMO, uh we'll go into the ingredients. We have purified water, and then their olismart compound which is chicory root, Jerusalem artichoke, kudzu root, cassava fiber, cassava syrup, marshmallow root, slippery elm bark, nopal cactus, calendula flour, and then after that we have apple juice, lemon juice, organic root beer flavor extract, stevia, burdock root, pink rock salt, vanilla bean essence, sweet birch extract. Manufactured for Olipop Inc in Oakland, California 94610. Drinkollipop.com.

So serving sizes one can, contains three percent juice, 35 calories per can, zero grams of fat, 25 milligrams of sodium, 12 grams of carbohydrates which includes 9 grams of dietary fibers, and 2 grams of sugars. Not a significant source of yadda yadda, part of a 2000 calorie diet it is certified gluten-free, vegan, no sugars added, and paleo. "We've spent years crafting a drink that's as good for your digestion as it is delicious. ollipop combines the benefits of prebiotics plant fiber botanicals and a sparkling tonic that supports your microbiome and benefits digestive health our old-fashioned root beer melds just the right mix of classic bite and creamy sweetness with the extracts of sweet birch smooth vanilla bean and real burdock root".

I think i'm really a fan of this company, uh, they have two flavors that Ii'm really interested in one being this as I love root beer, if you've watched any videos before I've done root beer several times now, and I just love root beer. It takes me back to a place in my childhood in the early to mid-90s where we would go to Mug'N'Bun, which is a drive-in place next to Speedway in Indianapolis, it's I don't know 70 to 80 years old at this point, multiple owners and you know you just drive in kind of like Arf and barf Dog and Suds or Sonics but just, just an old school drive-in and you know they have a great pork tenderloin and hot dogs but they make their own in-house root beer it is so good and you would go get your root beer float or whatever and you know, so root beer takes me there and I like it and some root beer is absolute hogwash cow urine disgusting vile stuff, and some root beer is just an experience and wonderful so let's get some of this root beer, um what was it called, sparkling tonic into Mr. Moose.

Normal can sound.

First, let's smell it. Oh yeah, this, this, this smells just like a good, not like Mug'N'Bun's, kind of like Mug'N'Bun's, maybe um like Dog and Suds or IBC root beer.

Yeah, I'd say it's going from memory here it's probably close to Dog and Suds. I don't know if they're still around or if you can still get it in the bottles but we used to get it at the convenience store, yeah.

Get some in the Moose.

Um, I love these guys so much, and this is not sponsored at all, um these things are expensive at about three dollars a can shipped, so you know they're definitely a treat, but they do have that fiber and stuff in there which is nice I've been enjoying the orange ones I think I'm halfway through my 12-pack.

How did you smell so lovely, you can smell, you can definitely smell the vanilla in there a little.

Oh man, sorry I could sniff this all day. Let's try it. That's pleasant, um, like I said with their orange whatever it's called, it does have like a, a light taste to it. Not necessarily watered down, that would not be fair at all to say it's watered down, but it's, it's the taste you're expecting but lighter so it's not overpowering. There's no slimy sticky sugary feel because it doesn't have a lot of sugar but it still is, it's sweet enough.

Man, that is good. I need to try this with some ice cream, that would um, I feel horrible, I've dripped little drops of my precious root beer!

All right, I gotta put that down or I'm gonna drink it all. I'm gonna slurp the can, that's better, oh actually it looks like I've got some on the table too. All right we'll have to clean up, um yeah, I would buy more of this. I would absolutely buy more of this, it feels wrong paying three dollars ish for something that's 35 calories a can but I mean you are getting 36 percent of your fiber for the day, and I can, and yeah I have, I bought a 12 pack of these so I'll be trying not to drink them all, you know in a couple of days. Try to make them last, I'm definitely going to order some more though it'll be a couple of weeks probably, but yeah, Olipop man. Watching that commercial on the Buff Dudes for Olipop, because the buff dudes were sponsoring Ollipop may have been the greatest thing I've ever done. Now I kind of wonder if that fancy cereal they're always, you know, trying to promote is any good that's, that's so good. I'm gonna have some more of this. I, just sorry Mr. Moose, this is all mine!

That felt really wrong drinking it that fast, I should have savored that but I got about a half a can left. Um, yeah, like, comment, subscribe, check out the Patreon, the audio is not the best you're probably getting some of the glare off of my lenses. I'm still working on that figuring out the best angles for my lightboxes, I need to work on the sound in here, it is pretty echoey but making do just using my iPhone SE 2020.

Thanks for stopping by check out some Olipop, again not sponsored, um I don't have a discount coupon code or anything. They do have this in stores some places, go to what was it drinkolipop.com, look it up, from the store locator, see if they've got something near you. Fresh Thyme near me is supposed to have this but they didn't, instead, they had a cola one which has caffeine and the orange one which I tried and liked. So yeah, check them out, like, comment, subscribe, Patreon, doobley-do, check out other videos. I'll see you guys next time!